Customer Admin Mode

Learn about acessing customer admin mode on web.

This feature is primarily intended for customer administrators in an SaaS environment but can also be used e.g. for country admins in large in-house projects.

You can set up a special "customer admin mode" enabling (administrative) users to access CRM.Designer from Aurea CRM.Web and customize field controls using the (Adjust Layout & Fields) button.

To set up customer admin mode:

  1. Enable authentication for CRM.Designer, i.e. disable anonymous access. For further details, see Settings.

    All users with the *SelfAdmin configuration (s. below) in their configuration hierarchy are able to access CRM.Designer. The respective CRM.Designer logins are automatically created (s. below).

  2. Set up the connection between Aurea CRM.Web and CRM.Designer.
    Note: Aurea CRM.Web and CRM.Designer need to run on the same server.
  3. Create the required configuration hierarchy with a *SelfAdmin and *SelfAdminDev configuration between a common parent and the users. For further details, see Creating SelfAdmin Configurations. This ensures that configurations delivered and maintained by update (or a partner) can not be changed by customer admins.

    The customer admin customizes field controls in the *SelfAdminDev configuration and then publishes the finalized customization to the *SelfAdmin configuration, thus making it available to all users.

    Other CRM.Designer pages and other configurations are not accessible.

  4. Define a dedicated customer admin role and assign it to the *SelfAdminDev configuration and to the users that should perform the customizations.

    Customer admins must log on to Aurea CRM.Web with this role.

  5. Configure the EditDetailsControl button in the desired Expand headers. For further details, see EditDetailsControl.
    Note: The EditDetailsControl button is available for the SU and users who have access to the CRM process 1.5.1.3.106 "Edit Mask" (CRM process ID M_173). This CRM process is enabled by default.Make sure you disable this CRM process for all roles except the customer admin's role.

If a user who has the *SelfAdmin configuration in his configuration hierarchy logs on to Aurea CRM.Web with the customer admin role and clicks on (Adjust Layout & Fields) the following happens:

  • CRM.Designer is opened in a new browser window.
  • When logging on for the first time a CRM.Designer login "crm:<update.CRM login name>" is automatically created:

    The login is created in User Group "Customer" and for the *SelfAdminDev Configuration only. This login is then automatically used every time the user clicks on (Adjust Layout & Fields).

  • Changes to field controls are saved in the *SelfAdminDev configuration.
  • The administrative user can publish these changes to the *SelfAdmin configuration, thus making it available to all users.
Note: The customer admin mode feature is intended to be used only in the productive environment. There is no (automatic) transport back to a development (or testing) environment. You would have to use CRM.bulkloader to transport the *SelfAdmin configuration to your development environment.
Note: Use the Compare Field Controls page in CRM.Designer to compare changes made by a customer with a parent configuration as provided by update or a partner to determine possible additions for the next release of your parent configuration. For further details, see Compare Field Controls.
Note: No automatic merge of field control definitions is supported.