Have you visited our portal at support.deskpro.com recently? If so, you'll have noticed that it has a shiny, modern new look.

That's because we've updated it to the new DeskPRO portal system. It's not just a cosmetic update; the new portal has lots of new features and improvements which our developers have worked hard to build, based on your feedback and suggestions.

Of course, we're not going to keep this update to ourselves for long. Soon, you're going to be able to use the new portal system on your own helpdesk. 

Let's go through the many benefits of the new portal.

Responsive design looks great on all devices

The old portal didn't always look great on smaller screens, like smartphones. We've redesigned the new portal from the ground up to use responsive design: in other words, the layout will change to fit whatever device you're viewing it on, whether that's a phone, a tablet, a small laptop or a giant monitor.

More informative ticket view for users

Not only does the new portal look better, but it's designed to deliver a better experience for your users. 

Here's an example: now, when a user logs in, they will be notified of any new agent replies at the top of the portal.

The list of all a user's tickets also indicates more clearly when a ticket needs a response, as well as providing a lot more information about each ticket at a glance. 

The view of an individual ticket has also been greatly improved. Now the user can change who is CC'd in to a ticket after it has been created.

More useful portal search

In the old portal, when you searched the portal as a user, the results included all types of portal content mixed together: News posts, Knowledgebase articles, Feedback items, and so on.

If your search term just happened to match a lot of News posts, they would dominate the search results - even if what you were looking for was a Knowledgebase article.

Now with the new system, different types of portal content are shown in separate sections, so it's easy to find the type of content you need.

You'll notice that search now includes the user's own tickets.

Easier, more powerful portal editor

We've redesigned the portal editor to give you finer control of exactly how your portal looks. Now you can edit details like font size and element positioning without needing to be a web designer, so it's easier to style your portal to fit with the rest of your brand.

We've moved the controls to turn sections of the portal on and off to a separate page, outside of the portal editor.

If you're taking advantage of DeskPRO's usergroup system to present different portal content to different users, you'll find you can easily preview what the portal will look like to any group.

If you do need to customise the portal at a deeper level, you still have the option to edit the portal templates. You'll find the new template system simpler and easier to understand, and the editing experience has been greatly improved with the addition of color syntax highlighting and auto-complete.

More abuse prevention options

Are wild spam robots submitting junk tickets and comments into your portal, wasting your time? The old portal had a bunch of options to prevent this with "enter these letters" CAPTCHA tests and rate limits. In the new system, you'll find we've put all the settings about this together in one convenient location. 

We've also added the option to use Google's reCAPTCHA system, which can verify most humans without even needing them to complete a CAPTCHA challenge at all.

Improved ticket form

Submitting a new ticket from the portal is greatly improved.

All the input is stored as you type - just like in the agent interface - so if a user's browser crashes or they accidentally close the tab, they can continue right where they left off.

Users can drag and drop attachments to add them to a ticket, and even paste images straight into the ticket message - just like your agents can.

Better news for everyone

We've added the ability to provide translations for News posts, as you can for other portal content. Users can request email notifications when you publish posts, alongside the existing RSS feed option.

More engaging chat 

By popular demand, we've added a great new "pro-active" chat feature which allows you to offer a greeting to your users or ask them a question, before they initiate a conversation with you.

This is a great way to make your customers who are looking for support feel that you're eager to help!

While we were improving chat, we also added an easy-to-use editor which allows you to customise how the chat widget looks and behaves. You can change the size and wording of the chat button, use custom colors, change the position and size of the chat window, and more.

Over to you

If you want to get a feel for how the new portal is better, please check out support.deskpro.com. If you spot any glitches, or have any questions about how the new portal will work on your helpdesk, email us right away at support@deskpro.com.

We are pleased to announce a new release of the DeskPRO helpdesk platform, build #441.

The following is an automatically generated list of changes in this release:

• FIX show number of currently used agents on license page
• FIX undefined property error
• FIX do not resize inline attachments
• FIX type in usersource name
• FIX deskpro url scheme
• FIX disable draft snippets shortcodes
• FIX handle offline status by ajax on Agent
• FIX IE11 Edit Department page on Admin
• FIX adding ticket billing charge when both a timelog and a billing are enabled
• FIX "mailto:" links were displayed wrong
• FIX linked chat not being shown on ticket view
• FIX password policy validation
• FIX locked ticket notification and proper timezone on ticket list dates
• FIX cleanup agent chat perms in session
• FIX org criteria of Filters, Triggers and SLAs
• FIX non-destructive perms display
• FIX cogwheel and "ordered by" when browsing People and Organizations in Agent > CRM
• FIX using 3 dots in custom translation phrases
• FIX user facing title of departments on portal
• FIX reply box becomes empty after inserting snippet and updating any ticket property
• FIX Adding an organization to a custom filter from the admin interface
• FIX Adding an organization to a custom filter from the admin interface
• FIX Always default agent to "Me"

We will begin rolling out this update to the cloud soon. This post will be updated once all cloud sites have been updated.

If you are using DeskPRO download, you can update your installation from the admin interface.

We are pleased to announce a new release of the DeskPRO helpdesk platform, build #440.

The following is an automatically generated list of changes in this release:

• FIX Hidden radio buttons could cause some specific versions of Chrome to fail to submit newticket forms

This update has been rolled out to Cloud helpdesks.

If you are using DeskPRO On-Premise, you can update your installation from the admin interface.

We are pleased to announce a new release of the DeskPRO helpdesk platform, build #439.

The following is an automatically generated list of changes in this release:

• FIX Email processing: Fix edge case where system might reject a very long or very complex HTML email as 'empty'
• FIX Agent: Ticket tabs being highlighted by result of your own actions
• FIX Agent: Drafts sometimes being kept even after your reply was sent

This update has been rolled out to Cloud helpdesks.

If you are using DeskPRO On-Premise, you can update your installation from the admin interface.

We are pleased to announce a new release of the DeskPRO helpdesk platform, build #438.

The following is an automatically generated list of changes in this release:

• IMPROVEMENT agent notes now labelled with NOTE
• IMPROVEMENT Added "not set" option to ticket search form for choice fields
• CHANGE Portal: Add ticket ID/ref to tickets that appear in search results
• FIX Some searches on some types of people/org fields
• FIX unsetting multilevel choices
• FIX hide options on ticket search when "is not set" is selected
• FIX Entities in titles of custom choice fields would not render properly in select2 fields
• FIX Admin: Creating a sub-department did not move tickets from the (now invalid) parent department into the new one
• FIX Agent: Layouts with fields showing even with no value would make the field show in edit mode as well, even if the option to allow editing was not enabled
• FIX Agent: Limiting 'assign' permission did not always apply to assignment in replybox
• FIX tasks due date translations
• FIX password policy on reset password
• FIX API: Update person via API didnt let you set first_name/last_name separately
• FIX trailing whitespace after password in emails
• FIX phone numbers API POST
• FIX agent fields layout
• FIX yellow flag
• FIX deleting kb labels from admin
• FIX password policy translations
• FIX allow fullscreen attrs for vimeo iframe in editor
• FIX display custom choices value in macro
• FIX radio inputs collisions on multiple tabs
• FIX doubled delimiters of custom field regex
• FIX prevent password policy validation when DeskPRO usersource is disabled
• FIX higher priority for id and ref field on ES
• FIX Admin: (Triggers) Using "Set subject" trigger with adv formatting would cause the subject to be encoded if any special characters were present
• FIX Admin: (Trigger editor) Missing operators for custom fields, such as 'contains'
• FIX invalid phone numbers API routes
• FIX php error on non-established chat session
• FIX Custom field values being rendered raw in ticketlog
• FIX Custom textarea field content being rendered as html
• FIX org route on tickets list (table view)
• FIX org route on tickets list
• FIX elasticsearch index status
• FIX lower API perms requirements for common custom fields
• FIX typo in phone numbers API routes
• FIX custom person fields was not saved for new person on new ticket
• FIX Admin: Custom field rule type 'all' did not apply properly
• FIX API: Setting empty name/firstname/lastname did not save

This update has been rolled out to Cloud helpdesks.

If you are using DeskPRO On-Premise, you can update your installation from the admin interface.

We are pleased to announce a new release of the DeskPRO helpdesk platform, build #437.

