THE ESSENTIALS

Before looking at how the Business Network is created and managed, it’s essential to understand some basic terms used throughout CRM.COM regarding the Business Network.

Organisation

An organisation is an entity that can have different types, such as Service Owner, Business, Merchant/Service Provider, and Venue/Service Point. System users can be invited to join an organisation at any level, except for the Venue/Service Point level, which does not support user accounts.

• Service Owner - The Service Owner owns the service whereby Businesses can register (in a self-service manner) and also has the capacity to own a Contact Registry.

• Business - A business is the main entity that typically manages and owns the products and services sold to contacts, and where most of the configuration is set up. A business can:

  • Register with a service owner.

  • Use the service owner’s Contact Registry or maintain its own.

  • Have an account and payment methods.

  • Have a settlement account and payment method.

  • Define and manage their own Reward Offers, Products (physical and services), Inventory, Communication Plans, Organisation Groups etc.

  • Create Activities, Service Requests, Orders.

• Merchant/Service Provider - Merchants/Service Providers are franchises or partners in reward schemes (digital promotions) who extend the operations of a Business. Within the Rewards context, the term Merchant is widely used, while in Subscriptions & Billing context, the term Service Provider is used. Merchants/Service Providers can:

  • Have an account and payment methods.

  • Define their own Reward Offers, Communication Plans, Organisation Groups and Products.

  • Have a settlement account and payment method.

  • Order one-time or termed services.

  • Create Activities and Orders.

• Venue/Service Point - Venues/Service Points are the Business and Merchant/Service Provider's physical locations (shops) and can sell products and fulfil orders. Within the Rewards context, the term Venue is widely used, while in Subscriptions & Billing context, the term Service Point is used. Venues/Service Points can optionally be grouped under Organisation Groups. Users can’t be defined at Venue/Service Point level.

The following diagram depicts the hierarchical structure of the Business Network.

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Organisation State

The state of an organisation indicates its current operational condition, which also determines the permitted actions which the Organisation can perform. The organisation state applies only to Businesses, Merchants/Service Providers and Venues/Service Points and can be one of the following:

• Active - No restrictions apply.

• Inactive - No actions can be carried out by the Organisation, and users can't log in.

• Suspend - Certain restrictions apply, but users can log in.

See here for a more detailed explanation of each state’s restrictions.

Contact

A customer of the Organisation registered in the system, a Contact can be a person or a company.

Contact Registry

A contact registry holds the personal details of Contacts registered in CRM.COM. The contact registry can be enabled and maintained at the Service Owner or Business level. Refer to the Contacts manual for further details about the Contact Registry.

Organisation Groups

Organisation Groups are defined at the Business level and are used to group organisations of type Merchant/Service Provider, Venue/Service Point based on common business characteristics. Refer to Settings to find out how to configure and use Organisation Groups.

TAPs

Transaction Acquiring Points can be defined at the level of the Business, Merchant/Service Provider and Venue/Service Point and are typically used for uniquely identifying a device (e.g. POS terminal) where purchase transactions can be recorded, or for additional miscellaneous transaction actions, such as sending a receipt to a third-party platform to be printed. When a purchase event is posted to CRM.COM, the unique TAP code is also provided to be able to trace a purchase and also identify the Organisation from where it originated.

Masquerading

Allows a user of an Organisation to temporarily act as a user of a child organisation based on the Business Network hierarchical structure, e.g. a user logged in as a Service Owner can masquerade as a Business user, and a Business user as a Merchant/Service Provider.

Getting Started

This chapter covers the most significant settings when creating and managing organisations in CRM.COM. Bear in mind that a system user will be allowed to perform varying actions depending on the organisation level they have signed in at or masqueraded to and their user role permissions.

Organisations Core Behaviour

The table below defines the core behaviour of each Organisation type in regards to creating and managing child organisations.

Creating & Managing the Business Network

To view or create any type of Organisation, you must be a system user yourself. You can become a system user, either by being invited (by another user) or because you registered an organisation. It’s a good idea to read the Security manual to better understand how to define users roles and invite users to your Organisation.

To view or create an organisation, use the sidebar menu to navigate to one of the following options. The sidebar menu options differ according to how you have logged into the system (i.e. Service Owner user or Business user or Merchant/Service Provider user) or what type of Organisation you have masqueraded as.

• If you are signed in/masqueraded as a Service Owner user, select Businesses - the Businesses summary screen is displayed, and you can manually create a new business from here.

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• If you are signed in/masqueraded as a Business user, select Business Network - the organisation types visible under this option depend on how your Business Network Model has been configured. You will see either My Merchants & My Venues or My Service Providers & My Service Points.

• If you are signed in/masqueraded as a Merchant/Service Provider user - the only available option is My Venues/My Service Points to view or manually create Venues/Service Points.

