Partner Portal
Table of contents
- 1. Introduction
- 1.1. Purpose
- 1.2. Intended Audience
- 1.3. Additional information
- 1.4. References
- 2. Status
- 3. Use Cases
- 4. Functional Specification
- 4.1. Non-goals
- 5. Technical Specification
- 5.1. UI requirements
- 5.2. API requirements
Introduction
MindTouch is interested in creating a Partner Portal for both internal use and to package as a product offering for sale. This document will help define the requirements and the resources needed to build the partner portal. Based on this technical specification, MindTouch can make a make/buy decision in regard to parts of the portal. This decision will impact the go to market plan, including timing of being able to deliver product to customers. MindTouch can also decide to integrate aspects of SalesForce.com's product temporarily until internal development can be completed. MindTouch can also decide to outsource development to a third party organization. The technical specification is necessary regardless of direction so as to better understand requirements and effort.
Purpose
The purpose includes:
Internal Use- MindTouch requires a partner portal in order to better manage partners for functions including:
- Lead Distribution/Management (viewing)
- Lead Registration (viewing)
- Support Ticket Management (viewing, possible customer submission)
- Partner Knowledgebase
- Document / Forms Library
- Order Management- Forms (future)
- Account Receivables- (future)
Partners also need this functionality to manage MindTouch business as well as access to sales collateral and tools.
External- The intention is to productize the partner portal for resale by both the direct and indirect sales channels.
Intended Audience
The internal use audience is for MindTouch channel personnel and management. Additionally, it is intended for MindTouch partners to track and communicate with MindTouch, as well as a
External audience are enterprises managing a partner channel, and requiring the above functionality. Typically integration to an existing CRM tool will be required, i.e. Salesforce.com, Sugar, NetSuite, SAP, and Oracle.
Additional information
- Lead Distribution/Management (viewing)
- This will require the most development as it requires read and write access to Salesforce which is already possible through the SalesForce connector, but will require work to surface it in a usable way that the Partners will be able to convert a lead to an Opportunity along with mapping any changes within MindTouch to Salesforce
- Lead Registration (viewing)
- Lead registration is as easy as adding a form from Salesforce (which can be accessed through the setup page) and embedding it on a MindTouch page, no development required
- Support Ticket Management (viewing)
- This doesn't require development, as simple as adding a form or dropbox which both can be created from ZenDesk
- Partner Knowledgebase
- Cornerstone of MindTouch, no development needed. Drafts might need to be implemented, but not necessary
- Document / Forms Library
- Included in MindTouch, no development necessary
- Order Management- Forms (future)
- This can be as easy as a form that sends an email to Accounting with a request for services/products
- Account Receivables- (future)
- This is better managed through our current AR system and then in turn the Partners can be notified of delinquency/new invoices through the Partner portal via their main page.
References
Any bugs, forums, other pages
Status
Not implemented.
Use Cases
- As MindTouch brings on partners, a "home base" for lead and channel management and interaction can be installed. Once set up, it becomes a one-stop-shop for both the partners and their channel members to communicate and interact.
- Partners will have one place to come to manage channel interaction. New lead registration and distribution can be viewed. Support tickets submitted by channel members can be reviewed.
- Channel members will have one common place for self-service. A partner-managed knowledgebase as well as support ticket reviewing (and possibly submission) will help maintain a positive customer experience. In the future, order submission could also be located here.
- Documents used by both customers and partners will be stored in a central location(s) for discoverability and ease-of-use.
Functional Specification
This portal would utilize the MindTouch CKB for crowdsourcing the knowledgebase, the Salesforce adapter for CRM, Zendesk for the support ticketing, and some chroming.
Non-goals
This feature, in its initial implementation, will not be a storefront for partners.
Technical Specification
Here the engineering specs are gathered.
UI requirements
- CKB
- Salesforce - Main development effort
- Zendesk reporting - Need clarification of what reporting is needed out of ZenDesk
- Skinning
API requirements
- Page subset automatic creation - Automatically create pre-determined page trees (already exists in Collaborative Intranet, some modification needed)
- Semi-automated security/permissioning management - Pages automatically permissioned to correct users/groups based on input from page subset creation (possibly utilizing something like this: http://developer.mindtouch.com/User:BlakeH/JQuery/Set_page_Security)
- Tag page
- What links here
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