Best way to make Companies like Customers

[ccummings]

I need to figure out the best way to make Companies like Customers. In other words, when we create a new phone ticket, and we begin typing into the "From Customer" field...it should populate with Companies names instead of Customer names.

I'm thinking that I would need to:

1. Disable Customer Company support
2. Modify the customer_user table to remove uneeded fields.
3. Populate the customer_user table with companies

Questions:

1. Is there a better way to do this?
2. Will this have any other unforseen, negative implications?

[CSL]

I don't understand why you'd want this?

Customer companies are a way of grouping customer users together. It's the customer users that have email addresses and contact info associated with them, so they are surely the ones you need to use when replying to a ticket?

If you want a generic company customer user, who represents the entire organisation, then you could create one as a customer user associated to that company and called 'Companyname'.

Customer companies are just 'containers' that customer users sit inside, so they can see each other's tickets in the customer web interface, etc.

[ccummings]

I understand, but I've been told to make it this way. All of our interaction with customers will be happening via phone, so we aren't concerned about email. Would there be any other implications I may be overlooking if we just set up each company as a user?

[crythias]

don't modify the customer_user table to remove fields. There is no reason to do this. If you don't want to see them, modify the MAP in Config.pm (Copy the CustomerUser entry from Defaults.pm to Config.pm)

[ccummings]

Thanks...that makes sense.

Would the way I outlined in my initial post be the best way to do this? There is alternative method being discussed that worries me.

Instead of moving the the existing companies into the user table (making modifications as needed), and disabling customer-company support, thereby making our companies our customers...a consultant we're working with is suggesting that we leave companies in the customer_company table and simply repoint the "From Customer" field to point to customer_company instead of customer_user.

This concerns me for a couple reasons, but primarily because the system is designed around customer_user rather than customer_company. There are several other fields (and probably other bits of code) that would need to be repointed to customer_company vs. customer_user. Add-on packages like the iPhone app will be looking to customer_user vs. customer_company, etc.

Any feedback or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

[crythias]

I've suggested Companies as Customers in the past. Don't try to overthink this. Don't remove company support. Eventually, you may start encountering "OK, now Employee A at company A is different than Employee B at Company A... what now?" And the answer is already handled within the current structure.

Again, don't think to much on it. In my *opinion*, going full-tilt into CustomerCompanySupport (enable within CustomerUser in Config.pm) is a better idea long term. The company lookup will be the CustomerID anyway.

[CSL]

If you already have customer company support enabled (you say 'disable customer company support' in your original post, so I'm guessing you do) then I don't see anything wrong with creating a generic customer_user that represents the whole customer_company.

This won't need any code changes or potentially harmful / difficult modifications at all.

For example: You have a customer_company with customer ID TTiles. You have customer_users Bob Tiles and Andy Tiles both with TTiles as their customer ID. Create a new customer_user called Top Tiles with customer ID TTiles. You then have a generic customer_user that represents the whole customer_company.