When creating an organisation, the editable information varies depending on the type of Organisation being created. Contact information and images are typically available for all organisation types, but there are also details and settings relevant only to specific organisations. These are covered below as they play an important role in the operation of the organisations.

Business Configuration

A Business can self-sign up to a Service Owner, or a Service Owner user can create the business through the back-end.

When creating or editing a Business from the back-end system, attention should be paid to the following settings:

• Name - The name of the business

• Country of Agreement - Select the country that the business operates in.

• Description - Optionally provide an internal description for the business.

• Phone - The business’s phone number.

• Email - The business’s contact email address.

• Address - If Google Places is configured, search and select the Business address and Google Place id.

• Contact Registry - If the Service Owner supports a Contact registry, then the Business will have the option of using it too, if disabled, then the Business maintains its own Contact Registry.

• Create a business owner user - When creating a new Business (or Merchant/Service Provider) via the back-end system, it’s also possible to create and invite an Admin user on-the-fly. Simply enable the respective toggle, and invite the User by completing their personal information in the area below. This action can also be performed by masquearading to the business and navigating to Settings > Security > User Roles & Users > Users > Invite User.

When a Business user signs in to a business (or a Service Owner user masquerades as the business), they can access the business’s configuration by clicking on their user name in the top right-hand corner of the screen and then selecting My Business. Additional configuration is available at this level.

• Enable WiFi Network - A Business, Merchant/Service Provider and/or Venue/Service Point can define whether WiFi Networks are supported (usually when they provide services related to Internet access, VoIP and IPTV to residential and Business customers). Enabling a WiFi Platform, a set of attributes should be provided

  • WiFi Platform - Defines the WiFi platform (e.g. Unifi) that such service will be provided.

  • Site Identifier - An ID provided by the WiFi Platform to identify the Organisation and keep track of service usage.

  • WiFi Network - Defines the wireless networks specific to each Organisation's physical location, enabling customers to connect and join these networks. Additional actions can be performed on such networks, such as enabling and/or disabling them.

  • Guest Portal - Defines the portal URL endpoint, where customers will land when joining a WiFi Network. Such a portal is responsible for authenticating customers, granting access to the Internet, or placing an order for additional usage (if already consumed)

• Opening Hours - Optionally specify the Business’s operating hours for ordering delivery and pick-up. Delivery and pick-up can also be closed using the toggles Is delivery closed? and Is pick-up closed?

• Commercial Terms

  • Apply award settlement on spend? - The Business can define whether B2B settlements (business charges and rebates) are applied for Merchants when a Contact is awarded or when a Contact spends.

  • Contact Self-submit Purchases - Contacts will be able to submit a purchase by scanning a QR code or Barcode and be awarded. A Business can define a set of soft rules to prevent unauthorised behaviour, such as the maximum number of purchases and/or purchased amount that a contact can submit.

Merchant/Service Provider Configuration

A Merchant/Service Provider would typically be created by a back-end Business user or a user who has masqueraded as a Business.

When creating a Merchant/Service Provider, attention should be paid to the following settings:

• Address - If Google Places is configured, set the Business address and Google Place id - this is particularly useful if front-end apps are used.

• Create a Merchant/Service Provider Admin user - Create and invite an Admin user on-the-fly. Simply enable the respective toggle, and invite the User by completing their personal information in the area below. This action can also be performed by navigating to Settings > Security > User Roles & Users > Users > Invite User.

Once created, select the Merchant/Service Provider to edit any of the following optional configurations:

• Transaction Acquiring Points - Define the devices where transactions are captured and/or processed on-site.

  • Name - The TAP name.

  • Code - A TAP’s main identification attribute is its code which must be unique.

  • Type: Choose the TAP type:

    • External Reference - Mapped to an external integration. Select from the available types and proceed to configure the IP address and port settings.

    • POS - Represents a Point of Sale terminal, where purchase customer events are captured and submitted to CRM.COM. Each POS terminal usually has a unique code used for identification purposes (determining in which venue is installed); such code should be defined on the TAP code.

    • Receipt Printer - Allows provisioning and printing of CRM.COM orders to an external ESC/POS printer. Print provisioning requires the printer’s IP address and port to be defined on the TAP.

    • Card Terminal - Payment card machine.

To add a TAP for a Business, click on the ‘eye’ icon on the right-hand side of the screen.

Enable WiFi Network - refer to Business configuration.

• Opening Hours - Optionally specify the Merchant’s/Service Provider’s operating hours for ordering delivery and pick-up. Delivery and pick-up can be disabled using the toggles Is delivery closed? and Is pick-up closed?

