March 2011 - Helpdesk Pilot Blog - Product news and updates, tips & announcements

Give your end users and customers a look at Helpdesk Pilot too!

by Swarna Rethas — 29 Mar 11

Now, your end users, clients, customers (as the case may be) can have their own login to the end user panel in Helpdesk Pilot.

This panel is accessible on your trial at http://[your trial account name].helpdeskpilot.net, while the staff panel can be accessed at http://[your trial account name].helpdeskpilot.net/staff.

What you should know about the End User Panel:

* When an end user creates a ticket via any of the following modes:

-email
-end user panel submit new ticket form
-embeddable web form

or when a ticket is created on behalf of your end user, from the new ticket page on the staff panel, the end user will receive a notification (Contact Account invite). The end user merely needs to click on the activation link in this notification to activate their account and set the password.

* End users may begin the whole process by also registering themselves first

* First time users to your helpdesk can go ahead and create a ticket first, in turn registering themselves

* The contents of this email and when this should be sent can be controlled under the Manage >> Notifications section on the admin panel.

* Once the activation is done, your end users can login to the end user panel and view the tickets that have been raised by them in the past.

* End users can see all their tickets in their current status, in the same conversation view as in the staff panel

* Status filters are available for customers too

* They can reply to the ticket from the Ticket detail page

* New tickets can be created from the New ticket form, by clicking on the New ticket tab

* All ticket specific custom fields (that were filled by them, while raising a ticket via any of the forms) will be visible on the Ticket detail page

* All contact specific custom fields, can be viewed and edited on their individual My Settings page

* End user panel supports LDAP mode login too! Helpdesk Pilot currently supports Active directory and Open LDAP

* End users can change their email ID, password, localization settings (timezone) in the My Settings page

What’s coming:

More controls and features on the customer panel
Admin section to manage all end users
A fully functional Knowledge Base module, which works closely with the end user panel, and more!

Looking forward? Absolutely. We are too.

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The simplest way to convey the Helpdesk Pilot experience

by Vikram Bhaskar — 24 Mar 11

In addition to all the product information that’s available on our website, the full-featured trial that we offer is aimed at offering prospective customer’s a hands on feel of Helpdesk Pilot.

Typically, a successful evaluation by a trial user is followed by an internal presentation within their company, where senior management are introduced to the product and its capabilities. In most cases, the management team are faced with time constraints and would ideally prefer to have the key points made aware to them, rather than a complete product review.

We’ve recently noticed that our stop motion video has done extremely well as the opening video in client presentations. A number of trial users have successfully used the video to introduce Helpdesk Pilot to their management team and cover the key functionalities. In less than 3 minutes, the entire Helpdesk Pilot experience can be conveyed in a simple yet creative manner.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-JG4Qa5x2g?wmode=transparent]

So if you have an upcoming Helpdesk Pilot presentation planned, do consider using the video as an aid.

If you need any other collateral (such as brochures, case studies or technical information) that you feel would strengthen your presentation, please let us know. We’d be glad to assist in any way that we can.

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Tip of the week: Re-open closed tickets

by Swarna Rethas — 17 Mar 11

Existing users of Helpdesk Pilot may be aware of a setting in the older versions, which allowed you to set whether a closed ticket should be re-opened, when a customer replies to it. This was particularly useful, not to lose track of closed tickets, especially if the option to hide closed tickets in the ‘All’ view was enabled.

On the other hand, you might not have always wanted to re-open closed tickets. Consider a situation where your staff closes a ticket after responding to the customer with a resolution. The customer then replies with a Thank you message, thus re-opening the ticket.

In V5, Helpdesk Pilot does not have both of these options(yet). However, with the all powerful Smart Rules you can have the setting to re-open closed tickets on customer reply simulated.

Go ahead and set a rule with the conditions,

If Status is Closed and If Time since unresponded customer reply is 1 minute (the least interval possible), then, Set Status to Open (as shown in the screenshot below)

This will ensure that tickets which have been closed, reopen after a minute of a customer’s reply.

