The main area of the Home page, as illustrated in the center of figure: CRM Home page, displays a block summary of the most important CRM information. You may change the order of these blocks by dragging and dropping. You may also change the content of your home page by using the home page edit function or by selecting home page components as explained in section: My Preferences.

There are two special functions at home which gives you additional flexibility:

	Important
	Please note that all data stored in the CRM system has an owner. The owner is marked by an [assigned to:] entry. If you make a new entry, the data will automatically be assigned to you unless you change this intentionally. At the Home page, only data assigned to you will be shown.

The smart design of the CRM system will allow you to get most information quickly. You can navigate within the CRM as if you were browsing a website.

	Caution
	It is not recommended to use the back and forward buttons of the browser within the CRM. These buttons may cause problems when browsing through pages with dynamically generated content.

It is recommended to use the icons and links provided by the CRM system. Advanced users may switch to tabbed browsing (offered e.g. by the Firefox Browser or IE7) to speed up the handling process. You may reach each CRM page within a few clicks. All CRM pages are in hierarchical order. You may switch between pages at the same hierarchical level or you may access a page directly. At the Top of the CRM system, as illustrated at figure: Top Area, you have access to different area types and functions to navigate and to work with the CRM.

Figure 1.3. Screen Top Area

When you click My Preferences a new window opens and allows you to view and edit user information and to set your own preferences. Most of these fields are self-explanatory. Some fields which serve special purposes are explained in the following. The View Audit Trail button is only functional if the CRM system administrator enables this function. Please refer to section: Audit Trails for further information.

User Login and Role:

Figure 1.4. Preferences - User Login

The field marked in figure: Preferences Login displays the role assigned to the user. The role provides the users privileges. This field cannot be edited by a user; it can only be changed by the CRM administrator.

Every user can define and change his or her own password. It is recommended to change the password frequently.

Important

Usernames and passwords have to be a combination of small or capital letters and numbers. It is recommended that you use at least 8 digits. The more digits you have, the more secure CRM access is. The use of special characters such as %, / or characters with accent marks (such as ä, ö, ü or ß), as they are used in some languages, is not allowed. A good password for example looks like Dhe4K39b. User names once created cannot be changed. However, you might create a new user and transfer all data to the new user.

Click on the [Edit] button to make changes. Alternatively you may move your mouse pointer over an entry. An edit function is then offered, which you can use to change one particular entry.

More Information:

Figure 1.5. Preferences - More Information

The field Signature marked in figure: Preferences - More Information defines the signature which is automatically added to outgoing emails. You may use HTML tags to format your signature. Note that the space is limited. Your system administrator may increase this space if necessary. At Appendix: Admnistration FAQ you will find more information of how you can format your signature and give it a special look.

The field Internal Mail Composer defines whether the internal CRM mail composer is used when clicking on an email address. If switched off, the mail composer installed on your computer is used.

User Advanced Options / Asterisk Configuration:

Figure 1.6. Preferences - User Advanced Options

The fields for the User Advanced Options are used to define parameters for communications between your computer (browser) and the CRM server. With the field Reminder Interval you define how often your browser will check for pending events. You will see an event as a browser popup when due. The field Access Key displays an identification number to be used with CRM extensions and can not be changed.

The fields for the Asterisk Configuration are used for a parameter setup of your Asterisk interface. Asterisk is a software implementation of a telephone private branch exchange (PBX) and is used for placing outbound calls by a simple click on a telephone number or displaying information about the caller stored at the CRM if you receive a call by your Asterisk PBX. Before you can use this feature a Asterisk PBX must be installed on your premises.

Home Page Components:

The check boxes control the display of content at your CRM's home page. If marked, the content of the selected content will get displayed at Home if data assigned to a logged-in user exists.

My Groups:

Each user may be a member of one or more groups. Such a membership is displayed here. Only CRM administrators may change the group membership of an particular user.

Login History:

Login history is displayed here, including when you logged in or logged out, and from what computer (by IP address). For security reasons it is recommended to log out every time you leave the CRM system.

The Home page provides a powerful search function that allows you to search the entire database. You may search for any terms. Fill in the search field and hit the [Find] button. You may restrict the search to certain modules by clicking the icon, as shown in figure: Global Search.

Figure 1.7. Global Search

The Quick-Menu at Home allows you to jump quickly to an entry page. At the drop down menu select the new entry you want to make.

	Note
	The Quick-Menu has only limited capabilities for entering data. For the full set of options available look at section Chapter 2: Data Entry for the CRM System.