Dealer/Installer Setup Guidelines
These guidelines are the recommended approach for configuring a monitoring site using dealer and installer companies. The guidelines cover setting up each dealer to have access to their own sites as well as storing relevant company details. The recommended setup includes two categories. First, the installer must be assigned to each site as a user. This allows reports by-user to be run. In addition, client groupings should be set up to allow operator filtering to be used and standard reports to be filtered by-dealer as well.
Setting up Site Groupings
Each site should be assigned a site grouping that corresponds to the dealer name. It is recommended to set aside an entire Site Groupings category for Dealer names.
To enter and update these groupings, open the Maintenance Menu > Clients > Site Groupings
Insert a new site grouping type, and enter an appropriate name, e.g. "Dealer". Add a site grouping to the grouping type for each dealer in the system. New dealer items can be added easily by returning to this screen. Clients can be added to the appropriate dealer group by using the Default Client Grouping option (requires Dealer Features module) on the installer details (below), or manually set for each client using the Reporting Tab.
Setting up the Installer user
The installer is set up as a standard user, and assigned to each individual site that they are responsible for. See the Users Tab documentation for information on creating the installer user and assigning them to each site.
The user type should be changed to Installer. The following fields are available only to Installer users:
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Account Number: If an existing account number exists for this installation company, it can be entered here. This number will be available in reports generated for the installer.
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Reporting Email Task: If set, this email task will be used when sending by-user reports for this installers clients. This can be used to send reports from the dealers email address by going through the dealers email server, and thus bypassing relaying restrictions. Leave this blank to use the default system email task. If a report for a single user includes clients from multiple dealers, the settings of the first dealer found will apply, so ensure that each reporting user is only assigned to clients from a single dealer.
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Default Client Grouping: If a site grouping value is entered here, clients will automatically be placed into this group when the installer is assigned. (Requires Dealer Features module)
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Default Instructions: These are dispatch instructions that will be shown in the installer user's contact card on the activation screen. Changes to these instructions will apply to all sites with the installer user assigned. In addition to these default instructions, the standard per-site user instructions are also included in the installers contact card.
Default Instructions for Dealer If you have an Enterprise license, you can also use Markdown tags to format the text of the instructions. For more details, see Text Formatting.
Action Plan Instructions: You can set dispatch instructions for a dealer which will be shown on the site dispatch instructions for all clients belonging to the dealer (provided that Event is selected as an instruction source in the response plan) when an alarm of a matching action plan is triggered. Optionally, you can choose to override the action plan's global instructions - in which case the dealer's action plan instructions will replace the global action plan instructions instead of adding them on to the normal instructions.
Custom action plan site event instructions can be set for a dealer's clients. ON: Only the text in the Alternate Instructions box will be used as instructions for this type of alarm.
OFF: The Alternate Instructions will be shown in addition to the normal dispatch instructions. -
Charges Overrides: This allows charges to be replaced or modified for the clients belonging to the installer.
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Response Plans (requires Dealer Features module): Override an action plan's global response at the dealer level. Refer to the Action Plan & Response Overrides section of Action Plans for more information. Engineers can also be assigned into response plans as a User Type.
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Action Plans (requires Dealer Features module) : Override the action plan selected at the dealer level. Refer to the Action Plan & Response Overrides section of Action Plans for more information.
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Engineers: Specific technicians and engineers working for the installer can be entered here, along with their passwords and contact information. These details can be used on the Test Mode screens when maintenance is being done on-site. Engineers can also be placed into an ICA User group (requires Dealer Features module) and given an ICA Password which allows engineers ICA access. Engineers with ICA access will inherit the clients from the Dealer they are made under. If the Dealer also has remote access configured then the Engineers made under this Dealer will inherit the client access from the Dealers remote access settings, otherwise Engineers will inherit the client access from the Dealers user assignment. Note that an engineer's ICA access rights are configurable via the Security Groups settings as per regular ICA users.
Dealers may be assigned "Engineers" for use as response plan contacts and to give ICA access to employees.
Showing Dealers on Response Plans
Dealers can be added to their clients' response plans by inserting the Installer user type into any standard typed response plan. This works the same way as assigning any other user type to a response plan, so make sure that you check Respond when assigning a client's dealer if you wish the dealer to appear on the generated response plan. A response plan including the installer user type can then be assigned at the global, dealer or client level. Refer to the Action Plan & Response Overrides section of Action Plans for more information.
The following feature is only available when the Legacy Site/Dealer Call Order setting is enabled in the system wide response settings. This legacy feature will be dropped by Patriot in the near future.
The dealer can be automatically added to all response plans for their clients from the System Wide Settings screen, by setting the Installer Call Order field on the Response Settings tab. If this is set to a value greater than 0, any Engineers assigned to the Dealer, who have a call order greater than 0, are also added to the response plans.
Useful features and options
The following features are often used by dealers once the system is configured suitably. Follow each link for more information about each feature.
Automated Reports - these can be sent to each installer automatically, covering only their own sites. For example, each installer might want a weekly activity report
Work Orders - required maintenance work can be recorded along with any charges and deadlines. Combined with automated reports, the required work can be automatically emailed to the installer.
With the Dealer Features Module, the following additional features are available:
- Dealer Branding - adding a logo to the top of each client screen allows the operator to easily see which installer is responsible for any open client. Branding can also be used in reports, along with the ability to send reports from the dealers email address by using a dedicated email task for each dealer (Reporting Email Task option, set on Dealers Details tab). ICA also supports Dealer branding.
- Dealer Note Popup option (Systems Settings > Activation Settings) when opening client records.
- Operator option for creating new clients for a selected dealer. This option will ensure new clients are given appropriate client groupings to ensure the Dealer has automatic access to the client in ICA.
- Client ID range allocation. Dealers can be given a set of Client ID ranges which ensures that any new clients created by the dealer (or on behalf of) will have their client ID's allocated within these ranges. This can be set from Dealer Maintenance, on the selected dealers, Client ID Ranges tab.