How to…

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… Manage customer class notifications?

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Let’s say you want your PBX customers to receive emails and SMS notifications to inform them that their balance is approaching their credit limit, etc. For this, create a notification template and assign it to the corresponding customer class for your PBX customers. The notification template contains a set of notification messages which you then select to send to customers within this customer class.

To enable the notification messages for a customer class, do the following:

Create a customer class notification template

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  1. On the navigation menu, select My company and click Templates;

    Dashboard

  2. On the Create a template panel, specify the template details:
    • Name – type a short name for the template object;
    • Template type – select the Customer class notifications type from the list;
    • Managed by – select Administrator only here;
    • Click the Save button.

      Create a template

Assign the notification template to the customer class

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  1. On the navigation menu, select Sales and click on Customer classes;

    Dahsboard

  2. Open the specified customer class and go to Notifications > Notification types;
  3. Select the previously created notification template;

    Select the template

  4. Select which notifications to send individually for each customer class and then click Save.

    Select notifications

Edit notifications (optional)

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There are two types of PBX customers: large and small businesses divided into corresponding customer classes. They receive the same notifications, and therefore, have the same notification template assigned. Let’s say you want to edit the notifications for all of them.

There are two ways to do it:

  1. On the navigation menu, select My company and click Templates. Open the required Customer class notifications template and then modify the subject, BCC and body of the notification;Edit the notification template
  2. While on the Edit customer class panel, open the Notifications > Notification types panel and click on the title of a notification you want to change. You will be redirected to the corresponding section in the assigned notification template where you can modify the subject, BCC, and body of the notification. Note that your changes will apply to all the customer classes this template is assigned to.

    Click on the title of a notification you want to change

    Edit the notification template

Disable the notifications (optional)

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If or when you no longer want to send notifications to your customers, you can disable them. There are two ways to do this:

  1. Unassign the notification template from the customer class. This disables all notifications.

    Unassign the notification template

  2. Alternatively, you can clear the checkboxes on a specific customer class to disable the desired notifications.

    Disable the desired notifications

  3. Click Save.

Customize “From” and “Reply-to” email addresses for customer notifications (optional)

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Say you sell services under two different brands and have two corresponding customer classes. To send emails to customers of these customer classes from separate email addresses:

  1. Open Customer class > Notifications > Email configuration.

    Specify the name and email address

  2. Turn on the Override toggle.
  3. Specify the sender’s name and email address for this customer class.
    By default, the customer notifications are sent from the company’s email address and the sender’s name, which are specified on the Company info > Address information > Legal info panel.

Since the customer notifications are typically sent from a non-monitored mailbox, you can additionally specify a “Reply-to” email address for each customer class, e.g., support@easycall.com. This allows your customers to quickly and conveniently make inquiries related to received notifications, e.g., invoice due dates or invoice totals.

Specify the name and email address

… Add multiple IP phones to the system

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To auto-provision IP phones, first add them to the CPE (customer premises equipment) inventory. This handbook shows how to upload multiple IP phones at once from a .csv, .xls, or .xlsx file.

EXAMPLE

A service provider, Owl Telecom, purchases 100 IP phones from their CPE supplier. The supplier provides a list of the shipped IP phones, identified by their MAC addresses.

An Owl Telecom admin prepares and uploads a file containing the list of IP phones to PortaBilling. He receives a notification in PortaBilling confirming that the IP phones have been uploaded successfully. The admin can see the corresponding records in the CPE inventory.

Admins can also add IP phones via the CloudPBX Self-Care Portal or any third-party portal that uses the PortaBilling API. See the “Bring your own device” support for cloud PBX customers chapter for more details.

Preparation

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Obtain the list of IP phones’ MAC addresses from your supplier or generate this list by scanning the IP phone barcodes.

Configuration overview

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  1. Download a file sample with the correct structure.
  2. Prepare a file to upload the phone list.
  3. Upload the file with IP phones into the CPE Inventory.

1. Download a file with the correct structure

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Skip this step if you know the correct file structure and proceed directly to step 2.

To download a sample file with the correct structure and all possible column headers, follow these steps:

  1. Navigate to Infrastructure > CPE Inventory > Phones/CPE list.

    CPE Inventory

  2. On the Phones/CPE list page, click Download on the toolbar.
  3. Select a file format, e.g., .xls.

    Phones_CPEs list download

  4. Click Download in the Phones/CPEs list download dialog.

    Phones_CPEs file in xls

  5. When the file is ready, you’ll see a notification on the toolbar. Open it and click Download to download the file in the .xls format with Phones/CPE devices on your computer.

    Notifications

    Download from notifications

2. Prepare a file to upload the IP phones list

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Update your file with IP phones and MAC addresses to match the following structure.

If you downloaded a sample file from step 1, you can use it for reference.
  1. Fill in the mandatory columns with your IP phones’ details:
    • Action – specify “add” (another option is “remove”).
    • Name – specify the IP phone ID.
    • Device model – specify the IP phone model, e.g., Yealink SIP-T21P E2.
    • MAC address – specify the IP phone MAC address (a unique identifier), e.g., 00:14:20:FF:3C:52.

      Phones_CPEs file sample

  2. Optionally, fill in the other columns:
    • Managed by – leave this column empty, so that the “Managed by administrator” value will be automatically set upon upload. You can specify a reseller’s name to allow only a specific reseller to manage a CPE device.
    • CPE profile – specify a CPE profile name to assign a CPE profile to a CPE device.
    • Inventory ID – specify an inventory ID that allows you to identify the device in the external system.
    • Description – specify a device description;
    • ASCII key – specify a key used to encrypt the configuration information.
    • Shared with reseller – specify “Y” (Yes) to make a CPE device available not only for the administrator but also for all resellers.
    • Tenant customer name – specify a customer’s name to allocate the IP phones to that customer.
    • Owned by customer – specify “Y” (Yes) if a device is owned by the customer.

3. Upload the file with IP phones into the CPE inventory

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To upload the prepared file into the CPE inventory, follow these steps:

  1. On the Phones/CPE list page, click Upload on the toolbar.

    Phones_CPEs list upload

  2. Browse the prepared file and click Upload to confirm.

    Upload notification

When the upload is completed, you receive a notification with the results. The notification appears on the toolbar. The Phones/CPE list then displays the devices you just uploaded.

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