When creating jobs in the vWork mobile app, all workers with the 'Create Jobs' mobile permission have access to customer names and addresses to enable them to search for an existing customer. For privacy and commercial reasons this can sometimes be a problem; especially when you use contractors as part of your mobile workforce. To cater for these situations, vWork has an optional feature to limit what mobile workers can see and do with customer information when they create a job using the vWork mobile app.

This optional feature is easily turned on in your account. If you would like to find out more about this, or have it enabled in your account, please mail support@vworkapp.com with a request to add the 'Customers' mobile permission option.

What is the 'Customers' mobile permission?

The 'Customers' mobile permission is linked to the 'Create job' mobile permission. It determines the level of access workers have to existing customers' names and addresses, and the ability to add new customers, when they create a job using the vWork mobile app.

Once added to your vWork account all users have the 'Customers' mobile permission enabled. You'll see this on the User Management page in the web app added to the 'Mobile Permissions'.

Customers mobile permission user management page.png

Permission levels

The level of access you give mobile app users to customer information is determined by the permission assigned to them in their individual user profile. You may have different permissions for different workers.

The default permission level is 'Full'. There are two more alternative levels of permission you can assign to vWork mobile app users: 'Read' and 'Hidden'.

This table explains the three permission levels.

Permission level	Access to customer information when creating jobs in the vWork mobile app
Full	Can see and search for existing customers when they create a job. Can create a new customer when they create a job. 🔔 Note: This option provides the same permissions they had before the optional 'Customers' mobile permission was added to the account.
Read	Can see, search for and must use an existing customer when they create a job. Can't create a new customer when they create a job.
Hidden	Must create a new customer when they create a job. Can't see, search for, or use an existing customer when they create a job.

Considerations when setting the 'Customer' mobile permission level

The 'Full' permission has no restrictions around customer information for your mobile workers when they create jobs in the mobile app. While they can't edit existing information, they can add new customers and view and select from your entire customer list when they use the 'Create Job' menu item. This means they can see and search for the names and addresses of all your customers - even if they choose not to complete the process of creating a job. If customer privacy is of concern in your business, or you have other reasons that you don't want your workers having access to this information, you can change their permission level to 'Hidden'.

When the 'Hidden' permission is set for a mobile worker they must create a new customer every time they create a job and they can't see or search for existing customers. This creates the potential for them to create a duplicate customer record in vWork if jobs are done for the same customer more than once. If you choose this setting it is important you manage your customer data well to reduce the instances of creating duplicate customer records. You are able to move completed jobs from duplicate customer records to the original customer record when you delete the duplicate customer. The article, Delete or merge customer records, explains how to do this.

The 'Read' permission restricts your workers to only creating jobs for existing customers. If they are ever in a situation where they may need to create a job for a new customer they won't be able to do this. Consider setting their permission level to 'Full' if this is a likely situation.

Set 'Customer' mobile permission for a mobile worker

The 'Customer' mobile permission is set in each worker's user profile by a vWork user with Administrator permissions.

💡 Tip: The permission level defaults to 'Full' when this option in enabled - so you won't need to change the mobile permission for mobile workers that you trust with access to your customer information and who also create new customer records.

To change a workers 'Customer' permission from the default 'Full':

Go to Users > Users to view the User Management page and select the user that you want to update.
In the user's profile scroll down to the Mobile Permissions settings found in the User Permissions section.
Make sure the 'Create Jobs' mobile permission is enabled as the 'Customer' mobile permission is linked to this mobile permission.
Click in the 'Customers' mobile permission field to display the drop down list of the permission options, then click to select the permission level you want to apply to this user.

In this example we will click to select 'Hidden'.
Click to change this user's mobile permission settings.

You may also like to learn more about the other Mobile Permissions that can be assigned to a mobile worker. Please see the article, Mobile Permissions: permissions for using the vWork mobile app.

Manage customer information seen and used to create jobs in the vWork mobile app

In this article

What is the 'Customers' mobile permission?

Permission levels

Considerations when setting the 'Customer' mobile permission level

Set 'Customer' mobile permission for a mobile worker

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