• Payment Methods - Configure the Merchant/Service Provider’s payment methods, only the Account and Account Debit payment methods are available for configuration via the back-end. Payment methods are used primarily for B2B settlements.

• Commercial Terms - Configure the Merchant’s agreement and settlement process (typically for multi-merchant rewards platforms). Merchant agreements allow the Business to define whether settlement takes place the moment a Contact is awarded or upon Contact spending, along with the corresponding contribution.

The settlement process charges participating Organisations (usually Merchants) the cost of awards. The settlement process creates financial transactions either in real-time or at a set time intervals (e.g. daily).

• Settlement - Select when settlement will be applied, on award (toggle disabled), or on spend (toggle enabled). Besides the Organisation’s settlement method, settlements also take into account the owner of the offer who funds the award.

  • Settle on award (default) - The Merchant will be debited for the awarded amount (and the award owner credited) upon awarding the Contact.

  • Settle on spend - The Merchant will be debited for the awarded amount (and the award owner (will be credited) when the Contact spends (redeems) their award.

• Contributions - The percentage of the awarded amount that will be contributed by the Merchant (debited for) when an award is granted. The stated percentage can be overridden by defining explicit offers with their own corresponding contribution percentages.

• Block Merchant - This option is available from the Merchant screen (Commercial Terms options) and allows the Business to block the Merchant from awarding Contacts and Contacts from spending their awards at the Merchant.

Opening Hours - Specify the Merchant’s operating hours for ordering delivery and pick-up. Delivery and pick-up can be disabled using the toggles Is delivery closed? and Is pick-up closed?

Products not available for sale - Identify any temporarily unavailable products or those that can’t be delivered or picked-up by simply selecting the product, along with the supply method.

Venue/Service Point Configuration

These settings are applicable for Venues and Service Points.

• Venue/Service Point has the same industry and business scope as its parent - A Venue/Service Point can inherit its parent’s business-related definitions or, alternatively, define its own.

• Enable WiFi Network - Does this Venue/Service Point support services related to Internet access, VoIP and IPTV? Refer to the Business configuration.

• Opening Hours - Refer to the Merchant/Service Provider section to see how to configure opening hours.

• Products not available for sale - Refer to the Merchant/Service Provider section to define products unavailable for sale.

Parent Organisation’s Administrative Actions

A parent organisation can perform various administrative actions for its child organisations. The available actions differ depending on the organisation level. To see the available actions, a system user must navigate to the summary screen where the organisation’s child organisations are listed, locate the organisation, select the options button, and choose the required action.

The following administrative actions can be performed by a Service Owner for a Business:

• Suspend - The following restrictions apply:

  • Users (of any organisation type belonging to its business network, including Business users):

    • Can access the back-end system and perform operations as usual, except creating new contacts, placing new orders, ordering services and activating new reward schemes/reward offers.

    • When attempting to authenticate, a business user will be notified that they must proceed with account re-activation.

  • Contacts:

    • New contacts cannot register.

    • Existing contacts can authenticate and access their data from front-end applications.

  • Organisation operations:

    • Can perform back-end operations, such as billing existing subscriptions, applying reward evaluation on customer events of existing contacts, perform merchant settlement.

    • Users and external systems can perform any operations, except create new contacts, place new orders activate new reward schemes/reward offers.

    • Any child organisations (e.g. Merchants/Venues, Service Providers/Points) also inherit this state, and suspension restrictions also apply to them.

• Deactivate - The following restrictions apply:

  • Users (of any organisation type belonging to its business network, including Business users):

    • Cannot access the back-end system, when attempting to authenticate, business users should be prompted to proceed with account re-activation.

    • Cannot perform any actions (e.g. create a new contact, create a reward offer).

  • Contacts

    • New contacts cannot register.

    • Existing contacts cannot authenticate or access their data from any front-end applications.

  • Organisation operations

    • Cannot perform any operations - such as billing, reward evaluation, settlement, ordering.

    • For subscriptions - The disconnection process is performed and all subscriptions are set as inactive.

    • System users and external systems cannot perform any operations whatsoever.

    • Any child organisations (e.g. Merchants/Venues, Service Providers/Points) inherit the same state and the same restrictions apply.

• Copy - Copies an entire Business organisation, including all its data and configuration, to a new Business organisation name with the exception of the following data which is not copied:

  • Transactional data (e.g. customer events and financial transactions)

  • Creatives (of all modules)

  • Analytics (Insights and Reports)

  • Products, promotions, order catalogues

  • Pass plans

  • Applications, custom forms, filters, import data and white-label settings

  • Reward offers and tiers

  • API keys, organisations, partners, users and webhooks

  • Automations

• Delete - This action will permanently delete a Business organisation along with all its data, including both test and live data. This includes contacts, transaction acquiring points, applications, products, orders, rewards etc. It's important to note that any child organisations, such as Merchant/Venue or Service Provider/Service Point, and all their data will also be deleted.

