Inquiry
Tracking
Every call is tracked from initial inquiry to problem
resolution. Inquiry history makes it easy to reopen an already closed inquiry.
HelpDesk can detect if the inquiry's subject already exists and eliminate
duplication and additional effort by your support staff. Quick find feature
speeds contact look-up. Open inquiries stay on screen until finished. System
tracks number of inquiries opened and closed each day.
Real Time Call Forwarding
Inquiries can be forwarded to any
operator or department. If forwarded to a department, the inquiry is opened on
the workstation for next available operator, ready for them to pick up the phone
and handle the situation or problem. Referral system tracks who is logged on.
Callbacks to be scheduled for any date, time, and staff member. Calls can be
assigned on a next available basis. Referrals can automatically notify the
receiving staff member via email for easy notification of staff not logged into
HelpDesk Intake Forms
You will now have the ability to design what
is called ‘Intake Forms’. These are user-designed forms whose purpose is to ask
and store questions and answers as part of the inquiry record, predetermined
critical and important information that pertains to a particular type of problem
or issue. You may develop and use as many types of forms as may be needed in
your organization and assign (link) multiple forms to a single inquiry. Fields
on a form may be declared mandatory (desired) or optional.
Example:
Your company sells and supports software applications. Incoming issues
may fall into the categories of installation, configuration, reporting, or
operating system. So when a call comes in that involves ‘configuration issues’,
you would quickly select the configuration form and link it to the inquiry. This
form would have questions specific to this type of problem, such as operating
system in use, problem occurs at one or all workstations, problem is recurring,
operating system version, software version, etc.
This feature means you
have unlimited information that you can acquire and linked to an inquiry in a
format that best suits your organization’s needs. This is power!
Hot Tips Knowledgebase
Hot Tips knowledgebase base may use either
Rich Text or HTML documents, located on a local hard drive, a company's
intranet, or on the Web. Using HTML also means that you can implement
branch scripting via hyper links within HTML documents. You will have the
ability to view and attach any Windows files via the internet email
module. Have your clients using and/or sharing the same HTML
hot tips as you use internally.
A proprietary search algorithm finds
help files from the natural language description of the problem. Help files can
be read by the operator, or emailed to the caller with only a few keystrokes.
Email both text and graphic files. Don't answer the same questions over and
over. Solutions are just a click away!
HelpDesk Post Office - (built-in email processing)
We've brought
the complete email system, both inbound and outbound, under the control of
HelpDesk with built-in email processing, and dedicated solely for HelpDesk's
use. This means that outgoing mail can be sent from a global 'support
department' but still maintain individual staff names.
Inbound email may
be easily routed to the 'responsible' staff person handling a particular
inquiry. Easily attach an email to an existing inquiry or create a new one with
the information contained.
It allows single inbound email address to be
shared by entire support staff and for the routing of inbound
email.
Inbound email will automatically link to inquiries, including
attachments (which will be filed according to a user defined scheme), along with
full message information.
Watch for version 3.1 enhancements that will
include the ability to create and add Email Templates and Signatures. Spell
check will be added to outbound email.
HTML Email Templates and Signatures.
Design, develop, and store
email templates for specific types of emails. You'll be able to design a message
to fit each situation. You'll also be able to merge data from the open inquiry,
including contact data, into the email. Also, choose from a list of developed
signature lines, choosing either global signatures or one associated with a
particular HelpDesk operator.
Spell Checking.
We're adding a full featured spell checker that
can be used in sending your HTML formatted emails. Eventually, it will be
available for use in Hot Tips, Known Issues, and Notepads.
Sticky Notes
This gives you the ability to attach a "sticky note"
to an inquiry, easily flagging the inquiry with a special message for others to
see.
Bulletin Board System
HelpDesk now has the ability to create one
or more bulletin boards to aid communication internally for HelpDesk staff and
users. As many BBS boards as desired can be created. Each board can have
unlimited "sticky notes" attached to it.
Each board can have designated
users who "subscribe" to the board. So, you could possibly have something like a
"General" board, a "Support" board, and/or a "Developer" board. Each board will
have designated subscribers and each will have various abilities based on their
security rights.
Boards and messages can have a special "alert" status
whereby each subscribed user will be notified of the special alert status. When
messages are posted, each user will see a special flag indicating that something
new has been posted to a particular board and that they as an individual user
has not read it.
"Stand Alone" HelpDesk.
The stand alone version of HelpDesk has
been vastly improved with the addition of the following items:
- Import capabilities have been added to Stand Alone HelpDesk. Sources can
be tab delimited, comma delimited, or ADO. Using ADO gives much latitude in
attaching to many file systems, including anything to which an ODBC or ADO
connection can be established.
