I also want to add my voice into this idea. We just purchased SmarterTrack a few months ago and ran my first "training" class with the first department in our agency that will be using the system. We are planning on using the "branding" feature so that we can have multiple portals for all the different divisions in our agency.
We are finding that some divisions want to restrict the creation of user accounts, meaning that an administrator would be creating the account manually for our customers. However there are other divisions that want to allow users to create their own accounts.
The problem is that since user accounts are not "Brand" specific, if we have two Brands with competing account creation policies, they in essence step on each other. For example, Brand A has user creation locked down. Brand B has user creation open to the public. In many cases, our different divisions have the same customers (We looked into using departments but that wasn't viable, using brands worked better). So if a customer from Brand B creates an account, they have the ability to submit tickets and such to Brand A's portal. Even though Brand A never designated that user as being allowed to access support from them. Right now the only alternative would be to install them as separate instances completely, which then opens us the need for multiple license purchases and other logistics that are just too cumbersome.
Being able to designate on each user account which "Brand" they have access to would be a HUGE step in giving us flexibility on controlling user submitted help requests.
We would love to see a Brand auto assigned to a created user account should that Brand allow for public registration...but for those Brands that do not allow it, an admin can edit the User Account and "check" off the private brand so they can gain access. Or...an alternative idea is that any brand that is set to allow public registration will allow any registered user access to the Brand's portal, regardless of whether the Brand is authorized or not, since it is a shared system. However if the Brand is set to "private" account creation, then only those user accounts that have been given explicit rights would be allowed access to that Brand's Portal.
____________________________________
Ben Santiardo, Senior Programmer Analyst
Eastern Suffolk BOCES