Apply fieldworkers to view your entire customer database
In small businesses, it’s common for fieldworkers to work alongside other teams, like sales or customer service. Sharing the customer database with these teams can improve communication and collaboration. However, it’s important to be aware that this feature provides unrestricted access to the entire customer database, including sensitive information such as phone numbers, emails, and addresses. This can be problematic for businesses with legal or ethical obligations to protect customer data. Therefore, restricting access to the customer database becomes necessary to maintain confidentiality and security.
If the feature is off, fieldworkers can only view the list of customers they added themselves. As a result, they might have to re-enter customer information if they want to create a new booking for someone already in the database, causing some data redundancy. However, your admin users can handle this duplication later by merging customer details and bookings/quotes into the original profile of the customer.
Table of contents
I. Giving/Denying Access
Enabling your fieldworkers to view your entire customer database
If you want to enable your fieldworkers to view your entire customer database, you can do so by enabling a simple flag.
To do that, go to Settings > General Settings > Fieldworker Permissions and scroll down to the relevant flag “Allow fieldworkers to view your entire customer database when making new bookings” and then enable it.
By enabling this flag, you will give your fieldworkers access to your entire customer database to select from without any restrictions. Please note that activating this flag means that all your fieldworkers will have access to view the list of all your customers and view all their contact details including phone numbers, emails, and addresses.
Your fieldworkers will be able to select customers from your database list when creating new bookings, quotes, and invoices.
Restricting your fieldworkers from viewing your entire customer database
If you want to restrict your fieldworkers from viewing your entire customer database, you can do so by disabling a simple flag. To do that, go to Settings > General Settings > Fieldworker Permissions and scroll down to the relevant flag “Allow fieldworkers to view your entire customer database when making new bookings” and disable it.
Once disabled, your fieldworkers will be restricted from viewing your customer list and when making bookings, they can only view the list of customers that they themselves have added; and only those customers will be displayed for them to select from. If your fieldworkers want to create a new booking for a customer that you already have in your database, they will have to add the details of the customer again as they can’t see your database.
II. Controlling Customer Privacy
Why would I need to hide my customer database from my fieldworkers?
Most businesses prefer to hide their customer database from their fieldworkers for various reasons, including:
- Protecting customer privacy and data security: Businesses often deal with sensitive customer data, such as personal and financial information. Hiding the customer database from fieldworkers helps to minimize the risk of data breaches, unauthorized access, and misuse of customer data.
- Maintaining control over customer relationships: By hiding the customer database from fieldworkers, businesses can maintain control over their customer relationships and ensure that customers continue to deal with the company as a whole. Allowing fieldworkers to view all customer information could lead to conflicts or even customer poaching, where fieldworkers might attempt to take the customers with them if they leave the company.
- Compliance with data protection regulations: Many businesses are required to comply with various data protection regulations, such as GDPR or CCPA. By hiding the customer database from fieldworkers, businesses can ensure compliance with these regulations and avoid potential legal and financial consequences.
- Ensuring data accuracy and quality: Fieldworkers may need to gain the necessary training or experience to manage customer data accurately and effectively. This could result in data quality issues and errors that could impact business operations and customer satisfaction.
To sum up, although giving fieldworkers access to the complete customer database when creating new bookings can be beneficial, some businesses may choose to keep this information hidden from fieldworkers. By doing so, they can safeguard sensitive customer data, maintain authority over customer relationships, and ensure that different teams or departments manage separate aspects of the customer connection. Therefore, it’s important for businesses to weigh their individual needs and obligations before determining whether or not to allow fieldworkers to access the entire customer database.
Will hiding my entire customer database affect my fieldworkers when they create new bookings?
If your fieldworkers have been denied access to view your entire customer database, then they will not be able to select one when creating a new booking. When creating new bookings, fieldworkers can only view the list of customers that they themselves have added; and only those customers will be displayed for them to select from. If your fieldworkers want to create a new booking for a customer that you already have in your database, they will have to add the details of the customer again by creating a new customer, as they can’t see your database.
Related FAQS
Q: Is it safe to allow fieldworkers to view the entire customer database?
A: It depends on the specific needs and requirements of your business. While allowing fieldworkers to view the entire customer database can provide benefits, it can also pose risks, such as data breaches or unauthorized access. It is important to consider the security and privacy implications before activating this feature and establishing data protection and privacy protocols.
Q: What are the potential risks of allowing fieldworkers to view the entire customer database?
A: Some potential risks include data breaches, unauthorized access, misuse of customer data, conflicts over customer relationships, customer poaching, duplication of customer data, and non-compliance with data protection regulations.
Q: Can fieldworkers edit or delete customer information in the database?
A: The capability for fieldworkers to modify or erase customer data in the database depends on the access permissions and limitations specified in the fieldworker user role settings. To manage customer data securely, it is recommended to establish procedures and restrict access to editing or deleting customer data to authorized personnel only.
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