For their customers and employees, our client required a knowledge base and customer support portal. The knowledge base was to include news, tip & tricks and customer experiences pertaining to the Microsoft CRM software (being offered by our client to their customers). The customer support portal was to be used by customers to browse the knowledge base, log cases etc. The portals, developed by Icreon using SharePoint, were designed to interact with the client's existing Microsoft CRM system, to send and retrieve customer information.

Business Requirements

Our client offers Microsoft CRM software to their customers-all customer and product related information is maintained in their back-office CRM application. They wanted to a solution that would provide their customers with easy access to product related information such as latest news, software-add-ons etc. Additionally, customers who have entered into a support contract with them were to be provided with options to log cases and change requests. The solution was required to communicate with the client's CRM application to send and retrieve customer related information. Employees' were to be provided with the means to publish content to the portal.

A customer and support portal on SharePoint

Benefits:

• Allows for easy sharing and collaboration among employees thereby increasing productivity
• Employees have access to centralized information enabling better & informed decisions
• Provides tools that help in simplifying day to day tasks such as planners, messages etc

Users:
The various users who can interact with the system include:

• Employees: They have access to the knowledge base and can update content appearing
• Customers: Users who have access to the customer portal.
• Customers with support packs: Customers who have purchased a support package. In additional to the customer portal they have access to a support portal wherein they have access to various customer support features

Solution:
We have developed a knowledge and support portal using Microsoft SharePoint. The portals have been designed to interact with our client's existing CRM system. The portals service both customers as well as employees.

Knowledge Base

The knowledge base is the central SharePoint site that can be used by employees to update and manage content that is to be published on the customer and support portals. Content includes news, tips & tricks, help and customer experiences pertaining to the Microsoft CRM software.

Customer Portal

Accessible to customers, the portal interacts with the Microsoft CRM system to authenticate customers' login credentials. The various sections available in the customer portal include:

• News: Customers can browse through the available news items (updated and managed through the knowledgebase).
• Tips and Tricks: Customers can browse through the available tips & tricks (updated and managed from the knowledgebase) and can also submit new tips & tricks. The new submissions are vetted by the administrator before being displayed on the website.
• Add-Ons: Customers can browse through a listing of add-ons (the details of which are retrieved from the client's existing Microsoft CRM system) that are available for the Microsoft CRM software. Customers can view a demo of the add-on and can also request licenses for individual add-ons.
• Customer Profile: Through this section a customer can view his/her profile (the details of which are retrieved from the client's existing Microsoft CRM system). Options to edit the profile (account, personal and password) have been provided. However a customer cannot directly make any modifications to his/her contact and account information. A change request is sent to the sales department, who can then make the necessary changes to the customer's profile.
• Experiences: This section provides customers with a means to browse through the experiences of other customers in using the Microsoft CRM software. They are also provided with a means to submit their experiences. The experiences are submitted to the administrator via e-mail.

Support Portal

The support portal is accessible to the customers who have purchased support packs being offered by our client. The support portal includes the following sections:

• Change Requests: Customers can use the support portal to log change requests and track the status of their requests. The change request information is directly entered into the client's Microsoft CRM system.
• Cases: They can also log cases and track their status. The case information is directly entered into the client's Microsoft CRM system.
• Help Yourself: This section contains links to other websites/resources that a customer can go through in order to resolve Microsoft CRM problems themselves. The section is populated from the knowledge base.
• Schedule a call: Through this section, the Customers can schedule a support call. The system sends the support call request as an e-mail to the sales department.

Technologies used in developing this application are:

Microsoft CRM