An Order Queue is essentially a product line that your company sells. Companies using Ubersmith usually have a number of products lines, each having a different process in which they are verified, provisioned, and released. Generally speaking, you will setup an Order Queue for each product line you carry, having a unique setup process and integrations. Your order forms are then created within these modules, to funnel your orders into the correct workflow processes.
A standard web host, for example, may have the following Order Queues: Dedicated Servers, VPS's, and Virtual Hosting. The Dedicated Servers Order Queue will then contain any number of Order Forms, that will allow for the ordering of different Dedicated Server options - they are all contained in the same Order Queue however since the order process will be the same for every Dedicated Server.
To create an Order Queue, click on "Add Order Queue." A window will appear that will ask you to input an "Order Queue Name." From here, you can click Save to continue, or Save & New to create another Order Queue.
You will also notice a tab for "Link Email Template" This will allow you to create a template that you can use later on to send a client a direct link to their specific order, no matter what step they left off in (ie Leads, Processing, or Complete):
Click Save and you will now be taken to your Order Queue. You can change the details you just set by selecting "Update Queue Details" at the top of the page.
The steps of an Order Queue allow you to create top level groups in which the available actions reside. This allows for a birds eye view of the orders in your system, defined by you. Here you will see the four default steps for each order: Leads, Processing, Complete, and Canceled.
Leads: Leads represent potential clients and orders. A Lead is created anytime
Processing: After an Order Form is filled out by a client, it enters the Processing stage where typically it requires some sort of administrator input. This group is completely editable and optional, and only exists to provide you with a template to begin working with.
Complete: The order has been completed and requires no further action.
Canceled: The order has been canceled and requires no further action. NOTE: Once an order is canceled it can not be undone!
In addition to these four steps, you are free to customize and add as many steps as you like. For example - A standard web host's Order Queue may look like this: Leads, Fraud Verification, Order Provisioning, Complete, and Canceled.
Actions are the actual workflow steps that your employees will be following. We have included a group of initial action modules in the system, and will continue to release them to the Ubersmith community as fast as we can get them out. In the future we will be releasing documentation on how users can write their own custom modules that can easily be added to their existing Ubersmith system. These modules are designed to be a single file you drop into a folder on your server, so they are not contingent upon full Ubersmith releases.
A standard web host may have the following Order actions within their Fraud Verification step:
| • | MaxMind Integration (MaxMind Module) |
| • | Review & Approve Maxmind Results (Simple Question Module) |
| • | Employee Telephone Verification (Simple Question Module) |
Followed by two Ubersmith System Modules:
| • | Add Client (Add Client Module) |
| • | Add Service (Add Service Module) |
The system actions will usually have a prerequisite of the first steps being completely successfully (You can set prerequisites for your actions in the 2nd tab of the Action popup window). The system modules allow you to dictate when the client and services are actually added to your Ubersmith instance, so each new order does not create new clients unnecessarily, and fraudulent or canceled orders can be disregarded easily.
To add an action, click on the "add action" that corresponds to the Order Step you with the action to appear in. For example, if I want to add a MaxMind Fraud Check in the Processing step, I'd click the following:
From here you will name the step under "Order Action Name:", and select MaxMind minFraud from the drop down menu. You now have three options to chose configure:
| • | Automatic: If this is set to yes, the Order Form will automatically proceed to the next step. If this is set to know, it requires manual approval by an administrator for the order to continue. |
| • | Optional: If set to Yes, this step can be skipped - if set to No this step is required and the order can not proceed forward until the step is complete. |
| • | Client Viewable: If this is set to Yes, when the client logs into Ubersmith to check on the status of their order, they will be able to see the name and status of this particular step. |
The next tab is for Prerequisites. This page will contain a list of all of the other actions on your order queue. Checking off a particular action on this page ensures that it MUST have been completed prior to this step. Be careful! If you select an action as a Prerequisite that comes later in your Order Queue, this action will never run! Consider the following Queue:
In the following scenario, our step "Fraud Check" would never run, since its prerequisites come after the current step.
You can delete Steps and or Actions at any time, simply by clicking delete on the right of the screen:
Once you have added as many steps as you need, you are ready to create an order form.