The following is an automatically generated list of changes in this release:

• FIX Custom field values being rendered raw in ticketlog
• FIX Custom textarea field content being rendered as html

This update has been rolled out to Cloud helpdesks.

If you are using DeskPRO On-Premise, you can update your installation from the admin interface.

We are pleased to announce a new release of the DeskPRO helpdesk platform, build #436.

The following is an automatically generated list of changes in this release:

• FIX Fix issue with ElasticSearch page in admin not loading
• FIX API custom fields payload fix
• FIX merge ticket search problem fix
• FIX Fix custom person/org field display not displayed on new ticket form

We will begin rolling out this update to the Cloud soon. This post will be updated once all Cloud sites have been updated.

If you are using DeskPRO On-Premise, you can update your installation from the admin interface.

We are pleased to announce a new release of the DeskPRO helpdesk platform, build #435.

The following is an automatically generated list of changes in this release:

• FIX Agent: Creating new ticket would re-open another newticket form
• FIX Agent: New ticket by new user might cause two new tickets being created (where the first one looked like nothing happened)

We will begin rolling out this update to the Cloud soon. This post will be updated once all Cloud sites have been updated.

If you are using DeskPRO On-Premise, you can update your installation from the admin interface.

We are pleased to announce a new release of the DeskPRO helpdesk platform, build #434.

The following is an automatically generated list of changes in this release:

• FIX Agent: (Regression) Custom fields with agent validation were always showing error message, even when validation should be satisfied.
• FIX Layout field custom criteria
• FIX Disable inline login form when DeskPRO usersource is disabled

We will begin rolling out this update to the Cloud soon. This post will be updated once all Cloud sites have been updated.

If you are using DeskPRO On-Premise, you can update your installation from the admin interface.

We are pleased to announce a new release of the DeskPRO helpdesk platform, build #433.

The following is an automatically generated list of changes in this release:

• NEW New agent reply codes: #urgency 123, #follow john, #unfollow jane
• NEW Phone numbers API
• IMPROVEMENT Added new admin ticket setting to disable drafts on newticket
• IMPROVEMENT link ticket in task trigger action
• IMPROVEMENT "Toggle All" for department permissions in Admin
• IMPROVEMENT SMS actions for Escalations and SLAs
• FIX API: The direct_login_url returned from people/id/login-token was incorrect
• FIX Agent ticket view: Going from field edit move back to view, some fields might remain hidden even if they should be visible (until the tab was reloaded)
• FIX Default satisfaction escalation never matched any tickets
• FIX Reports: On dashboard, if you grouped by a custom field and then deleted the field, you would get errors
• FIX Merge menu did not list users other tickets
• FIX Merge menu did not list users other tickets
• FIX Disabling archive did not update existing tickets properly
• FIX ticket fields layout visibility
• FIX list display options are mixed from different lists
• FIX kb and news article datetimepickers
• FIX some agent auth usersource settings were not showing the filter textbox
• FIX ticket counters on Portal
• FIX force showing scrollbars on ticket fields
• FIX assigned agent team action
• FIX Edge-case where email attachments in emails might appear as 'filename.bin'
• FIX sticky search by phrase
• FIX ticket SLA notification message
• FIX open publish links in new tab
• FIX keyboard shortcuts for tickets list
• FIX datetime widget positioning on ticket props
• FIX report builder
• FIX don't allow to select the same ticket for a merge
• FIX check per org field trigger when ticket submitted via portal
• FIX userchat show PM at 12 after noon
• FIX show alert when there is no perm to create new person with new ticket
• FIX save the state of ticket charge checkbox before update
• FIX allow to unset ticket flag by trigger
• FIX userchat snippets
• FIX more operators for custom fields trigger criteria
• FIX scrollable charges table
• FIX elastic user search by ticket id/ref
• FIX usersearch by ticket ID and Ref
• FIX "discard draft" button font
• FIX reset draft to default values
• FIX usersearch js error
• FIX Add first_name/last_name params to POST /people api
• FIX don't show monetary charges with time ones
• FIX don't allow to remove the user's only email
• FIX reminder email subject
• FIX update escalation date_created when "enable" is toggled
• FIX allow admins to delete Publish drafts
• FIX Login from chat widget frame
• FIX force update ticket messages for self when a reply/note added via email
• FIX API: Ticket search on multiple custom choice values didnt work
• FIX use mysql for label search on portal
• FIX Org table references
• FIX person searchbox on newticket
• FIX allow to deselect User column on table view
• FIX mysql search indexer
• FIX default values for not visible org and person fields

This update has been rolled out to Cloud helpdesks.

If you are using DeskPRO On-Premise, you can update your installation from the admin interface.

We are pleased to announce a new release of the DeskPRO helpdesk platform, build #432.

This version includes several bugfixes.

It fixes a possible issue with data loss from organization fields.

This update has been rolled out to Cloud helpdesks.

If you are using DeskPRO On-Premise, you can update your installation from the admin interface.

We are pleased to announce a new release of the DeskPRO helpdesk platform, build #431.

The following is an automatically generated list of changes in this release:

• NEW Can arrange organizations into a hierarchy (each org can have children orgs)
• IMPROVEMENT Better fwd parser for some cases where clients send badly formatted text parts but well-formed html parts
• IMPROVEMENT show help about enabling satisfaction survey
• IMPROVEMENT phone number as a link
• IMPROVEMENT error message on ES 2.0
• IMPROVEMENT quick search email in UserEmail trigger criteria
• FIX Agent: entering a new email email address into user box would clear when you pressed enter
• FIX Agent group department permissions sometimes would not combine properly
• FIX ticket filters list issue in admin
• FIX API auth-login allowed for super key only
• FIX broken escalation criteria for person/org fields
• FIX SSO buttons on portal newticket
• FIX don't show people search results after pressing enter on newticket
• FIX Changing ticket owner would not update the org set on the ticket
• FIX new ticket labels by trigger
• FIX In some edge-cases, emailed agent replies might be interpreted as notes instead of replies even when the 'reply as note' admin setting was disabled
• FIX per org and per person fields criteria in new ticket triggers
• FIX Links to attachment downloads would be sent even if portal was disabled
• FIX workflows and priorities are not being converted
• FIX update filters sort order in admin
• FIX ticket problems settings
• FIX fit logo in admin
• FIX disable timelog with reply when autostart is disabled
• FIX split ticket not being shown
• FIX clear new ticket message by "discard draft"
• FIX remove hold status by any reply
• FIX set sitename as default From in user emails
• FIX ticket counters for people on Portal and Agent
• FIX dont show own tickets to org managers
• FIX sorting tickets by last reply date in person profile
• FIX delete user from ticket in validating state
• FIX run NewReply triggers on TicketReply macro action
• FIX extra height for embed form
• FIX agent validation status criteria
• FIX fallback to mysql search on ES errors
• FIX Organization duplicate on new Person
• FIX add ticket to tickets_deleted when deleted by the trigger
• FIX require superadmin key for /api/people/auth-login
• FIX user email check criteria not being saved
• FIX captcha on embedded form
• FIX Satisfaction links were requiring users to log in

This update has been rolled out to Cloud helpdesks.

If you are using DeskPRO On-Premise, you can update your installation from the admin interface.

There's nothing more annoying than losing work because your browser crashed, or, still worse, because you accidentally closed the wrong tab, so you can't even blame the browser.

We hate that too. DeskPRO already automatically saves anything you type in the ticket reply box. Now, we've eliminated another potential frustration by adding automatic saving of your work while you're creating a ticket.

It's very simple to use: if you're creating a new ticket and something happens (whether that's your browser crashing, accidentally closing the browser tab that DeskPRO's open in, or accidentally closing the ticket tab within DeskPRO), just use New Ticket and you can carry on where you left off.

If you decide that you want to abandon what you've typed and start again, you'll notice that there's a Discard Draft button that will delete the ticket contents.

We are pleased to announce a new release of the DeskPRO helpdesk platform, build #430.

