How can I turn off Automatic default contract selection?

[acrosser]

I've seen the following sentence several times in the documentation:

"Note: In order for the system to automatically select a contract by date, you should make sure the default contract selection for the Account is set to 'Automatic'."


I can't find where this setting is located. I don't want it set to Automatic, I want it set to Manual (or Off, or whatever it's called). We have contracts for customers but they are related to remote Internet backup... not the regular IT work we do for them. So we don't want tickets to default to the contract.


How can I do this? Thanks for the info.

[Support Team]

Thanks for your question, acrosser. Though this is not a common scenario, the system does allow you to force a specific contract as the default contract for new tickets (click here for more details on default contracts).

To manually set the default contract for an account, open the Accounts window, navigate to the relevant Account, click on the Contracts tab, select the Contract you want to set as default (you can also select the System Default Contract if you don't want to use any specific contract), right-click on it, select the option 'Default Contract' > 'Set selected contract as the default contract for this account'.

I hope this helps.

Neta

[acrosser]

Thanks for the info Neta. Is there any drawback to doing it this way?

The reason why I want to use the Global System Contract is because we use Contracts for remote online backup service. Only some of our customers use this online backup service. But all of our customers use our hourly IT service, which is not under contract. So when we create a Contract for the backup service for the customers that use it, then it gets selected by default for new Tickets/Charges. But we want to use the Global System Contract by default. (That's just an explanation so you know why we are not doing it the preferred/recommended way).

[Support Team]

Thanks for the additional info.

You cannot set the Global contract as the default for an account in case there is another active contract that you've manually created.

Please find more information on this -
In case you haven't specified a specific default contract, RangerMSP automatically selects the default one for you (if it can) - so, if there are two contracts you've created for an account, one for the current month and the other for the next, the system will automatically select the right one according to the date when the ticket is opened.
If all you have is a single contract you added - like the online backup on you've mentioned - the system will select it (as the Global one is virtual and any other active and current contract overwrite it).
In case you'll have two different contracts which are both active and current, the system will not select any default for you and the user will need to select one (or you can specify the one you preferred and set it specifically as the default one).

HTH

Neta

[mcbsys]

Neta,

Maybe this has changed since you posted on 3/17/09, but I just tested it and I was able to set the Global System contract to be the default. This Account has two custom contracts in addition to the Global System contract.

To me it seems like a good idea to allow specifying any attached contract, including Global System, as the default.

Mark

[Support Team]

Hi Mark,

Yes, allowing to set the Global System contract is indeed useful in some cases, and this is indeed an option when setting the default contract. Thanks for pointing that out.

Neta

[lpopejoy]

What if you want to have no contract as the default so that the user HAS to choose one? I have the same problem as Mark, and I am constantly going back in after people and changing which contract the charged their time to. In my case, I've got an IT services contract and a web hosting contract. The web contract has the longer time period so it chooses that one sometimes over the IT services contract.

[mcbsys]

Luke,

I understand that you want an option, "Make the user choose the contract each time." I may have stumbled across a workaround.

When I go to accounts, Contracts tab, right-click, and select "The system will automatically recommend a default contract," then I create a ticket, the Contract field is blank. In this case, the account has a Global contract and two block-of-money contracts. Maybe because of the two block-of-money contracts, it can't figure out which one to use, so it leaves it blank.

If that is in fact the way it works, you could add a dummy "DO NOT USE" contract of the same type as one of your live contracts. That might confuse the system enough to make it ask the user for the contract.

Mark

[Support Team]

The system requires a default for contact - whether it is set automatically or whether you set it manually to be the default. The idea behind it is to reduce the number of steps it takes to log a new charge or to open a new service ticket - the default contract is selected and all you need to do now is log the time spent, the service item to bill, a description and you're done.

The system will NOT select a default contact in cases where more than one contract is active and current. You'll need to select it manually in this case.

Also note that when adding a new Ticket a default contract for the ticket is set (again - the default is used, or nothing is selected if more than one contract is active and current).
All charges added under this ticket will be automatically linked to the contract selected for the ticket.
You can always modify the default contract for the ticket by editing the ticket details.

HTH
Bracha

[mcbsys]

The system will NOT select a default contact in cases where more than one contract is active and current.
When you say "more than one," are you counting the Global System Contract, which is apparently linked to every account?

[Support Team]

No, the Global System Contract is not taken into account when the system tries to determine which valid to use automatically.

The way it works is that the system checks all active contracts, and checks which fit the current date (according to the contract's date range). If only one of th contracts is valid in terms of dates, then it will choose it. However, if there is more than a single contract which fits the dates, the system cannot decide which one to use, and it will leave this field empty.

Note that as mentioned above, if you set a specific contract as the "Default" only, this overrides the above decision making process, and always chooses the default contract.

I hope this helps to make it clearer.

Neta

[mcbsys]

[Something isn't working with this forum's notification. I am subscribed to this thread with instant notification, but did not get notice on the above. I know it stops notifying until you visit the thread again, but it's almost like you only get one notice per thread, period. I've noticed this on several threads.]

Re. the contracts, that confirms my suggestion: add two contracts, even if the second is a "dummy," and the system will not select ANY contract.

Mark