What other Smart rules do you use? Let us know.

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Coming soon : New features and improvements

by Vikram Bhaskar — 10 Mar 11

Our latest release of Helpdesk Pilot, Version 5.0 is a thoroughly revamped upgrade of the outgoing 4.4.5 release but will retain a number of core features that have existed in previous releases.

These core features are currently being updated and enhanced to offer more benefits to Helpdesk Pilot users, and will be integrated as standard features. Here’s a brief on the features that will be coming soon to Helpdesk Pilot V5:

1. Self-service End User Panel with built-in Knowledge Base

Currently, an embeddable request submission form is provided with V5, allowing you to embed a form on your website so that end users may submit web based requests.

The self-service end user panel will go a few steps further in offering your end users their own ticket management interface. Through this web based interface, end users can:

log in to their individual end user accounts
submit new requests to the help desk
view requests that they have submitted in the past
view responses from your help desk staff

With the integration of a Knowledge Base, you can create articles and categorize them into specific online reference areas, that are accessible via the end user panel. End users can then look through your Knowledge Base articles and find answers to frequently asked questions (FAQs), doing away with the need to raise a request on the help desk.

2. Advanced search options

The built in search engine will be significantly enhanced and allow you to quickly find the information you’re looking for, by offering advanced options to search by, inclluding:

Ticket ID
End User or Customer
Contact Information
Ticket subject
Ticket content
Tickets assigned to a specific staff member
Tag
Custom Field content

3. SLA Management

Meeting SLA targets is a key requirement for most businesses nowadays, and with this updated feature, you will be able to define individual SLA targets (for each of your categories or for an end user group). With escalation notifications that can be automated (using the already available smart rules feature), you can then ensure that your help desk staff is actively informed when a ticket threatens to breach an SLA target. Reporting on SLA targets will also be integrated with the reporting module, allowing you to measure SLA metrics across the help desk over desired date ranges.

4. Multi-lingual user interface

The outgoing release (V4.4.5) supported 15 international languages, allowing help desk staff and end users to select their preferred language within their staff and end user interfaces, respectively.

Language packs are currently being developed to offer the same level of language support on V5. Therefore, Helpdesk Pilot will continue to remain a help desk product that can be deployed for international use, with language specific user interfaces.

Many of our current Helpdesk Pilot users are assisting us with the language translation packs and we welcome support from other users, to add more international language support. All these languages will be available for selection in Helpdesk Pilot, so the more languages we integrate, the more flexibility we can provide to you and your end users. If you would like to contribute to providing a language translation, please let us know.

These enhancements are being integrated into Helpdesk Pilot as standard feature offerings and will be offered as free updates to existing V5 users, by the end of April.

We’ll keep you updated via the blog, as these enhancements take shape.

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Tip of the week – The Message snippet

by Swarna Rethas — 10 Mar 11

Oh well, guess I missed a week in between and a tip in between. Will make up for it in the coming days, I say!

So, when an email comes into your help desk installation, the ticket appears along with the Ticket ID, Subject, the default status in your installation and the time stamp on the right (mouse over the Last updated area to get the exact timestamp!). A snippet of the body of the message is also shown below the subject.

The one new improvement in this feature from all older versions is that, the latest client reply is now shown in this message snippet instead of the original message always being shown there. So, imagine getting a short response from your client, and viewing the full message right on the Tickets View page. We believe this helps in reducing the time your staff spend viewing ticket updates and can sometimes even use the Quick reply feature to update the client right there. Like this,

Useful? Leave us a comment.

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Helpdesk Pilot at CeBIT, Day 5 – Pictures

by Vikram Bhaskar — 09 Mar 11

After months of preparation, working towards the release of V5 and our planned launch at CeBIT, the last few hours of our CeBIT 2011 experience were upon us.