The following is an automatically generated list of changes in this release:

• NEW api auth method
• IMPROVEMENT reset ticket properties saving state on server errors
• FIX store only single draft for new ticket
• FIX remove trailing slash in jira base url
• FIX custom DateTime trigger terms
• FIX tabs not updated properly after browser reload
• FIX correct organizations endpoints in API Browser
• FIX ticket layout for custom fields in pdf and print views
• FIX reverted persons_deleted from purge (should be in controller)
• FIX Error caused by custom Toggle field
• FIX add time with new reply
• FIX fallback to database search when elasticsearch failed on portal
• FIX changed translation text of search org input on NewPerson
• FIX added persons_deleted to people purger
• FIX removed reset settings feature
• FIX ticket message linkifying
• FIX NewPerson and NewOrganization labels
• FIX admin ticket filters: show person or team
• FIX custom email templates in trigger criteria
• FIX use custom address of email account as email_to var
• FIX escalation criteria for feedback_rating
• FIX show ticket hold status in ticket log
• FIX billing comment field width
• FIX associate problem on new ticket
• FIX supress an error when using macro with deleted snippet
• FIX correct ticket properties update after sending reply
• FIX signature dupes on new ticket
• FIX search words prompt on publish
• FIX per org field will not be shown on portal if there no choices defined
• FIX NewTicket draft was not initialized until person is selected. No reset by closing tab.
• FIX NewTicket draft was not initialized until person is selected. No reset by closing tab.
• FIX ticket properties were replaced by numbers sometimes
• FIX ticket search by SLA Warning status
• FIX check new person perm on new ticket
• FIX check new person perm on new ticket
• FIX check new org perm on new person
• FIX check new org perm on new person
• FIX purge demo orgs
• FIX new people and org labels suggestions
• FIX checked custom radio field in macros
• FIX custom chat fields validation
• FIX Search/escalations on custom date fields
• FIX fix possible exception during sync
• FIX create settings backup after install
• FIX create settings backup on install
• FIX registered group has access to all deps by default
• FIX Agent: Missing unassign option in ticket replybox
• FIX Agent: Unassign from within ticket view caused a JS error and did not unassign the ticket.
• FIX tabs not receiving updates after page refresh
• FIX prevent linkifying with wrong symbols at the end
• FIX linkifying in agent note
• FIX was set/was not set criteria op with custom fields
• FIX was set/was not set criteria op with custom fields
• FIX allow to save custom field criteria when touched/not touched op selected

This update has been rolled out to Cloud helpdesks.

If you are using DeskPRO On-Premise, you can update your installation from the admin interface.

A couple of weeks ago, a file leakage vulnerability was discovered by a third-party security researcher doing an internal audit.

This issue was reported privately by a responsible professional and we are confident that it was never "in the wild". We have no evidence that this bug was ever applied by a malicious user on any helpdesk.

Affected Script

The vulnerability was found in a helper script (app/sys/scripts/testfile.php) used by our automated testing framework. It was meant for use by our QA tools and served no purpose in production. This affected DeskPRO On-Premise helpdesks (not Cloud) using builds between 323 and 425.

This file and other types of internal system tools (such as diagnostic tools) are not accessible directly. They are only accessible through a specific "loader" URL. The "loader" was patched to disable access to the testfile.php script thereby fixing the vulnerability.

Timeline

• 28th Oct 2015 10:46 GMT: Issue was reported
• 28th Oct 2015 11:15 GMT: An updated distribution was released
• 28th Oct 2015 12:08 GMT: We began to send emails to on-site customers
• 30th Oct 2015 16:54 GMT: A follow-up email was sent to customers who had not upgraded yet
• 17th Nov 2015 15:00 GMT: This posting was made public

Securing your helpdesk

If you have not already, you must upgrade your DeskPRO helpdesk to the latest version. If you are using a version older than 426, then you are affected and must upgrade to remain safe.

Now is also a good time to read our security guide in our sysadmin manual:
https://manuals.deskpro.com/html/sysadmin/securing/securing.html

This guide goes over a few methods to add extra security to your On-Premise installation.

We are pleased to announce a new release of the DeskPRO helpdesk platform, build #429.

This is a minor bugfix release.

This update has been rolled out to Cloud helpdesks.

If you are using DeskPRO On-Premise, you can update your installation from the admin interface.

We are pleased to announce a new release of the DeskPRO helpdesk platform, build #428.

The following is an automatically generated list of changes in this release:

• NEW NewTicket drafts
• IMPROVEMENT UserChat open large images in new window
• IMPROVEMENT allow multiple values in remote filter/trigger criteria
• FIX Contextual Field "Add Another" link not working in Safari
• FIX Improve error messages and error handling in Exchange email account adapter
• FIX save per person and per org fields on newticket
• FIX saving person and org custom fields on newticket
• FIX Agent: Grouping by org and viewing the 'None' set did not work
• FIX Portal search on labels and UTF8 characters
• FIX Portal: Template typo caused custom ticket fields to go missing from user viewticket layout
• FIX Agent fwd emails with reply codes did not properly strip the reply codes
• FIX Admin: Could not delete a round-robin that had ever been used before
• FIX Potentially showing license error on some servers where a HTML redirect is rendered
• FIX Inconsistently applying permissions to org tickets
• FIX Organizations and People list scrollbar disappears when changing view
• FIX Admin: Language on satisfaction escalation mentions status being 'awaiting user' where it should say 'resolved'
• FIX TicketFilters and TicketTriggers are now saved correctly
• FIX fix potential sync problems
• FIX Admin: Editing triggers with custom fields would show validation errors
• FIX allow to use workflows in dep layout criteria
• FIX broken admin criterias
• FIX Adding tasks from tickets with a due date did not save
• FIX grouping label
• FIX Agent: Unassign from within ticket view caused a JS error and did not unassign the ticket.

This update has been rolled out to Cloud helpdesks.

If you are using DeskPRO On-Premise, you can update your installation from the admin interface.

We are pleased to announce a new release of the DeskPRO helpdesk platform, build #427.

The following is an automatically generated list of changes in this release:

• FIX: In some configurations, creating a new ticket from the agent interface might clear custom user fields from the users profile

This update has been rolled out to Cloud helpdesks.

If you are using DeskPRO On-Premise, you can update your installation from the admin interface.

This release fixes a critical security issue that affects earlier DeskPRO On-Premise versions. It is important that you update your DeskPRO installation immediately. 

In most cases, you can update from the admin interface home page using the automatic updater:

If that does not work, please either: 

a) Use the command-line updater.

b) Manually update your helpdesk.

If you have any problems updating, please immediately contact DeskPRO Support at support@deskpro.com. 

The DeskPRO team apologies for the inconvenience caused by this urgent security release but stresses the urgency of upgrading your DeskPRO installation immediately. 

Note: The Cloud platform is NOT affected.

We are pleased to announce a new release of the DeskPRO helpdesk platform, build #425.

The following is an automatically generated list of changes in this release:

• FIX ticket filter with custom checkboxes
• FIX added custom org fields to ticket filters in admin
• FIX filters with custom fields were not displayed correctly
• FIX Agent: Browser notifications were sloppy, especially with extra whitespace
• FIX unchecked Choice custom field now saved correctly
• FIX unchecked Choice custom field now saved correctly
• FIX templates for Date and DateTime custom fields in ticket log
• FIX Adding snippets via a macro action from the replybox wouldnt insert proper variable replacements
• FIX invalid custom DateTime field render
• FIX do not update holders if ticket tab will be closed
• FIX Agent: Adv search on some custom fields may cause PHP warning
• FIX Possible warning 'expects parameter 1 to be DateTimeZone, string given'

This update has been rolled out to all Cloud customers.

If you are using DeskPRO On-Premise, you can update your installation from the admin interface.

We are pleased to announce a new release of the DeskPRO helpdesk platform, build #424.

The following is an automatically generated list of changes in this release:

• FIX Agent: Org search on custom fields

This update has been rolled out to all Cloud customers.

If you are using DeskPRO On-Premise, you can update your installation from the admin interface.

We are pleased to announce a new release of the DeskPRO helpdesk platform, build #423.

The following is an automatically generated list of changes in this release:

• IMPROVEMENT tickets ordering by custom fields
• FIX undefined field type in CRM people import
• FIX Add Danish 'Autosvar' bounce subject pattern
• FIX Admin: Tool to convert products to custom field did not work
• FIX typo in server_checks
• FIX typo in AgentActivity report
• FIX snippets in NewTicket
• FIX TicketReplyBox was initialized before Ticket
• FIX Agent: 'Email user' option on new ticket was always checked, even when disabled by default according to admin settings
• FIX Admin: Default value on products was always displayed as the first option
• FIX Error when admin tries to reset their own password
• FIX install checks for image formats support
• FIX CreateTask trigger date
• FIX force users login on ticket actions on portal
• FIX add scheme to urls in ticket
• FIX another way to fix ReplyBox desync
• FIX replace links only within message body
• FIX replace links only within message body
• FIX custom fields not being saved with multiple choices unselected
• FIX broken phrases on portal

This update has been rolled out to all Cloud customers.

