HESK's natural ticket workflow

[grandfso]

Hello,
I am looking at a HESK as a Helpdesk solution for my small project. I tried to find a description of the typical workflow that has been implemented into HESK to see if it will suit my process. I would like to ensure that my process won't be required to change too much.

Could you direct me towards a description of the workflow ? What is HESK's natural ticket flow ?

thanks and regards, grandfso

[Klemen]

Some details are available in the introduction video at http://www.hesk.com

But basically what happens is:

1. customer has a problem

2. (optional) customer can search for a solution in the built-in knowledgebase

3. customer submits a support ticket (question/problem). Based on problem subject/description, HESK will suggest a solution from the knowledgebase (if any matches found).

4. ticket can be automatically assigned to a random staff member with access to the ticket category, or submitted as "unassigned". Staff members are notified of a new ticket via email (if ticket is assigned automatically, just the assigned member is notified).

5. staff opens the ticket in admin interface, sees all the details and can respond to the customer.

6. tickets can be replied to (by staff or customer) and ticket details may be modified (status, urgency, notes, assigned member ...). When replied, HESK notifies the other party of a new reply over email.

7. when the problem is taken care of, ticket status is set to "Resolved". It is hidden from the list of open tickets, but remains in the database and can be looked up in the future for reference.

[grandfso]

Hi Klemen, thank you for your response. I would like to first say thanks for this great script. I've tried several others already and I like HESK the most. It's very clean and lean. I am now implementing a HESK for testing in live enviroment.

I would like to ask some other questions though. I read readme.html and searched the knowledge base but some questions remain unanswered.

I have a slightly different process that involves first line of support. Not sure what the best approach on configuration is.
There's a support mailbox that receives questions from another webapp. This webapp uses tracking code in email's subject to record repliets to appropriate questions.
Q: Is this safe for HESK ? (my tracking code is structured differently)
The important fact is, that every question raised via webapp comes from the same email address. I have set up pop3 fetching and it's working fine.

2. Every question that comes in is assigned to first line support agent who is answering the questions where he can or forwards the issue to relevant department. In HESK I've used the 'general' group for that purpose.
Q: In every department I would like to have a accounts for deparment members (I don't have dedicated support teams so I want anyone in the department to have the ability to view and respond to tickets - whenever they can).

Q: I would like to use auto-assign but I cannot know which support agent will be attending the department's ticket queue. Does this mean I should use generic account for deparments, so all users can use one account or it is possible to configure HESK to assign the ticket to the deartment and not individual members?

3. My webapp is a 1-to-1 messanger meaning that every question raised from the webapp can receive 1 response. Once response has been received the webapp 'closes' the question. This means, that I need every question from the webapp create new ticket.
Q: How do I disable some of the email messages, so that I only send back the real response to the question ? e.g. disable the 'your ticked has been recorded' message and others?

Q: I would also like to remove the part of the message $hesklang['EMAIL_HR']='------ Reply above this line ------'; because there will be no responses from the web-app, only new tickets.

Q: Is there a way to set up the signature for all accounts at once? I assume I will change it quite often so it'd be good to be able to change it for all members in a department for example.

Q: Since I'm not using the 'customer self-service portal' I would like to use KB for agents. Would it be possible to list applicable KB articles in the admin_ticket.php above the 'reply to ticket' section, based on the subject ?

I am sorry for this large set of questions, but I would appreciate if you woul'd be so kind and provide some guidance. Cheers!


thanks and regards, grandfso

[Klemen]

1. If it work, it works The only problem I see if all emails come from the same address is that customers will not receive responses, all email notifications will go to the originating email address ("From:" in the email headers).

2. What I would do is keep user accounts (not generic department account) and disable "Auto-assign tickets" so everyone is notified when a ticket is submitted and the first staff member at the screen may assign any ticket to himself/herself.

The second line of support could be configured using private (non-public) categories - customer tickets would go to public categories and staff could move a problematic ticket to a private category where second line of support staff has access to.

3. The initial email can be disabled like this. Other emails can be disabled by deleting appropriate function calls in other files.

4. Disable the "Strip quoted reply" function (admin panel > Settings > Email tab > Other > Strip quoted reply) to not use the $hesklang['EMAIL_HR'] line.

5. Unfortunately no, signatures need to be edited per account (unless you manually modify the database using a tool such as phpMyAdmin or similar).

6. Possible yes, but unfortunately such modifications are out of the scope of my support. You would have to modify HESK yourself or hire a PHP developer to help with modifications.


All in all, keep in mind that HESK was designed to be SIMPLE above all, so it may not be best suited for more complex support flow organization.

[grandfso]

hi Klemen,
First of all, I need to say I am blown away by the quality of the support here. Any other software and I would need to pay for such support. You are good man!

After reading your responses I am quite confident that I don't need anything more complex. I will implement the changes and let you know

Again, many thanks for the outstanding advice!

thanks and regards, grandfso

[grandfso]

Could you list the names of the outgoing email functions with short description? This would be useful for customising what emails are sent to the customers.

Having such list in your KB would enable me to use 'search in multiple files' in notepad++ to locate them and comment them out

EDIT:

4. Disable the "Strip quoted reply" function (admin panel > Settings > Email tab > Other > Strip quoted reply) to not use the $hesklang['EMAIL_HR'] line.

Disabling this also removes the functionality that strips unnecessary message content making the correspondence cluttered.
I am wondering If I change the language string from '---- reply above this line ----' to something more transparent like '------', would this be picked up by the strip quoted reply function ?

thanks and regards, grandfso