There are several ways for Users to interact with your helpdesk. Decide which of these you want to set up; you can use one or more.

Email on Cloud

Your Deskpro Cloud helpdesk already has an email account where Users can submit Tickets. By default, it’s an address like contact@yourhelpdesk.deskpro.com (yourhelpdesk  will be the subdomain that you chose when the helpdesk was set up).

1. Go to Admin > Tickets > Email Accounts to see the details. You can change the contact@ part of the address, and add more accounts.
2. Each email account is linked to a Department. All the Tickets created from emails to an account will be assigned to the linked Department. For example, you can have a sales@ address linked to your Sales Department.
3. If you want to use a custom email address like contact@yourdomain.com instead of the default deskpro.com addresses, select Use a custom email address and enter the address you that want, then follow the instructions to redirect email to the default address. You will also need to make some DNS changes to avoid Tickets being marked as spam.
4. Send a test email to your accounts (from an email address that’s not linked to an Agent account), then go to the Agent interface to see the Ticket.

Email on On-Premise

On a On-Premise helpdesk, you should connect your support email accounts to the helpdesk.

1. Go to Admin > Tickets > Email Accounts to set up accounts. See Adding ticket email accounts for details.
2. Each email account is linked to a Department. All the Tickets created from emails to an account will be assigned to the linked Department.
3. Send a test email to your accounts (from an email address that’s not linked to an agent account), then go to the Agent interface to see the Ticket.

Web portal

The Web Portal for your Users is at http://yourhelpdesk.deskpro.com (where yourhelpdesk part is the subdomain that you chose when the helpdesk was set up).

The portal hosts information and downloads for your Users. Users can submit Tickets and log in to track them. You can brand it with your colors and logo.

1. Go to Admin > User Interface > Portal Editor in the Admin interface to customize the PPortal. Just put your mouse over the part of the Portal you want to change.
2. Edit the Welcome section with a message to your Users.
3. You may wish to edit the default “Support Center” title, add your logo or company name, change the Portal colors, etc.
4. You or your Agents should write some Knowledgebase articles. These are created and managed in the Publish app in the Agent interface. A good Knowledgebase article answers a frequently-asked question, or explains how to resolve a common problem.
5. On Cloud, if you want the Portal to appear at a custom web address likehttp://support.yourcompany.com, go to Admin > Setup > Settings. You’ll need to be able to edit the DNS records for your domain.

For a full guide to the Portal, see the  Help Center chapter.

You don’t need to use the Portal at all. If you don’t want it, see the section on  Running an email-only helpdesk.

Embedded in your site

Embed forms and Widgets if you want Users to access helpdesk features from your own website.

You can enable Users to submit Tickets from a form on your website, or access Portal functions from a Feedback and Support tab.

You can also embed the real-time chat system into your site.

The embeds use simple JavaScript, so they will work on almost any type of site.

1. View the embeds under Admin > User Interface > Site Widget & Chat & Ticket Form Widget.
2. Insert the Javascript code snippets provided onto the pages where you want the embeds to appear. You may need to consult the person who maintains your site on how to do this.

For full details about how to embed Portal functionality into your website, see the  Website Embeds section.