If you are using DeskPRO On-Premise, you can update your installation from the admin interface.

We are pleased to announce a new release of the DeskPRO helpdesk platform, build #422.

The following is an automatically generated list of changes in this release:

• FIX Agent: Regression where you might not be able to create new ticket with different status
• FIX Adv ticket search for would return 0 results if you had any organizations defined

This update has been rolled out to all Cloud customers.

If you are using DeskPRO On-Premise, you can update your installation from the admin interface.

We are pleased to announce a new release of the DeskPRO helpdesk platform, build #421.

The following is an automatically generated list of changes in this release:

• IMPROVEMENT Organization search by address
• FIX add charge with non-digit amount
• FIX delete categories and statuses on reset demo
• FIX error while adding attachments on new ticket
• FIX email vars for reminder emails
• FIX typo on installer

This update has been rolled out to all Cloud customers.

If you are using DeskPRO On-Premise, you can update your installation from the admin interface.

With Deskpro's snippets feature, your agents can quickly insert common phrases or "canned answers", and use variables to add a personalization, so the pre-written text can address each user by name or refer to details of their ticket.

To get the best out of snippets, it's important to write them carefully and only use them at the right time.

We've now added draft snippets, enabling you to create snippets which aren't shown by default.

You can now save a draft snippet and ask a couple of agents to review it, without making it visible to the rest of your agents until it's ready. 

Another use for drafts is to hide snippets that are only useful at a certain time of year. No need to wade through all the snippets about your Easter product line to find the pumpkin spice FAQ.

We've updated the snippets section of the agent manual with full documentation of how to use drafts.

Deskpro On-Premise admins, update your helpdesk now to get this feature. If you're a Deskpro Cloud customer, we'll be rolling this out to your helpdesk soon. 

If you have a lot of multi-step procedures that your agents need to carry out, you're probably already speeding things up by storing them as one-click macros.

If you've built up a big library of macros, it can take a while to find the right one. We've now added macro filtering so your agents can find the right macro more easily.

With macro filtering, you type a few letters or a word, and Deskpro instantly displays only the macros which match what you entered.

We've also added the ability to store your macros in nested folders.

Now it's easier than ever for your agents to find the right macro for each situation.

You can even filter within a folder:

Deskpro On-Premise admins, you can update your helpdesk now to get these features. If you're a Deskpro Cloud customer, we'll be adding this to your helpdesk soon. 

Deskpro turbo-charges your agents with features to speed up everyday support tasks. Snippets let them quickly insert common phrases or "canned answers". Macros enable them to store several tasks and then carry them out with one click.

So you can ensure you're getting the most out of snippets and macros, we've now added snippet and macro usage reporting through Deskpro's existing powerful reports interface.

You'll find built-in reports about how often each snippet or macro is used on your helpdesk at the bottom of the Tickets section.

Now you can see if your agents are making the best use of Deskpro's high productivity interface, or if more training is required. Real usage information also helps you plan new snippets and macros.

If you need a more specific question answered, the same usage information is now available in your custom reports. You'll find the new variables you need to do this documented in the Reports manual.

DeskPRO On-Premise admins, you can update your helpdesk now to get this feature. If you're a Deskpro Cloud customer, we'll be adding this to your helpdesk soon. 

We are pleased to announce a new release of the DeskPRO helpdesk platform, build #420.

The following is an automatically generated list of changes in this release:

• NEW Macros can be sorted into hierarchy by using '->' in the title
• NEW New reports showing uses of snippets and macros
• NEW Ability to set a 'draft' status on snippets
• FIX fix I.E. from crashing on agents page in admin area
• FIX Agent: Searching for ID of a deleted ticket didn't search delete log
• FIX Agent: Some filters on custom date fields might cause SQL error when a value was not selected
• FIX Agent: You couldn't create new labels in publish content
• FIX Agent: You couldn't create new labels when defining a macro
• FIX Agent: Splitting a ticket wouldn't update the ticket you're currently viewing, you had to refresh
• FIX Importing users from CSV didn't update ElasticSearch index
• FIX Reports: Agent selector on agent activity didn't always function as expected
• FIX Reports: Date selector on agent activity didn't always function as expected
• FIX Agent: Missing filter criteria for custom date fields
• FIX Admin: Timeout detection on import process
• FIX Admin: Invalid icons on some import apps
• FIX Agent: Unexpected behaviour with display of snippet viewer when multiple languages are defined
• FIX Admin: "Can modify" permission didn't properly apply to problems/incidents
• FIX API: Tickets didn't correctly set the 'has_attachments' flag
• FIX Agent: Creating a linked ticket didn't add your signature
• FIX Admin: System 'problem' filters would appear in email notifications settings

This update has been rolled out to all Cloud customers.

If you are using DeskPRO On-Premise, you can update your installation from the admin interface.

We are pleased to announce a new release of the DeskPRO helpdesk platform, build #419.

The following is an automatically generated list of changes in this release:

• FIX Admin: Default value on cats, pris and workflows was always displayed as the first option
• FIX Agent replies to user notifications (i.e., they are the USER on the ticket) would be added as private notes
• FIX Changing custom fields multiple times in one transaction (e.g., through triggers) would result in incorrect ticket logs
• FIX Setting a new license code from admin interface might not persist
• FIX A handful of places where inefficient output of organization names was used
• FIX Splitting tickets could fail in some environments
• FIX Possible SQL query in cleanup job to do with union syntax on MySQL 5.7
• FIX Possible error while sending agent notifications to specific checked agents
• FIX Possible duplicate errors when using triggers to add labels that already exist on a ticket

We are rolling this update out to the Cloud. This post will be updated once all Cloud helpdesks have been updated.

If you are using DeskPRO On-Premise, you can update your installation from the admin interface.

"Automation" and "great customer service" seem like two opposing concepts. Many of our worst experiences as customers arise from attempts to remove the human element from a service: endless robotic phone trees with dodgy voice recognition, confusing ticket machines, misfiring text message notifications...

Done right, though, automation can actually improve your customer experience. This post outlines why and how you should be using helpdesk automation.

Why automate?

1. Your human agents are already busy.

Of course, as customers, we all want to feel that an organization we're dealing with offers the "human touch". But your carbon-based helpdesk staff only have so many hours in the day to help customers, and you may not always have as many staff as you'd like. Your helpdesk software can't soothe an angry end-user or troubleshoot a complicated problem, but it can carry out simple tasks instantly. 

If you're making your agents spend time prioritising incoming tickets, or sending out routine messages that could easily have been automated, you're burning valuable brainpower that could be better spent actually engaging with your customers.

2. Your helpdesk software works 24/7.

Most helpdesks can't be open around the clock, so your customers or end-users will run into problems when human help is unavailable. Automated responses can reassure a worried customer that you've received their ticket, set expectations for an answer, and even solve the problem by pointing to self-help content like FAQs and troubleshooting guides.

Even if you have the resources to have some agents cover out out-of-hours tickets, or hire agents in multiple time zones, automating business rules is important to avoid confusion between agents from different shifts or locations.

3. Users just want to solve their problem and move on with their lives.

Lately it's become fashionable for #custserv experts to extol the virtues of surprising and delighting your customers, exceeding their expectations and generally rocking their world. But some research indicates that, in reality, customers who have their expectations exceeded aren't any more loyal than those who were simply satisfied.

What really drives customers away is the perceived effort of a transaction: if customers need to contact you multiple times, wait a long time or explain themselves to multiple different agents to get an answer, they will be much more likely to stop using your service. If this research is right, it makes sense to invest in automation to solve the customer's problem faster and with less effort on their part.

What should you automate? 

Every helpdesk is different, but in general there are three types of tasks you should automate:

1. Busywork tasks that don't require any decision-making from agents, just time and mindless clicking.

Are you making agents go through old tickets to mark them resolved? Automate it! Even if each agent only spends 5 minutes a day on busywork, over a year, that adds up to two working days wasted: time that would be better spent on actual customer service.

