Certified Consultant Workspace Role
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Ian van Zyl
This Workspace Role would allow the following for Certified SmartSuite Consultants who build applications for their customers:
- Create a customer workspace
- Develop in the Customer's workspace
- Remain on their customer's workspace indefinitely as a free license
- Cannot be removed other than by themselves
- Not lose access to solutions built on handover
- Be able to sell products / solutions to customers and bill monthly
I feel this type of role will positively impact SmartSuite as more and more developers would move their clients over to SmartSuite due to this functionality. It will provide certified consultants the opportunity to build up a monthly recurring revenue (MRR) model and not rely purely on new development projects.
Federico Pozzato
Jon Darbyshire and Peter Novosel, IMHO even if Smartsuite is built to be as easy, smart and simple as possible, the collaboration between the customer and one Smartsuite's consultant/partner is mandatory. A consultant can create workflows from scratch for customers, do a training on the job, provide specific course, solve little issues, define automations and/or integrations with 3rd party systems, ecc ecc, adding a priceless value to Smartsuite's proposal. Almost all of my customers ask me to do something in Smartsuite for them, and to be present in the platform. It is not an option having everytime to ask the customer to temporarily deactivate one of his users and activate mine, nor it is to tell the customer to pay a license for me. Creating a special FREE "consultant user" (role could be workspace administrator or solution creator) would solve everything, showing another time that Smartsuite is a step ahead of everyone else. If you're walking side by side with a customer in Smartsuite, you can be sure this customer won't leave the platform in the short/medium term!
Clearly this spot as "consultant user" should be dedicated only to certified partners (and a customer can deactivate it as it is the platform owner due to many reasons) and couldn't be used by customers as a user.
Laura Plantak (Proprium Agency)
I agree with this and I have access to it in other software such as HubSpot, which gives the client much more confidence in the collaboration, as well as providing a seat for me without charging them and this enables us to collaborate long-term giving them the ability to know they will have support for maintenance, and additional implementation phases. Jon Darbyshire Ian van Zyl
Jon Darbyshire
Hiya Ian van Zyl, thanks for this post! I have a few more questions for you:
- Can you provide more details on the specific permissions and restrictions you envision for this Certified Consultant Workspace Role?
- What are the key features or tools that a Certified Consultant would need in their workspace to effectively build applications for their customers?
- Can you elaborate on the billing process you mentioned? How do you envision the process of selling products/solutions and billing customers monthly?
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Ian van Zyl
Hi Jon, thanks for the quick response - kindly see below:
Scenario - A client approaches you and requests a custom solution in SmartSuite. As the Certified SmartSuite Consultant (CSC), you use your affiliate link to setup a new workspace for your client and through this process you inherit the CSC role / license. This role is obviously only available to CSCs and is free, similar to the license we are currently provided by SmartSuite as a CSC.
As the CSC, you can build solutions for clients in their workspace or yours and then easily save it (or a copy) to the client's workspace. If a client already has a workspace, they can invite a CSC (from the left menu in the workspace - to be discussed ;-) ) to their workspace understanding what this means for them.
Purpose - for the CSC to have access and remain in control of a solution so that they can bill a monthly fee in accordance with an SLA. If the client does not pay within a specified period according to the SLA you have in place with the them, you can remove their access (this would be last resort) until they have settled their account.
- Permissions and restrictions - The CSC cannot be removed from a workspace/solution by any other workspace role other than themselves. The restriction on the CSC role would be that they can only see the solution / app that they built for the client. Perhaps there can be a toggle switch to be the overall Workspace admin too, if the client chooses. The CSC role can remove access to the solution or prohibit any further processing in the solution.
- Key features or tools - This would be the same as our current setup - SmartSuite (Enterprise level) Partner Sandbox account. Ideally, this role can be invited / added to any workspace without any cost to that workspace.
- Billing - the owner of the workspace will still pay SmartSuite directly for licenses as per the current setup and plans available. The billing to the customers by the CSC would be directly with them under a Service Level Agreement.
Please let me know if the above is unclear or not suitable - will be happy to flesh it out further to find a solution.
JM Creative Studio
Ian van Zyl this is great as a SS builder for clients it is one of the things missing great detail.