A Business user can perform the Suspend and Deactivate actions for a Merchant/Service Provider, and a Merchant/Service Provider can only Deactivate a Venue/Service Point. All actions have the same effect as described above.

Masquerading

To masquerade as another Organisation, navigate to the Business Network option from the sidebar menu and select the masquerade icon from the Service Owner, Transaction Processor, the Business, or Merchant/Service Provider screen.

To switch back to the Organisation from where you masqueraded - select your login name (top right-hand corner of the screen) > Switch to ….

Merchant/Service Provider Financial Statement

Back-end Business users can issue a financial statement for their Merchant/Service Provider child organisation(s). The statement shows the Organisation’s basic account information and financial activities for a selected period of time. The statement can be exported in either PDF or .csv format.

To view a Merchant/Service Provider statement - sign in/masquerade to the Business > Business Network > My Merchants/My Service Providers > locate and Edit the Organisation> select the options button > Statement.

Business Network Settings

The Business Network settings vary depending on the organisation level at which a system user has logged into CRM.COM. Below are the system settings for Service Owners, Businesses, and Merchants/Service Providers.

To configure your Business Network settings, select Settings from the sidebar menu, then Business Network.

Service Owner

A Service Owner system user can configure the following business network-related system settings:

Billing Business

This setting is only relevant for Service Owners selling subscriptions to Businesses as a SaaS. Set the Business responsible for billing the subscription plans and select the default plan for new businesses signing-up. If this setting is not configured, then new businesses signing-up to the Service Owner won’t be billed.

To configure, navigate to Settings > Business Network > Billing & Subscriptions > Billing Business.

Partners

Service Owner partners (associates) can be defined at the Service Owner level and assigned to individual Businesses. As a result, the partner logo will appear at the bottom of the sidebar menu when a user of the Business or child organisation of the Business is logged in to the back-end system.

Partners are defined purely for the purpose of acknowledging an associate’s collaboration with the Service Owner in winning a business proposition and serve no other purpose in the system.

To configure partners and upload their logos, navigate to Settings > Platform > Partnerships > Partners.

To add a partner to a Business, navigate to Business Network > Businesses > locate and Edit the Business in question > click in Partners and select one or more partners from the drop-down list.

Business

The following Business Network settings are available only at the Business level (i.e. a user must be logged in as a Business user or have masqueraded down to a Business level).

Navigate to Settings > Business Network.

Business Network Model

Set up which (child) organisations your Business network will consist of. The chosen setting will appear throughout the back-end system UI.

For example, the sidebar menu options under Business Network’s (midnight) cut-off point will be processed

And is performed in three steps:

• Settlement Transactions - Settlement transactions are created against each event and determine whether the Organisation at hand should be credited or debited for such an event.

• Accounting Settlement - Determines whether a single debit or credit account journal entry should be created for each Organisation based on the total amounts (debit & credit) from all previously created settlement transactions posted against that Organisation.

• Financial Settlement - Creates a single debit or credit account journal entry for each Organisation. Depending on the account journal entry created, a respective payment or payout will be posted against the Organisation's primary payment method (if a primary is not specified, then on the first available payment method).

Organisation Groups

Select +Create Organisation Group and provide a name and description for the group.

To assign an organisation group to a contact, navigate to the Merchant/Venue, Service Provider/Service Point screen, hover next to the Organisation Details section header, and select to edit.

B2B Spend

Required for collaborating businesses, refer to the B2B Network manual for configuration.

B2B Settlement

Required for collaborating businesses, refer to the B2B Network manual for configuration.

Settlement Rules

Set up supplementary rules that will be applied during the settlement process, such as:

• Financial Transaction Types: define the types that will be set on the posted financial transactions (payment or payout) as created from the settlement process

• Amount Allowance: defines the minimum & maximum amount that should be met from the settlement’s financial transaction to settle an organisation account

Merchant/Service Provider

The Business Network configurations available at the Merchant/Service Provider level are limited to Organisation Groups.

To configure your Business Network settings at the Merchant/Service Provider level, select Settings > Business Network.

Organisation Groups

Define groups for classifying Venues/Service Points based on common business characteristics. See Organisation Group configuration for Businesses.

Reference Material

You may also find it useful to refer to the following manuals for further reading about the Business Network.

B2B Network

B2B Network

Security

Security

Communications

Communications

Integrations

Service Owner integration is used if the following integrations are not configured at the Business level.

• Address Registry

  • Google Places

• Communications

  • SMTP

  • SMPP

  • Twilio

  • WhatsApp

  • Firebase

Integrations

Rewards

Reward Offers

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