CeBIT’s annual schedule is designed in such a way that day 5 always falls on a Saturday, to ensure that the general public gets a chance to visit and savour the immense tech-based products and services being exhibited. We were pleased to have a number of university students requesting for more information on Helpdesk Pilot, in a means to stay updated on growing trends in the software market.

Towards the latter half of the day, there was clearly a more relaxed atmosphere across the hall as we and other exhibitors began to unwind and network with each other. We had Google Enterprise located right behind our stand, the folks from Shopware opposite us and the lovely ladies from Hermes right across the aisle from us.

In our 5 days at CeBIT 2011, we made some new friends, met a number of old friends and hopefully made a positive enough impact to drive further interest in Helpdesk Pilot. A truly worthwhile experience and we’re already looking ahead to CeBIT 2012!

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Helpdesk Pilot at CeBIT, Day 4 – Pictures

by Vikram Bhaskar — 09 Mar 11

Another fruitful day spent interacting with visitors, many of whom were representatives of businesses involved in providing IT services across the European region. Discussions after our demos took on a more technical theme and it was good to receive positive feedback on Helpdesk Pilot’s revamped architecture, including the technology on which the application is built.

We’ll be explaining more about the new architecture in a separate post, so do keep an eye out for that.

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Helpdesk Pilot at CeBIT, Day 3 – Pictures

by Vikram Bhaskar — 09 Mar 11

Our friends at Brand New have really done a great job in producing our first ever stop motion video, which portrays the concept of help desk management in a visually appealing manner.

Many businesses today just aren’t aware of the manner in which their incoming requests can be handled and so the need for a help desk management software may not be immediately apparent to them. We noticed that a number of visitors approached us right after they had viewed the “Helpdesk Pilot experience video”, requesting for a demo on how exactly requests can be managed more efficiently.

We were elated when we met representatives of a German movie production company, who spent time outside our stand viewing the video with a smile on their faces. They may not be in the market for a help desk right now, but as a result of the video, they certainly know how a help desk can contribute to their business needs!

If you haven’t seen the video yet, check it out here!

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Helpdesk Pilot @ CeBIT, Day 2 – Pictures

by Vikram Bhaskar — 09 Mar 11

Hannover’s winter temperature dropped by a degree or two on Day 2 (March 2nd), which made for a rather chilly experience during our early morning walk from the Messe Noord tram station to Hall 6.

Our day started off with visits from existing Helpdesk Pilot customers in Germany and it was a pleasure to be able to personally meet and interact. As the day progressed, we got busier with product demos and it was late in the afternoon when we realized we had skipped lunch. Following a short trip around the hall to evaluate available options we found an ice cream stall with a truly delightful dark chocolate offering. A blissfully rewarding meal indeed.

The stream of visitors certainly picked up on day 2 and it was evident that every exhibitor was kept busy. CeBIT attracts a global audience and we had visitors coming in from as far as North America, the Middle East as well as countries in Northern & Central Africa.

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Helpdesk Pilot @ CeBIT – Day 1, Pictures

by Shalin Jain — 02 Mar 11

Our first day at CeBIT 2011 got off to a great start.

Visitors to CeBIT began trickling in after 10:00am and from that point on, there was a significant amount of activity within Hall 6. Our new stop motion video, with voice overs in both English & German has been playing non-stop on 2 plasma screens at either side of our stand.

We’re quite happy at the manner in which groups of visitors have been drawn in by the theme of the video, which does well to highlight the core functionalities of Helpdesk Pilot.
One-on-one demos were provided to visitors, many of whom were being introduced to the concept of help desk management for the first time. Regardless of the type of business, every company has an inherent need to manage incoming requests more efficiently and the presence of a help desk solution caters to a number of important needs.

Day 1 at CeBIT 2011 was rewarding and we’re eagerly looking forward to Day 2! Have a look at some of the photos taken on Day 1.