Category Archives: Anywhere

New “Company” and “User Groups” workspaces

This update is intended for administrators and supervisors.

Have you made at least one of the following requests to portatour® in the past?

  • Quick search for customers across multiple user accounts
  • Displaying customers of multiple users on the map at the same time
  • Mass editing multiple users’ customers in a single step

Yes? Then you will surely appreciate the new “Company” and “User Groups” workspaces.

In portatour® you will find the new workspace bar at the top. It shows the name of your company and the workspace you are currently in. An administrator can change the company display name in the company options in the “Company” section under “Program Settings”.

The choice of workspace determines from which user or users you can currently see and edit data.

There are four types of workspaces:

  • Your personal workspace . You will only see your own customers, if indeed you have any in portatour®. Otherwise your personal workspace is limited to your personal settings.
  • The workspace of one other user. You will see only the customers of the selected user.
  • New: The workspace of the whole company. You can see the customers of all the users in your company that you have access to.
  • New: The workspace of one user group. You can see the customers of those users who belong to the selected user group.

Switching workspaces

To switch workspaces, click the white selection field in the workspace bar. A selection window with a quick search function opens:

You will find all the workspaces listed to which you have access.

Clicking on a list entry switches to this workspace. To open the workspace in a new browser window, click the arrow icon on the right. This allows you to open several workspaces in parallel.

In the workspace bar you will also find two buttons to quickly switch to the company workspace (right button) or to your personal workspace (left button) with one click:

When switching workspaces, portatour® remains on the displayed page with the current settings, provided that this page or setting is possible in the new workspace. Example: If you are currently viewing the customer list with extended search for “overdue customers” in the workspace of user A and then switch to the workspace of user B, you will also land on the customer list with the overdue customers there.

The new “Company” workspace

In this workspace you have access to three main menu items:

  • Users: You will find the familiar user administration here. Previously, access to it was via the options of an administrator and/or supervisor.
  • Customers: You will find the new company-wide customer list and customer search here.
  • Options: You will find the known company-wide options here. Previously, access to it was via the options of an administrator.

The new user group workspace

This workspace behaves analogously to the company workspace, with the difference that the data is not loaded from all user accounts, but rather only from the users of the respective user group.

Note: User group workspaces are only available if your company has 10 or more portatour® licenses. User groups have to be switched on by your administrator in the company options.

Global customer list and customer search

This update is intended for administrators and supervisors.

When you open the customer list in the workspace of the company or a user group, the customers from the corresponding user accounts are loaded and displayed in a common list.

Note: Company-wide access to customers is only available if the company account has a maximum of 50 user accounts. If you have more users, use the workspaces of user groups with a maximum of 50 users to access customers across users.

In the global customer list, almost all the functions you already know from the customer list of a single user are available, e.g. quick search, extended search, saved searches, map view, selection mode and mass editing.

Specifics and differences:

  • The right column additionally shows the name of the user in whose account the customer resides.
  • If you now open the customer detail page, portatour® will automatically switch to the workspace of the user in question. The back button takes you back to the company workspace.
  • It is not possible to create a new customer in the company workspace. Switch to the workspace of the user where the customer will reside to create the customer there.
  • Filters for users and user groups are available in the extended search.

Note: The customer list represents a maximum of the first 3,000 entries. If necessary, use the search or sort function if the desired customers are not present in it.

Displaying customers of multiple users on the map at the same time

This update is intended for administrators and supervisors.

Previously, you could only display the customers of a single user on the map. As of now this is possible for customers of multiple users at the same time.

Proceed as follows:

  • Switch to the workspace of the company or a specific user group.
  • In the main menu, click Customers.
  • Optional: use the search function to filter customers.
  • Click the map icon above the customer list.

To color customers by user, click the cogwheel and change Color to User – Name.

This will provide you a good overview of the territories.

Note: This may take a few seconds to display depending on the number of customers, the performance of your device and your internet bandwidth.

To hide a user’s customers completely, click the eye symbol next to the user in the legend window. Clicking again will display those customers again.

Clicking a customer icon on the map displays the user in question in the information bubble at the bottom. Opening the customer detail view automatically switches to the user’s workspace.