2. Nice-to-have procedures that you 'should be' doing, but...

Your QA team suggests you follow up on resolved tickets where the user gave a bad rating but no comment, and ask them for more information in exchange for a discount coupon. Great idea, but there are so many open tickets to get through... This is the kind of idea you shoud automate.

3. Business rules that sometimes don't get followed.

Are you relying on agents to remember to carry out rules like "always copy in manager B on tickets from organization C"? Automate it! Sometimes a rule like this requires human judgement, but still requires the agent to carry out several steps once the decision is made. Explore the use of macros or triggers to speed up the process, so the agent makes the decision, clicks once, and moves on.

A well-designed helpdesk software platform will offer you a wide range of flexible automation options. Even fairly complex rules can be automated, as long as you can boil them down to combinations of ticket and user properties.

5 common tasks you should automate

1. Follow up if a user stops replying.

When a user stops replying without confirming that the problem is resolved, it's a good idea to follow up and check what happened. Did they not answer because your last response solved their issue, or because they've been busy, forgotten about it, or given up in despair?

You should send a custom follow-up email once you've been waiting for the user for, say, a week, and prompt them to reply again or mark the ticket solved. This lets the customer now you're dedicated to making sure their problem is really solved. It also avoids tickets hanging around in limbo for too long, needlessly driving up your average ticket resolution time. 

2. Let users know that their ticket is being dealt with by a real person.

Often there's an unavoidable delay between a user creating a ticket and the first reply from an agent. Between these two events, the ticket will usually be assigned to an agent.

You can use automation to inform the user when this happens, providing reassurance that the ticket they sent hasn't disappeared into the ether. You probably don't want to send an email every time the ticket is assigned to a different agent, though, just the first time.

3. Filter bounce messages and 'out-of-office' replies.

Inevitably, automatic messages get turned into tickets. Deleting these is busywork and should be easy to automate using title matching. A more advanced helpdesk may even include automatic detection of bounces and automated messages to make it even easier to set up the automation.

4. Answer tickets before they're created.

Any modern helpdesk software platform will offer a ticket deflection feature, which shows customers suggested solutions based on their query.

This requires some investment of time to build up your Knowledgebase, but even a few hours spent writing up answers to your top 10 most common questions will quickly pay off.

5. Hand out tickets evenly.

How do you decide which agent takes which ticket? Sometimes the ticket properties will tell you that it needs to be passed to a certain agent or team (automatically, of course), but what if this isn't possible? Either a senior agent can spend time assigning tickets manually, or you can let agents take tickets for themselves, which will naturally tempt them to cherry-pick the easiest problems.

With 'round-robin' automation, you can define a queue of agents, and each new ticket is assigned to the next agent in the queue, until the end is reached and the round robin begins again. The effect is that incoming tickets are handed out evenly and fairly. Agents always have a queue of problems to solve, and don't spend time wondering which one to tackle next.

Rolling out your automation

Always test your automation from the customer's point of view. Be sensitive to email frequency: unless emails are directly related to something the customer just did, space them out to avoid sending a flood of surveys and reminders all on the same day.

Make sure that you send all automated messages with a From: address that goes back into your helpdesk, and let users know they can reply to you if needed.

It's easy to get carried away with the possibilities of automation and over-complicate things. Before you implement an idea, make sure you're addressing a real problem. Even better, get your agents to suggest boring tasks they'd like to automate, and ask customers about gaps in your communication. If you hear the same suggestion from multiple people, you know it's time to get automating.

We are pleased to announce a new release of the DeskPRO helpdesk platform, build #418.

The following is an automatically generated list of changes in this release:

• FIX Sending custom email templates did not work
• FIX Possible error while sending agent notifications to specific checked agents

This update has been rolled out to Cloud helpdesks.

If you are using DeskPRO On-Premise, you can update your installation from the admin interface.

Deskpro's authentication apps enable your agents and users to log in to your helpdesk with their account details from other services, saving you time on password management.

We know that a lot of Deskpro helpdesks use authentication apps, so we're always looking for ways to improve them. We're pleased to announce two ways we've made our support for external authentication better.

Grant a usergroup

When you enable agents to log in with an authentication app, you can choose what permissions they are granted.

You couldn't do the same thing for users, until now. For each user authentication app, you can now pick a usergroup that users will automatically join when they log in.

Filter users

Suppose you have a database full of user records, but you only want to grant portal access to active subscribers; or you have an Active Directory containing records for everyone in your company, but you only want staff from the IT department to become agents.

We've now added a powerful filtering feature that lets you define which user records you want to use for DeskPRO authentication. You can create filters based on any information in your Active Directory, LDAP store, OneLogin, database or other external source. 

You'll find full documentation about how to create your own filters in the Filtering a usersource section of the admin manual.

If you're using DeskPRO Cloud, we'll roll both these new features out to your helpdesk within the next few days. If you're using On-Premise, update your DeskPRO to get them now.

We are pleased to announce a new release of the DeskPRO helpdesk platform, build #416.

The following is an automatically generated list of changes in this release:

• NEW CRM auth sources can now be linked to a usergroup
• NEW CRM and Agent auth sources can now define arbitrary filters to limit which records are allowed from a remote source
• FIX Error message when no permission to merge tickets
• FIX Another case of newlines being eaten in RTE
• FIX Escalations with 'or' criteria did not apply properly
• FIX Admin: LDAP setup would require account user/password (i.e., anon was not possible)
• FIX Handling of phone number extensions
• FIX Locking/unlocking tickerts would cause ticket tab to steal focus
• FIX A number of issues with importers

This update has been rolled out to all Cloud customers.

If you are using DeskPRO On-Premise, you can update your installation from the admin interface.

We are pleased to announce a new release of the DeskPRO helpdesk platform, build #415.

The following is an automatically generated list of changes in this release:

• NEW Use encryption for storage of email account passwords
• NEW Problems and Incidents (https://support.deskpro.com/news/view/558)
• FIX Parsing forwarded message when the user email line contains a name which includes a parenthesis
• FIX Portal: Style of ol and ul lists in tickets
• FIX No ticketlog for when SLA status changes (between ok, warn and fail)
• FIX fixes possible persistence error during sync
• FIX Reports 'Past 24 Hours' placeholder was sometimes using ranges longer than 24h
• FIX Disabling a usergroup would make it invisible on the usergroups list
• FIX Org label 'not in' filters would cause SQL error
• FIX Admin: Input for relative date criteria did not save properly for 'after'
• FIX Department newticket triggers would not apply to agent-forwarded emails
• FIX Hard-deleted tickets did not delete attachment data
• FIX Agent: Search tab had op field overlap input box
• FIX Agent: Related content that are 'drafts' would not show in Related Content tab
• FIX Validation errors on agent newticket screen when user fields exist on a layout
• FIX Email gateway: Agent email codes did not work for custom fields
• FIX Fix possibility of some email accounts being skipped if processing time of other accounts is longer than 180 seconds
• FIX Sometimes logging-in when certain language cookies are set might result in an error
• FIX Portal: showing 'Not Found' when clicking on resolve link in emails
• FIX Agent: Fix 'more' button in snippets window
• FIX Ticket log now logs email account changes
• FIX Admin: Deleting a feedback category would delete linked usergroups
• FIX Admin: Creating feedback type would not save usergroup selection
• FIX Links in chat messages open in new windows
• FIX CSV exporting using lowercased strings in contact data
• FIX CSV exporting would add duplicate primary email
• FIX Agent: Fix setting unpublish date on articles
• FIX Rendered datetime custom field only shows date
• FIX Chat transcript would always be sent in English if user is a guest
• FIX Purge demo failed to purge KB when DeskPRO is running on case-sensitive filesystems
• FIX Agent: Mentions in newticket notes didn't work
• FIX Link to escalations in ticketlog were incorrect
• FIX Chrome would show translation prompt in agent interface when viewing tickets in other languages
• FIX Formatting on snippets is lost when using shortcodes
• FIX Portal: Deleted or unpublished articles showed permission error instead of 404
• FIX Saving signature from agent interface
• FIX Fix missing {{ticket.subject}} variable in some gateway rejection messages

This update has been rolled out to all Cloud customers.

