Shared Access Use & Requirements

[emil]

@SteinyD

What happens if the person I shared access with also has an IRO or supports other customers with IROs? How do they switch between the systems they have shared access to?

Hi @SteinyD, I was just reading through your feedback to @franz and wanted to follow up on any confusion with the current features of Shared Access for anyone else reading.

Shared Access allows contractors one place to manager multiple Iros. They would simply switch between Iros via the left side menu (if running 1.x) – for details on how to do this, please see our support article on running multiple controllers. This was actually a use case for Shared Access that Landscaper Access didn’t allow for.

@SteinyD

I also don’t think this considers the potential for a maintenance company to maintain more than 1 IRO on behalf of multiple clients. They should only have one account per email address they need to worry about. This should be a common user name as well.

We agree. Shared Access allows the maintenance company to have one “Rachio” account that all of their field techs could login from and access homeowner A, B, or C. For more information on shared access, please see our support article on Sharing Access.

@SteinyD

I don’t mean to suggest or sound like I’m asking you to develop a system around my needs. However, I think you need to consider this as one of many use cases. You’ve sold IRO as a consumer DIY product. As the consumer, I should have the ability to decide who provides maintenance (if not me) and what access they are granted. I also don’t think we should over complicate the situation for the maintenance company before they either deny support or, want to charge a fee because I’m using ‘non-standard’ product. If we require them to install an app, register with full account details, have different usernames per account, etc., I think we are going to ruin a simple experience that they become a bit hesitant to engage in.

What you had previously was ideal. No dedicated app, I provide the credentials, they click on a link in an email, they are logged in and it’s done. They have whatever access I allow them to have and there is nothing else to worry about.

We totally agree and have plans to further develop the feature. We had use cases that Landscaper Access didn’t support, just as we have use cases that Shared Access is over kill for. I’ll discuss your feedback with the product owner and we’ll work to make Shared Access better. You bring up numerous angles we need to consider from an end-user’s perspective. We apologize if we overlooked any of these in the development of shared access. If you think of any other use cases in regards to Shared Access and 3rd party control of your system, please do not hesitate to share them with us. As you know my saying on support by now, we love feedback – good and bad. We’re listening.