Tip for manual territory splitting: The selection mode in combination with the lasso and mass editing can be used, for example, to transfer the customers of several users to one specific user in the event of overlapping territories. Be careful though, especially if you have configured automated data exchange via the portatour® API.

Mass editing multiple users’ customers in a single step

This update is intended for administrators and supervisors.

Previously, you could only edit the customers of one single user at a time. As of now, it is possible to edit the customers of several users at the same time in a single step.

Important Note: Perform such mass edits only when necessary and very carefully. If the data of many users is affected, large data loss or significant recovery effort may result from erroneous mass edits.

Proceed as follows:

  • Switch to the workspace of the company or a specific user group.
  • In the main menu, click Customers.
  • To filter the customers you wish to edit, use the Extended Search.
  • Review the list and ensure that these are the actual customers you wish to edit.
  • Click the Edit all X button at the end of the list. The mass editing window opens.

  • The number of affected customer records and the number of affected users are displayed. Check this carefully! Proceed only if these numbers are plausible!
  • Perform the desired mass edit.
  • Depending on the number of customers and users affected, the process may take several seconds. A restore point is created in each of the affected user accounts.

New Maps January 2022

Today we have updated the map data and traffic flow data on our servers.

Changes in the road network and driving speeds may affect driving times between customers, so we recalculated them for you in portatour®. Some users might notice the change when updating the schedule next time.

In addition, when displaying maps in portatour®, the loading times might take a little longer since the map details need to be downloaded to your device again.

Workspaces: Open multiple users in different browser tabs

This update is intended for administrators and supervisors.

Previously, to open the account of a field rep in portatour®, in the user list you had to click the entry “Log in as this user” . This menu entry has been replaced by “Open workspace“.

Here are the advantages of the new workspaces:

  • It is now possible to have portatour® open in several browser windows or browser tabs at the same time and to see the workspace of a different user in each window/tab. This allows you to quickly switch between field reps at any time in the back office.
  • If you create a bookmark in the browser while you are in the workspace of a given user, the bookmark also contains information about the respective workspace. That is to say, when you click the bookmark, the workspace of the user in question opens automatically.

New Maps July 2021

Today we have updated the map data and traffic flow data on our servers.

Changes in the road network and driving speeds may affect driving times between customers, so we recalculated them for you in portatour®. Some users might notice the change when updating the schedule next time.

In addition, when displaying maps in portatour®, the loading times might take a little longer since the map details need to be downloaded to your device again.

Major June 2021 update

After an intensive development period, we have rolled out a major update of portatour® today. To read details about the new features, scroll down or use the following links:

Extensions especially for administrators of company accounts:

We wish you much success with using the new features and are looking forward to your feedback at feedback@portatour.com.

Display of and allowance for road closures

portatour® is now aware of current road closures and automatically takes them into account when calculating schedules. As such, necessary detours are taken into consideration when planning driving times. There is no need to change any settings in portatour®.

To display current road closures, proceed as follows:

  • Open the map.
  • In the top right corner, click the cogwheel icon.
  • Set the “Traffic” selection box to “Traffic: Road closures only”.

Road closures are displayed in black and marked with the following symbol:

Zoom in on the map to see closures on smaller roads.

portatour® updates the road closures once a week, usually on Saturdays. When doing so, portatour® also loads and takes into account future road closures expected for the coming week. This is helpful since as a user, your schedules are calculated into the future.

Display of probability of congestion on the map

For several years now, portatour® has been using historical speed data for the calculation of driving times. This data is collected by navigation systems and mobile phone providers by measuring the movement data of millions of road users and is provided for respective road sections. Road sections where the traffic flow data often shows congestion or slow traffic are either avoided or planned with longer travel times when calculating schedules. Traffic flow data is updated in portatour® on a quarterly basis.

What’s new with this update is that you can now display the affected street segments as follows:

  • Open the map.
  • In the top right corner, click the cogwheel icon.
  • Set the “Traffic” selection box to “Traffic: Typical for work days”.

Roads that are shown in red have a high probability of congestion on work days and are therefore evaluated judiciously when planning travel times.

Reminder: In the Options under “Driving Speed” you can further influence driving time. More about this in the online help.