If you are using DeskPRO On-Premise, you can update your installation from the admin interface.

If you're the system administrator for a Deskpro On-Premise installation, you'll naturally take the security of your helpdesk very seriously. 

Deskpro uses a one-way hashing function to store all user, agent and admin account passwords. This means that the real passwords aren't ever stored in the database at all: just a mathematical 'fingerprint' that can be used to confirm the right password was entered, but can't be used to reconstruct it (short of spending decades crunching numbers on a supercomputer).

So even if some wrong-doers get hold of your database backups, they can't get anyone's password.

However, Deskpro can't use this hash technique to protect the passwords for your ticket email accounts. Your helpdesk has to provide the real password to your mail server or provider so it can download emails.

We've added a new option to the next version of Deskpro On-Premise which provides more security for your email account passwords.

In the new Server > Encryption section in the admin interface, you'll see an option to encrypt the stored passwords. The details are all explained there, but the up-shot is that this prevents anyone reading the passwords from the database or a backup.

On-Premise admins, update your helpdesk to the new version now to get this feature. (Cloud users, as always, don't have to worry about technical details like this - the way Cloud handles email access means it doesn't store your passwords).

For more information about the improved password security feature, see the Sysadmin manual.

Sometimes a single glitch can produce a flood of tickets. A server goes down or a shipment goes missing, and now dozens of your users have the same problem. 

To make it easier to handle that sort of situation, we've added support for problems and incidents to Deskpro.

A problem is the underlying glitch: the burnt-out server or the missing shipping container.

A problem's incidents are simply the tickets generated by that problem.

(We've taken this terminology from IT support, but we think you'll find this feature useful no matter what you use Deskpro for).

Tracking problems produces the following benefits for your helpdesk:

• If you get a sudden spike in incoming tickets, linking them to problems helps support staff understand the root causes and prioritise what to fix first.
• You can use the new Problems & Incidents section in the filter pane to view all the tickets caused by a problem at a glance, updated in real time.
• You can combine problems tracking with Deskpro's existing mass actions feature to message all the users affected by a problem to keep them updated, or resolve all the resulting incidents once the problem is closed - you can even personalise messages with variables; for example, ensure that each user is addressed by name.
• You can use the Reports interface to analyse which problems are generating the most tickets.
• You can close and reopen problems, so agents can always see which problems are actively causing trouble, even with intermittent problems.

We'll be rolling this feature out to all Cloud helpdesks shortly. On-Premise admins, you can update your installation to get it now.

You'll need to enable this feature as explained in this section of the admin manual, and there's full instructions for how to use it in the agent manual.

We are pleased to announce a new release of the DeskPRO helpdesk platform, build #414.

The following is an automatically generated list of changes in this release:

• FIX Changes made to person fields did not persist properly
• FIX JIRA: Changing ticket subject would change JIRA issue summary
• FIX Possible error during usersource sync if remote source has a user with an ticket email address
• FIX Fix display fields in CSV when downloading a filter result as CSV
• FIX Date widget on Agent Activity report
• FIX RSS would not load over HTTP if you used an HTTPS URL (prevents Outlook from using it)
• FIX Missing custom fields in ticket print view
• FIX Missing map in profile contact data
• FIX Missing "Language" field when creating new person from agent interface
• FIX Ticketlog contained bad links to triggers
• FIX Wrong language when sending welcome email for agent-created profiles
• FIX Fix a case of bad email decoding in very rare cases
• FIX Some tickets might not have date_user_waiting timestamp
• FIX Gateways: Decoding attachment filenames when clients erroneously encode them
• FIX An agent sending an email with the #user reply code (to set the user owner) would not execute newticket triggers for newticket by agent events

This update has been rolled out to all Cloud customers.

If you are using DeskPRO On-Premise, you can update your installation from the admin interface.

When users email you directly, rather than writing to your support address, you can just forward their message to DeskPRO. DeskPRO is clever enough to process the forwarded email and make a ticket for the user based on the original message.

This makes for a fast and easy way to get emails into your helpdesk.

We've now added an option to make this feature even easier to use.

At the moment, when you forward an email into your helpdesk, anything above the forward gets processed as a message to the user. So if your email software adds a signature automatically, you have to remember to delete it - otherwise the user will get a short, enigmatic message with just your signature.

Of course, on a busy helpdesk, it's easy to forget to remove your signature.

If this is a problem you've run into, you'll be glad to know that we've added a setting to address this.

In Tickets > Forward Settings, under Ticket Forwarding — Inbound, you'll soon find this option:

Select this option, and any text above the forwarded message is treated as an agents-only note, not a reply to the user, preventing any stray signatures turning into puzzling 'empty' messages.

We are pleased to announce a new release of the DeskPRO helpdesk platform, build #413.

The following is an automatically generated list of changes in this release:

• NEW Added custom fields to billing
• NEW Ability to edit time and date on billing entries
• NEW Better email previews for agent notifications
• NEW New agent preference to enable/disable sending plaintext email parts in notifications
• FIX Fix date_resolved being unset on tickets in some cases if the ticket is updated after it was resolved

This update has been rolled out to all Cloud customers.

If you are using DeskPRO On-Premise, you can update your installation from the admin interface.

Deskpro's billing and time log feature enables your agents to record monetary charges payable to the user, or track the time spent to resolve a ticket.

We've now added the ability to add your own custom fields to billing and time charges. This is ideal if you need to record extra information like the type of service rendered or a billing code.

Custom billing fields give you the same flexibility as Deskpro's other custom fields: you can store text, dates, or predefined choices,  choose if a field is compulsory, and even validate entered text against a pattern using regular expressions.

You can create custom billing fields in the new Fields section under Admin > Tickets > Time Log & Billing. (If you're not already using billing, you may need to enable it in the Settings section).

We'll be rolling this out to Deskpro Cloud helpdesks over the next few days. If you're a Deskpro On-Premise admin, you can update your helpdesk to the latest version to start using it right now.

See the admin manual for full documentation about setting up custom billing fields.

Do you check your DeskPRO email notifications on a smartphone or tablet? If so, you've probably noticed that the message previews you get aren't very informative.

On most mobile devices, the previews come out something like this:

REPLY ABOVE, REPLY ABOVE, REPLY ABOVE...

This was bothering us, so we've fixed it. In the next version of DeskPRO, we've tweaked the ticket notification emails so that, on most email apps, you get a preview of the actual message text:

For a few email apps, like Aquamail, you may need to change a setting to see the previews: see this article for details.

If you're a Cloud user, you will start seeing the improved previews in the next few days. DeskPRO On-Premise admins, update your helpdesk to the latest version to get this improvement now.

We are pleased to announce a new release of the DeskPRO helpdesk platform, build #411.

The following is an automatically generated list of changes in this release:

• FIX Password expire policy would apply even if not using DeskPRO usersource

This update has been rolled out to all Cloud customers.

If you are using DeskPRO On-Premise, you can update your installation from the admin interface.

We are pleased to announce a new release of the DeskPRO helpdesk platform, build #410.

The following is an automatically generated list of changes in this release:

• NEW Admin: New option to disable keyboard shortcuts
• NEW Better agent email notifications and reply handling. Read more.
• FIX Admin: Search index is off when demo is reset
• FIX Agent: Missing 'Awaiting Validation' filter in agent interface
• FIX Agent: Reset password sent in wrong language
• FIX Agent: Organization link on CRM list was broken
• FIX Misc whitespace issues in HTML email
• FIX Add another cut pattern for email sent from Outlook
• FIX Missing cut pattern for email sent from Outlook for iPhone
• FIX Agent: Some bad handling of newlines in RTE
• FIX Admin: Fix validation on 'date created' trigger criteria
• FIX Agent: Some ticket counts in filter list might be wrong for a few seconds until the browser did a background-refresh
• FIX Agent: Download vCard with phone numbers failed
• FIX Agent: Links in messages did not open in new windows
• FIX Admin: Test outgoing email did not let you edit test message properly
• FIX Agent: When editing snippets, the default selected category was wrong
• FIX Portal: New accounts created via creating a new ticket did not set the proper language based on the users selected language
• FIX Installer: Minimum version of PHP is 5.3.9
• FIX Agent: Changing user orgs did not set organisation on existing tickets, causing some counters to mis-match
• FIX Portal: KB suggestions on new-ticket were not limited
• FIX Agent: number of tickets display field did not work (in CRM)
• FIX Portal: Bad phrases for chat end
• FIX Add 'TR' to list of default subject 'forward' prefixes
• FIX Admin: Fix creation system criteria
• FIX Agent: Font colours in Firefox an IE did not work
• FIX Portal: Language used in 'reset password' email was not the language of the user
• FIX Agent: Create ticket as node was adding signature
• FIX Admin: Some invalid phone numbers would not render an error message
• FIX We now bundle latest certificate authority certs for use with cURL (this fixes SSL errors when the host has outdated ca-bundle)
• FIX Trigger checks on 'Ticket has SLAs' did not work properly
• FIX Demo: Request license requires org name but did not show error message if it was missing
• FIX Agent: Tabs taking focus in some cases when they are meant to be reloaded in the bg

This update has been rolled out to all Cloud customers.

