Metro Help Desk Support Tickets

Metro Help Desk

Created: 10/23/2012
latest Update: 12/12/2012
By: Factory Soft
Email: admin@factorysoft.org

Thank you for purchasing our product. If you have any questions that are beyond the scope of this help file, please go to our support forums in http://www.factorysoft.org. Thanks for purchasing!

Introduction

A help desk ticketing system will allow you to provide prompt and efficient support to your clients.

Metro Help Desk comes by default with an integrated FAQ and manuals systems, thus allowing staff members to decrease response time and improve efficiency.

METRO UI and Bootstrap

Web based

Work from anywhere, whether you are at your desk, on the road, or working from home, our trouble ticket software has the tools you need to access your customer service database. All of Metro Help Desk features can be accessed though a web browser on virtually any operating system.

Multi language (All words and phrases can be translated or modified using a web interface)

Support via our forums with guaranteed response in less than 12 hours (usually within 1 hour).

Option to run with SSL

Integrated FAQ and Manuals

The FAQ is a storage place for articles -for example, frequently asked questions-.

The advantage of using the FAQ is that it's easy to reach and search when using the system.

There's also a search box available when you reply to a ticket, so that you can quickly select a message that's already in the FAQ or manuals.

Email Piping (convert emails into tickets)

Allows you to automatically route all incoming emails into the ticket desk supporting both new emails and replies.

Ticket monitoring with centralized panel

Customers and operators are always able to see ticket status and ticket owner info.

Custom email messages

Every message that Metro Help Desk sends can be customized using a WYSIWYG editor -you don't have to edit any files or hack any code, it's as simple as editing an article-.

Priorities and statuses

Metro Help Desk uses 3 types of priorities (low, normal, high) as well as 5 types of statuses (new, pending, answered (by the staff), customer reply, closed).

Unlimited operators

Create as many operator logins as your business needs.

Support Departments

Allow you to route tickets to the appropriate department.

Internal notes can be set for each ticket -customers will not see them, only staff members will-.

File attachments

Each message may include a file attachment. Are supported by the ticket system to allow receiving of files from clients.

Predefined answers

Allows organizing answers and quick access to common answers.

Email based submission

Allows submitting new tickets and follow-up messages via email. Both customers and operators may use email.

Access code (captcha)

To prevent ticket submissions by spambots.

Contact Form

That gives you a quick and simple way to have potential clients get in touch with you.

Announcements

Is a blog like news system allowing you to post your latest news and updates.

Downloads System

Allows you to make files available, with support for client only restricted access, and tracking of downloads.

Free upgrade.

Requeriments

PHP 5.3.x
A MySQL database

Installation

Download Metro Help Desk from http://codecanyon.net/
Unzip the file helpdesk.zip
Upload all the files and directories of helpdesk to your server
From the hosting control panel create a new database
Rename the file config_dist.php to config.php
From the browser, run the installation script adding /install to the URL where you installed Metro Help Desk (www.yourdomain.com/helpdesk/install)
To access the admin panel for the first time go the url you installed it, for example http://yourdomain.com/helpdesk.
The user is admin and the password is admin

Update

Download Metro Help Desk from http://codecanyon.net/
Unzip the file helpdesk.zip
Upload all the files and directories of helpdesk to your server
From the browser, run the installation script adding /install to the URL where you installed Metro Help Desk (www.yourdomain.com/helpdesk/install)
Delete the folder install

General settings

The options for setup are in the menu Settings

Language and theme

Change logo and images (Config > Preferences > Logo & images)

LOGO: Is your company logo, to be shown on the left side of the header.

LOGO IN EMAILS: It is the logo that appears in the header of the emails sent by the system.

Change date format (Config > Preferences > date format)

Email for administration (Config > Preferences > Emails)

EMAIL FROM: Mail account from where administrative emails are sent (welcome message, password recovery, etc). This email must be different from those assigned to support departments.

SEND EMAILS TO THE QUEUE: If checked, all emails sent by the system will be in a queue and then be sent by groups of certain amount. This is useful when hosting companies impose an sending limit per hour.

Miscellaneous (Config > Preferences > Miscellaneous)

CODE FOR CENTRALIZED PANEL OF TICKETS: To prevent anyone with access to centralized ticketing panel, should be set here a code that will be used as parameter of entry into the tickets panel.

LINES PER PAGE: Specify the number of lines per page to display in the listings of the system.

ALLOW SIGNUP: If you uncheck this option does not show the link to sign up neither allow the registration of new customers in the system.

DEFAULT COUNTRY: Select the default country in the list of countries shown in the customer registration form.

LENGTH OF PASSWORDS: Is the length of passwords generated by the system.

CHARACTERS ALOWED FOR PASSWORDS: Type the characters allowed in passwords. By default is omitted to avoid confusion similar characters, like the letter O and zero, the letter l and 1, and all the vocals to avoid formation of any unwanted word.

USE CAPTCHA FOR REGISTERED USERS: Check this option if you want to display a captcha in forms that are presented to customers who have entered the system with your username and password.

USE CAPTCHA FOR UNREGISTERED USERS: Check this option if you want to display a captcha in forms that are presented to visitors (persons who have NOT logged into the system.)

ATTEMPTS LOGIN: Specify the maximum number of consecutive failed attempts to enter the system. Also set the number of seconds that must wait after overcoming the maximum number of attempts to re-enter.

GOOGLE ANALYTICS ID: Enter the ID number for Google Analytics (example: UA-1111111-1)

How To

ADD NEW CLIENT

ENABLE AND DISABLE MODULES

CREATE SUPPORT DEPARTMENTS

ADD CANNED RESPONSES

EMAIL TEMPLATES FOR TICKETS

TICKETS OPTIONS

TRANSLATE METRO HELP DESK (Config > Languages)

All words and phrases can be translated or modified using a web interface

Email piping

Extract emails using POP3/IMAP

If you want the ticket system to automatically extract emails that arrive at the email account of departments, you must specify data access to your e-mail account. (Go to Support > Departments).

For the majority of mail accounts, the following settings will be correct:

Server: mail.yourdomain.com

Port: 110

User: user@yourdomain.com

Password: the password for the email account.

If you want to extract data from a Gmail account, the settings should be:

Server: imap.gmail.com

Port: 993

User: user@gmail.com

Password: the password for the email account.

If you want to extract data from a Google Apps email account, the settings should be:

Server: imap.gmail.com

Port: 993

User: user@yourdomain.com

Password: the password for the email account.

Finally, so that Metro Help Desk will collect emails, must open the tickets panel from the main page of the administrator and select extract emails using POP3. The check interval is set in Support > Options (for 1 minute type 60, for 5 minutes enter 300, for 10 minutes type 600).

Another option is create a cron job to execute http://www.yourdomain/heldesk/scan4tickets.php every certain time (for example, every 5 minutes).

Do not enable both options, if you are using the cronjob keep disabled the option to extract emails using POP3 in the panel of tickets.

About tickets

Displaying the list of tickets on the main admin page

Displaying the list of tickets on the centralized tickets panel

The centralized panel shows all new tickets (in red), pending tickets (in yellow) and answered by the client (in orange).

You can place on your office a PC with a monitor that continuously displays the centralized panel of tickets.

At the same time, each operator in his respective PC may be answering your tickets.

The control panel capture the tickets sent through the system and through emails sent to each department.

URL to open the centralized panel: http://yourdomain.com/helpdesk/tickets_panel.php?c=739199938 (change this number in Config > Preferences > Miscellaneous)