- Configurable 'tabs' and 'screens'. You can separate user defined fields
into manageable screen tabs. Each tab has a screen which is highly
configurable via a forms design feature.
- List box capability has been added to all custom fields added to the stand
alone contacts table.
- Multiple entry points (rights access) has been given that will allow such
things as the ability to enter, edit, and maintain the contacts table without
being a regular HelpDesk user. This would be helpful for a company that wants
non HelpDesk clerical users to maintain the contacts table but not go into the
HelpDesk program directly.
- The ability to print individual contact records or print contact lists has
been added to stand alone HelpDesk.
"Time Line Analysis.
This feature gives you the ability to
have a "special event" time log entry added automatically in order to record and
display when certain types of events take place. These events are 'inquiry
referrals' (ownership changes, either by manual referral or during an inquiry
escalation), 'priority changes' ( from either priority escalation or manual
priority changes), 'inquiry finish' (closing an inquiry), and 'reopens'
(whenever an inquiry is reopened).
With the above information recorded,
you'll be able to analyze and see in a list not only when an inquiry was worked
on, how long, and by whom, but also when an inquiry priority changed, when an
inquiry ownership changed, and even see when and by whom inquiries were closed
and even later reopened.
Inquiry Status Publisher
One of the
most sought after features. Now you will be able to "publish" status and other
information about inquiries to a web site where customers may access their
individual entries and check status and other related information. You will
decide which customer records qualify for publishing, which inquiries and how
long after they are closed, the method that customers will access, the look and
feel of the template that is presented to the inquiring customer, and what
fields are to be published, including some special fields that can be set aside
just for 'publishing', including an additional Notepads. And best of all, you
can run this on any web site, shared hosting or not.
Contract & Pre-Paid Support Tracking
This feature allows you
to store in your contact manager information about service contracts. You
determine the type (per hour or per incident), expiration date or 'must use by'
dates, and user defined break points where you are warned and/or blocked from
opening an inquiry. Example, warn me when contract time becomes 30 minutes
or less or time until reaching expiration date is 15 days or less. You
determine the break points and the action that is to happen. Time and/or
incidents will be updated back to the contact manager. In the contact
manager, you will be able to set filters and call or make lists of impending
contract expirations.
Inquiry "Alert" System
There are certain conditions that a
HelpDesk user would like to know. HelpDesk now puts icons in an alert column for
the following conditions.
A "red dot" is inserted to indicate that the
owner of an inquiry has not yet opened and read it's contents. Until that
operator opens the inquiry, the icon will remain. That let's a helpdesk operator
quickly see which inquires are unread by them since being assigned to them and
let's management see system wide if inquiries are being left idle or
unread.
A "chain link" is inserted to indicate that there is either a new
email that has been attached to the inquiry or a new linked file has been
attached.
A "form" is inserted to indicate that there is a new Intake
Form has been created for this inquiry.
Once the operator enters the
inquiry, these alert icons are automatically cleared.
User Defined Fields in Inquiry Record
You have the ability to add
new user defined fields that are part of the inquiry record itself. Some
of these fields are indexed so that they can be used as lookup fields.
These fields will also be available in custom designed reports.
Internet Email
This feature provides for sending outbound internet
email using any windows MAPI compliant email client, such as Explorer, Outlook,
Eudora, Exchange, etc. You will be able to send messages, hot tips, or
attachments of any kind via Email. This email will be logged in the new Link
Database (see below) and the message body will be preserved. You'll be
able to quickly browse all emails per inquiry or client in the Link
Database.
Drag and drop of inbound email and attachments directly from
Outlook and other mapi email programs to the "links" database in HelpDesk is
supported. You may optionally wish to use the new HelpDesk Post Office "new" in
version 3.1.
Links Database
This allows you to link almost anything to an
inquiry record and to the contact record as well. This includes any thing
you can drag and drop from your windows desktop or applications, including
shortcuts, documents, spread sheets, graphics, web URL addresses,
ANYTHING. Also included is a special type record, the email linked record,
which will preserve the message body content for easy reviewing both inbound and
outbound email for this inquiry/contact. If you are using HelpDesk Post Office,
inbound and outbound email linked to inquiries will also be found in the Links
database and shown individually attached to individual inquiries.
RMA Database
A special database to hold information regarding
RMAs. You'll easily record (using a user defined RMA numbering system)
RMAs and report information from this file.
Known Issues "Bug" Database
Don't spin your wheels researching or
looking up known problems. Check the 'bug' database. Contains fields
such as when reported, nature of the problem, who is responsible for it,
expected completion date, and customers waiting on the 'fix'.
