Audience: Fixably administrators (Manager or Admin login with access to System Settings) whose customers create repair orders in the Fixably Customer Portal.

When a customer creates a new service order in your Customer Portal, they pick their device, describe the issue and choose how the device gets to you. You can add your own questions to that page, such as whether Find My is turned off or which accessories are in the box. You can also offer paid extras, such as a data backup, that the customer adds with one tick and that land on the order as a line. The questions can be different for each type of device, so an iPhone customer and a Mac customer are each asked only what applies to them.

This article explains what decides the questions, how to set up questions and paid add-ons, what the customer sees, and what to check when something does not show up. For the customer's side of the portal, see How do my customers use the Customer Portal?

Prefer to watch? Here's a 4-minute video walkthrough.

What you can change on the new order page

Most of the new order page is driven by settings you already manage in Fixably. A few parts of the form are switched on or off for your portal by Fixably Support.

Custom fields are not shown on the portal's new order page. To collect information from the customer, use a task.

How the portal decides which questions to ask

Portal questions are tasks, the same tasks your team answers in the order view. Three things decide which ones a customer sees:

1. The device picks the queue. When the customer has chosen a model and entered a serial number or IMEI, Fixably puts the draft order in the queue set for that device in the Device Catalogue. A device without its own queue uses the queue of the level above it (for example the sub-category), and failing that, the default queue.
2. The queue picks the tasks. Every task linked to that queue, or to one of its parent queues, is a candidate. A task linked to iOS is asked for every child queue of iOS, such as iPhone and iPad.
3. The task decides whether the customer sees it. Only tasks with Show in Customer Portal ticked are shown. A task limited to certain locations is shown only for those service locations.

Device Catalogue availability: the Device Catalogue is being released to Fixably customers on a rolling basis. If you do not see System Settings > Device Catalogue yet, your account has not been migrated. Questions still follow the device's queue in exactly the same way, but Fixably Support manages which queue each device model goes to. Send Support the device models and the queue each one should use, and they will set up the association for you.

Because the questions depend on the device, they appear on the form only after the customer has picked the model and entered the serial number. If the customer changes the device, the questions are loaded again for the new queue.

In the example above, the iPhone 15 Pro goes to the iPhone queue (a child of iOS) and the MacBook Pro goes to Notebook (a child of Mac). A task on iOS is asked for the iPhone and never for the Mac. To change a device's queue, click the pencil on its row and pick a Queue. For more on queues and tasks, see How queues, statuses and tasks work together.

Example: a backup offer for iPhones and Macs

A repair shop in Austin wants every portal customer to be asked a few questions, and wants to offer a data backup before the repair:

• iPhone and iPad customers: "Is Find My turned off on your device?" (required) and an optional iPhone backup for $29.
• Mac customers: an optional Mac backup for $79.
• Everyone: "What accessories are included?" and the device passcode.

The steps below set this up.

Step 1: Check where each device type goes

1. Open System Settings > Device Catalogue.
2. Check the Queue column for the devices your customers pick. "Default queue" means the device has no queue of its own.
3. If a device type should get different questions, give it its own queue: click the pencil on the row and pick a Queue. Setting the queue on a sub-category (for example MacBook Pro) covers every model under it.

Not on the Device Catalogue yet? Ask Fixably Support to link each device model to its queue, for example iPhone models to the iPhone queue and MacBook Pro models to the Notebook queue. Steps 2 to 5 are the same for every account.

Step 2: Create a product for each paid service

A paid add-on adds a product to the order, so each service you sell needs a product, for example iPhone & iPad data backup at $29 and Mac data backup & restore at $79. Create them as service products with a stock price; see How do I add new Products in Fixably?

Use a separate product for each portal add-on rather than one your team also adds by hand. If the customer unticks the add-on, Fixably removes the line with that product from the order.

Step 3: Add a question

1. Open System Settings > Tasks and click New task.
2. Fill in the fields below, then click Save.

For a Select or Multi Select task, add the choices under the task's options. Each option has a Public name (eg. Portal), which is what the customer sees, an Internal name (Fixably), and a Description that the portal shows as help text. Untick an option's Show in Customer Portal to keep it for staff only.

Step 4: Add a paid add-on

A paid add-on is a task with two settings that make it different from a plain question:

• Type is Yes / No.
• Product is the service you sell, for example iPhone & iPad data backup.

Write the name as an offer the customer can accept, for example Back up my iPhone before the repair, tick the queues and Show in Customer Portal, and leave Required in Customer Portal unticked. Nobody should have to buy an extra to submit an order.

The portal shows these tasks in their own Optional products section as a checkbox with the price in brackets. When the customer ticks the box, the product is added to the order straight away; when they untick it, the line is removed again.

Good to know: only a Yes / No task can carry a task-level product in the portal. A Text, Select or Multi Select task that has a product on the task itself is not shown in the portal at all. You can put a product on an individual option of a Select or Multi Select task instead: choosing that option adds the product to the order, but the portal does not show its price, so put the price in the option's public name (for example Yes, back up my data ($29)).

Step 5 (optional): Ask a follow-up question

A task can open another task depending on the answer:

• On a Yes / No or Text task, Next task to be shown if non-empty value is inputted. and Next task to be shown if an empty value is inputted.
• On a Select option, Next task to be shown if this option is chosen.

The follow-up question appears on the form after the customer answers the first one. Make sure the follow-up task also has Show in Customer Portal ticked.

What the customer sees

After the customer picks their device and enters the serial number, the questions for that device appear in the order details. Required questions have a red star. Paid add-ons are listed under Optional products with their price.

On the summary page, the answers are listed under User selections, and any add-on the customer ticked is already listed under Products and services, with tax and the order total. The customer then approves the order.

What arrives in Fixably

The order arrives in the queue the device was routed to. The add-on is a normal line under Products and services, ready to be done and invoiced with the repair, and the customer's answers are in the order's tasks, marked with the customer's name.

Good to know

• Prices. The checkbox shows the product's price. The line on the order is priced like any other line, so tax is added on the summary, and if the order uses a price list, the price list price is used. Keep the two in step if you use price lists.
• Required questions are checked on the portal form. Orders your team creates in Fixably, and orders created through the API, are not checked.
• Question order on the portal cannot be set in System Settings.
• Changing the device on the form to one that goes to a different queue clears the answers and add-ons that belonged to the previous queue.
• Reseller and business customers who use the portal's retail order form see the questions but not the Optional products section.
• Changes can take a while to show. If your portal caches questions, a new or changed task can take up to an hour to appear.

Troubleshooting

Related articles

• How do I use the Customer Portal?
• How do my customers use the Customer Portal?
• How do I create a Task?
• How queues, statuses and tasks work together
• How do I set up Delivery Methods?
• How do I set up Service and Store Locations?
• How do I add new Products in Fixably?