If you are using DeskPRO On-Premise, you can update your installation from the admin interface.

While we're proud of DeskPRO's web interface, we think it's also important to give your agents the flexibility to help users by email alone.

Currently, agents can reply to any email notification from DeskPRO to create a new ticket message and sent it to the user. Some of our customers have told us that this doesn't fit how they work.

In our latest update, we've added a new setting for admins, plus more guidance for agents.

Admins can now choose whether an agent reply by email becomes a reply to the user, or an internal agent note.

We've also made it much clearer in the notification text what will happen when the agent replies:

If your agents ever need to override the default setting you've chosen, you can train them to use email action codes.

Simply adding #note or #reply at the very top of an email reply lets them specify if they want it to be a reply to the user or an internal note.

This article has full details of how agent replies by email will now work (your agents can also find it using the Help link next to REPLY ABOVE in any email notification).

We'll be rolling this out to Cloud helpdesks over the next few days. If you're a DeskPRO On-Premise admin, you can update your helpdesk to the latest version get this feature right now.

Great helpdesk software is essential if you’re in the business of solving people’s problems (and obviously, here at DeskPRO, we have strong feelings about which helpdesk software is the greatest).

But whether you’re using your helpdesk for customer service or IT support, great software can’t solve problems on its own. Poorly planned deployment or bad policies can make life miserable for users and agents alike.

For this post, we've interviewed agents and end-users from several organizations (none of which are DeskPRO customers, incidentally) about their experience of badly managed helpdesks.

Here are some pitfalls to avoid if you’re contemplating a new helpdesk rollout. And if you’re already running a helpdesk, make sure you’re not doing any of these things.

1. Fail to understand helpdesk capabilities

Modern helpdesk platforms are sophisticated pieces of software. Before making your agents do something the hard way, it’s worth spending some time exploring what your helpdesk can do for you automatically.

Here’s a spectacular example of an organization’s failure to understand what a helpdesk can do:

Jane* works for a professional accreditation body.

When we switched to using a Cloud helpdesk platform, nobody knew we could email back by replying to a ticket from the helpdesk interface.

So we kept on replying to clients in our email clients, but then we’d have to go to the helpdesk and type in that we’d received an email, enter all the user’s details and describe the email we’d written.

Installing the helpdesk was supposed to track how much time we spent helping clients. Instead, it ended up increasing our workload.

It took months before some senior staff went on a training course and found out that we could make the helpdesk convert user emails directly to tickets.

Not only is this a terrible way to use any helpdesk platform, but the organization failed to train the front-line agents in the software, so they didn’t realize the problem.

Make sure that it’s easy for your agents to access manuals and help guides.

2. Ask users for way too much irrelevant information

It can sometimes be a struggle to get users to give you all the information you need to resolve an issue - but some helpdesks have the opposite problem.

Patricia* works for a large government department.

When a printer breaks down, the IT helpdesk always insists on taking all of my details, including my PC tracking number. Even if it’s a shared network printer, and it isn’t working from any PC.

Calling to report something simple like ‘the printer on the 4th floor isn’t working’ can take upwards of ten minutes.

The helpdesk even insists on taking down instructions on how to access my building - even though they’re in the same building.

The result is that printers stay broken for weeks before somebody bites the bullet and reports the problem.

This isn’t a problem that’s confined to big government. We’ve heard of companies asking for all sorts of irrelevant information before they’ll answer the simplest questions.

Maybe some of this data-gathering is because helpdesks are under pressure to prove they’re helping real users rather than making them up. Maybe it’s sometimes a cynical way to manage demand, by making the process of asking for help so onerous that users avoid it unless they’re desperate.

DeskPRO lets you add custom fields to store useful information about a ticket, but crucially, you can always make a field optional. Think carefully about how much compulsory information you demand from users before you help them.

3. Let users bypass the helpdesk

There's no point investing in helpdesk software to manage your customer communications if you don't communicate through the helpdesk.

Tom* worked in a company that provided IT services for finance professionals, some of them very demanding.

Customers would try to get around our helpdesk ticketing system constantly. They’d find our direct email addresses from the website, or email staff members they’d dealt with previously, even if their query wasn’t something that member of staff could help with.

They thought that going outside the helpdesk would get them quicker service. It actually didn’t, because we were told to deal with everything in strict chronological order. It just wasted our time going back and forth between the helpdesk and emails.

Management wouldn’t let us make it clear that support requests had to go to the official help address, for fear of angering customers.

This is a tricky situation. The key is to make clear to users that it’s in their own best interests to go through your standard support process, without offending them.

DeskPRO can help resolve this issue using its inbound ticket forwarding feature. This means that your agents can just forward emails from users to the helpdesk email address; DeskPRO is smart enough to create a ticket as if the user had emailed the correct address in the first place.

Once customers see that their emails always end up as tickets that can be dealt with by any agent, they will be less likely to try to jump the queue.

4. Stick with inflexible processes

Even after taking 10 minutes to file a report, Patricia’s printer troubles weren’t over:

When you phone up to report a problem, you become the “owner” of that problem whether you like it or not. So you could be about to move a new team member into a vacant desk, but notice that the phone at that desk has stopped working. So you contact the helpdesk and provide all your details - and boom, you are in charge of the broken phone problem.

In the case of the printer, I had raised the issue right before going on holiday for two weeks. Even though they’d taken the number for my Blackberry, they never called it. Apparently, talking about a broken network printer was too sensitive for anything but a landline.

So because they couldn’t reach me, they closed the ticket.

There’s a number of things that have gone wrong here: the reliance on phone calls when an email would do, for one. And while it makes sense that a ticket should have an owner, why couldn’t this helpdesk change the owner when necessary? Was it an inflexible policy, or badly-designed software?

5. Keep default values that don’t make sense to your users

Jane’s helpdesk ran into trouble with the wording of an automated email.

Our helpdesk sends out an automatic message to our clients which says: ‘This ticket has been allocated to <currently assigned>’.

Our clients are older professionals, not web natives, and they find this completely confusing. Many of them don’t realize the email is generated by software, or think it means they need to do something to assign a ticket.

The wording should make clear that you don’t have to do anything.

Put yourself in the user’s shoes and check that all your emails, forms and other user-facing copy make sense to them. Don’t refer to your internal terminology or processes unless it’s something the user needs to know about. (Plus, make sure you pick a helpdesk with a flexible template system so you can customize all user-facing text).

* All names have been changed.

We are pleased to announce a new release of the DeskPRO helpdesk platform, build #409.

The following is an automatically generated list of changes in this release:

• FIX Possible cron crash once a day caused during a sync routine
• FIX Possible infinite loop if working hours are set with no days selected
• FIX Possible 'no helper AgentPermissions is registered' message on some servers
• FIX Admin: Flag displayed in phone number field was incorrect
• FIX User sources: Phone number from remote user sources was not saved as a phone number properly
• FIX Admin: Default working hours would save properly but would appear incorrect when the form was reloaded

This update has been rolled out to all Cloud customers.

If you are using DeskPRO On-Premise, you can update your installation from the admin interface.

We are pleased to announce a new release of the DeskPRO helpdesk platform, build #408.

The following is an automatically generated list of changes in this release:

• FIX Admin: Status escalations set from the 'awaiting user' page would actually apply to 'awaiting agent'
• FIX Admin: Viewing escalations list had incorrect count
• FIX Admin: Using 'between' date criteria failed

This update has been rolled out to all Cloud customers.