New in 3.0
is the ability to utilize Known Issues for other uses, including recording "wish
list items" from internal staff or customers, "suggestions" from customers and
staff, "documentation" or "other" types of information you wish to manage its
development.
We use it in house to manage bugs, new features, the
versions in which they will be included, priority, and quality assurance and
testing managed by priority and status. Check back or email for a case study
being developed on this versatile feature set. Launch Menu
This is
an advanced feature that will allow you to build a menu of custom programs that
can be called from an open inquiry. The menus allow you to pass parameters from
both HelpDesk (such as inquiry number) and from the contact manager (such as the
unique identifier that ties HelpDesk to the contact manager).
The purpose
of this is to allow, while an inquiry is open, the ability to call a custom
program (your responsibility) to go and retrieve information and present it to
the HelpDesk operator. An example would be to go and pull up a list of
everything sold to this particular customer and display it on the screen. The
HelpDesk user could then choose the appropriate item and pull that information
into HelpDesk. This is most helpful when you want to go to another system or
back to the contact manager) to pull up inventory or assets linked to a
particular contact.
Configurable Inquiry Screen
The Open Inquiry screen is now highly
configurable, allowing you three custom views of all data, tabs for products,
RMAs, Links, Time Logs, and History Records.
We have Original Problem Notes which contains a text description of the
problem as first described, and Resolution Notes, where notes relating to the
problem solving are kept. Also, you can use Intake Forms (as described
above) to further enhance you view of pertinent information. We've added
functionality to the timer, allowing you to stop it if you walk away from your
desk (under supervisor control) with a flashing timer indicating its 'stopped'
mode. Configurable History Queue Filtering
The History Queue has a
'quick' filtering system to allow you to quickly find the closed inquiry you are
seeking. It filters by date range and a number of other search values allowing
quick filtering with each key stroke. Makes for faster response in finding the
information you want.
Priority Escalation System
A few new additions to the escalation
system, including a 'drop dead' date to flag specific inquiries as to their
special status and special escalation date. The system will allow you to
define priorities and select when they are to be escalated, how they will appear
(color change) and if they should be rerouted to a different person or
department. Automatically generate email notification at user
defined priority levels. Example, when reaching 'Critical' notify assigned
user and Department Manager with full details. Is managed by a separate
escalation 'server' that can be dedicated to this task, removing valuable
processing tasks away from individual helpdesk users.
Report Writer Management Reports
Many analysis reports are
provided in Crystal Reports format, making it easy for you to use our formats to
generate your own reports. Optional time log tracking allows summary
reporting that tells you exactly who takes how long to complete specific
problems. Prevention report allows you to improve documentation and systems to
guide product development and knowledge-base text. Report on inquiries
open/closed/all per timer period by category, product, client, priority, or
operator. Complete time tracking reports as well as detailed billing
report/analysis. Prevention notes by product and company.
The supplied reports will come with 'source' so that you can copy and
modify our reports to make your own. The internal file structure for
HelpDesk is Microsoft Access so that you can use any report writer that reads
Microsoft Access files. Most all information you will need will be found
within our own data files eliminating the need to link external sources.
To modify Crystal Reports, you will need to purchase Crystal Reports
Report Designer. This is not included with Tele-Support HelpDesk. Only 'run
time' files are included with HelpDesk.
New reports scheduled include
Dispatching, Graphing, Open Call Analysis, Resolution Analysis, and
more. Support for GoldMine's Client Server Solutions
This is an
optional module available with version 2.2, 3.0 or higher.
Contact Manager Interface
With GoldMine, ACT!, or the Stand Alone
contact manager you'll be able to display and/or edit over 40 fields from the
contact manager. With GoldMine, you can display an open inquiry in
GoldMine's Pending tab and then have it moved to the History tab upon
completion. ACT! allow for activity history stamping as well. These
features allow for non HelpDesk staff to have a 'heads up' awareness of HelpDesk
issues without having to go into the HelpDesk module itself. Scripting
engine
We've added a scripting engine with version 3.0. Initially you'll
be able to use this feature to define expressions for default "priority" and
default "billable". Use java script or visual basic script to form expressions
to return information used to decide these default values. In a future version,
you'll be able to write powerful expressions and assign to buttons or events
that will give you power to run external programs and processes and pass
information from HelpDesk to these programs, or to send email, or to pop up
messages. (Example: when an inquiry is started, and the contact manager
information says his sales are greater than #100,000 or the customer is the
owner's mother and/or .... pop up a message that says "VIP". (You get the
idea).
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