If you are using DeskPRO On-Premise, you can update your installation from the admin interface.

While helpdesk agents should have the writing skills to clearly explain solutions, nothing beats showing the customer what to do.

Customer service experts emphasize the importance of resolving problems with the first message (so-called first contact resolution). Every time one of your agents types out a description of a software interface, or tries to describe how to assemble a physical product, there's a chance of miscommunication.

It's much clearer to use an image to show an answer, and once you have the right processes set up, adding a screenshot can be accomplished in seconds.

In this post, we'll explore some of the best practices for using images to help your customers.

Taking screen captures

You shouldn't necessarily use the built-in screen capture method for your operating system:

• most OSes have limited options for the screen area that gets captured.
• when you've taken the screenshot, most OSes provide very limited annotation tools.
• older versions of Windows will save screen grabs in the antiquated BMP format.

It's best to find software which minimizes the overhead involved in taking a screenshot.

You don't need to buy screen capture software for all your agents. There are several free and high quality screen capture utilities available.

Pick software that:

• can be readied to take a screenshot with a keyboard shortcut.
• enables you to select a custom capture area instead of a whole screen or window; this saves time as agents don't have to crop the image afterwards.
• saves images in PNG format; JPEG compression tends to produce a blurring effect on text.

For Windows, a good option is Greenshot.

Editing screen captures

Your agents don't have to be Photoshop wizards, but they do need to bear in mind the following points:

• crop the image to display the most relevant information from the user's point of view; don't show the whole screen, only the relevant area and enough of the surroundings to give context
• use simple annotations to highlight actions the user needs to take; add bold arrows or circles for clarity.
• taking a minute to "proof-read" an image is as important as it is with text; if the user has to change four settings and you only highlight three of them, they will miss the fourth, even if it shows the correct value.

Don't forget that showing an image isn't enough on its own if the user doesn't understand the context or purpose of what you're showing them. Make sure images are supported by text.

Pick a helpdesk platform that supports visual communication

Once your agents have captured a screenshot, or taken a picture of a physical product, make sure it's easy for them to share it with customers.

DeskPRO is designed to make this process easy. For example, you can paste a screengrab right into a ticket reply with the usual 'paste' keyboard shortcut.

You can also drag and drop images from the agent's desktop to the helpdesk.

Receiving images from customers

Ensure that your helpdesk platform makes it easy for customers to send you images. Does the ticket form support sending an image attachment? Can users send an image during live chat? When a customer emails you an image, is it included in the resulting ticket? (In case you're wondering, DeskPRO does all of these).

You should encourage your customers to send images whenever it helps you to solve their problem. Even if you're supporting a physical product, most users will be able to use their smartphone to snap a picture and email it to your support address.

On the part of your website where your user can look up your support email or submit a ticket, consider including text to encourage taking a screenshot. If your helpdesk platform supports custom forms for different ticket types, you could display this suggestion only for problems/products where an image is likely to help.

Emphasise that sending an image will make it faster for you to diagnose the problem - the prospect of a quick solution will motivate customers to overcome the hassle of taking the screenshot or photo.

If your user base is less technically inclined, you should add a Knowledgebase article explaining how to take a screenshot on whichever platforms you support.

Build up an image library

No matter how much you streamline the process, producing a good image to illustrate a particular solution can take time.

Promote image re-use among agents by training them to use your helpdesk software's 'snippet' or 'canned answer' functionality to build up a shared library of images that are easy to browse and insert.

If you have a frequently asked question with a complicated answer that is best answered with text and a series of images, write it up as a Knowledgebase article, and link to that instead.

GIFs aren't just for funny cats

Some issues can be hard to explain with a single image, or even a series of stills. For example:

• how to use certain software interface elements, such as controls activated by mousing over them
• a physical product that requires a specific movement to use or assemble - "there's a knack to it"

Embedded video is one way to provide a solution to these sort of issues. However, playing a video can cause technical issues for users, and producing a professional video with a good voiceover is time-consuming and expensive.

Animated GIFs are ideal for getting the point across quickly where a still image won't cut it. 

Making a GIF requires a slightly more elaborate production process than taking a screenshot. You'll need to capture a video of the process first, then convert it to GIF.

If you want to streamline the process of making GIFs as much as possible, consider investing in commercial software that can capture video and export to GIF, like TechSmith Camtasia. However, there's plenty of free software to capture video of your desktop, and you can make GIFs with the free Windows/Mac software Instagiffer.

• Don't send GIFs in user replies, since most email clients will not play them. Instead, link to a Knowledgebase article that contains the GIF.
• The GIF format is very widely supported, but inefficient, so watch the file size; crop the source video or the GIF to make sure you only include the most relevant screen area.
• Long, complicated procedures are best left for an embedded video, where you can also add a voiceover.

We are pleased to announce a new release of the DeskPRO helpdesk platform, build #407.

The following is an automatically generated list of changes in this release:

• NEW Ability to start a new ticket with an internal agent note instead of a message to the user
• NEW Syncing of usersource data for supported sources (LDAP/ActiveDirectory, MySQL)
• NEW Admin: New triggers that test if an email is a bounce or if it is an auto-reply/robot
• NEW JIRA: added mapping for "Components" and "Affected Versions"
• IMPROVED Admin: Deleting custom choice fields is handled better with confirmations and ability to move existing values
• FIX Agent: Pasting images into chat would not send properly
• FIX Portal: Numbered lists did not appear properly in KB articles
• FIX If query logging is enabled, sometimes a PHP notice might occur
• FIX Admin: UI for defining filters with date criteria was broken
• FIX Admin: Missing delete button on feedback categories
• FIX Possible PHP errors to do with password resets
• FIX Improper criteria of work days on SLAs in some cases for Monday or Sunday
• FIX The 'minute' option on default working hours was not being persisted properly
• FIX Admin: Missing autocomplete on label triggers
• FIX Agent: Searching for the ID of a deleted ticket did not list it in search results
• FIX Portal: Chat transcripts being sent in the wrong language
• FIX Admin: 'Test' for Office365 accounts always failed
• FIX Agent: Double-clicking a ticket row would open then immediately close a ticket due to toggle behaviour
• FIX API: 404 status code being returned in auth/permission error cases. 403 is now returned.
• FIX Agent: Links inserted through replies are now opened in new windows
• FIX Admin: Possible flood of console messages in admin interface due to bug in code editor
• FIX Admin: Some sections may fail to load if using non-English with missing translated phrases
• FIX Agent: 'Change user' action used to require merge permission, now requires CC management
• FIX Portal: KB suggestions on newticket now take into account search words
• FIX Admin: UI of org trigger criteria for is set/is not set
• FIX Agent: Very long lines of text did not wrap and would go off the page
• FIX Admin: Pre-defined icons for teams and agents did not work
• FIX Agent: Edge-case where an agent might not have permission to reply to their own ticket
• FIX Agent: You could not edit/delete newly added billing/time rows
• FIX Agent: Multiple issues to do with setting phone numbers on profiles
• FIX Gateway: Bounce replies from mailers would cause the mailers to be added as CCs
• FIX Gateway: Bounce replies from mailers would be added as replies instead of hidden notes
• FIX Admin: Saving an agent could produce error about the email already being in use
• FIX API: /tickets/{ticket_id}/logs would error
• FIX Usersources: Possible issues with LDAP/AD on some servers

This update has been rolled out to all Cloud customers.

If you are using DeskPRO On-Premise, you can update your installation from the admin interface.

Sometimes when you're creating a ticket on behalf of a user, based on a phone call or live chat or a watercooler conversation, you don't want to send them a message telling them that you know what they just told you. You just want to write down the problem and assign it to the best agent or team to fix it, and then message the user when you actually have something new to say.

We've now updated DeskPRO with the option to create a ticket and start with an internal agent note, instead of a message to the user.

You'll soon see a new TICKET NOTE tab when you're making a new ticket:

You'll notice that the default when you start with a note is to make the new ticket Awaiting User - so you may need to edit the status, depending on the context of the ticket.

Of course, you can switch back to the ticket message tab if you realise you do want to send a message after all.

We're going to be rolling this out to your Cloud helpdesk soon. (DeskPRO On-Premise admins: you can update your helpdesk to version #407 or greater to get this right now).