Web Help Desk. Administrator s Guide Version MacsDesign Studio

Web Help Desk ^™

Administrator’s Guide

© 2005 MacsDesign Studio Version 8.2

Chapter 1: Database

Select a Database

Database Setup

SQL Server 2000 1 Oracle 2

PostgreSQL 8 2

OpenBase 2

Backup Strategies

Chapter 2: Installation

MacOS X

Pre-Install Requirements 3 Installation 3

Windows 2000

Pre-Install Requirements 3 Installation 3

Linux

Pre-Install Requirements 4 Installation 4

Solaris

Pre-Install Requirements 4 Installation 4

Apache Integration

Existing Tomcat Integration

Microsoft IIS Integration

Chapter 3: Getting Started

Preferences

Users 6 Tickets 6

Locations 8 Billing 9

E-Mail 9

Techs

Technician List 9 Tech Groups 10

Locations

Location List 11

Location Groups 12

Assets

Chapter 4: Managing Clients

Manual Web Entry

Data Import

LDAP Synchronization

Synchronizing LDAP Connections 16

Chapter 5: Tickets

Web-Based Ticketing

Asset Info 17 Ticket Details 18

Other Ticket Options 19

E-Mail Ticketing

Reporting by E-Mail 20 Updating by E-Mail 21

Task Management

Task Elements 22

Triggering Tasks 22

Search Tickets

Refining Search Results 23 Saved Queries 23

Ticket Bulk Actions 23

Ticket Assignment Logic

Chapter 6: Asset Management

Adding Assets

Manual Web Entry 26 Data Import 27

Search Assets

Refining Search Results 28 Saved Queries 28

Purchase Orders

Create a New Purchase Order 28 Add Line Items 29

Purchase Order Import 29

Chapter 7: FAQs

FAQ View

New FAQ

Table of Contents

Question View

Import FAQs

Chapter 8: Parts and Billing

Billing Preferences

Custom Logo 31 Billing Rates 31 Billing Terms 31

Managing Parts

Adding Inventory 32 Importing Inventory 32

Using Parts

Invoicing

Service Time Blocks

Chapter 9: Reports

Overview

Creating Reports

Individual Technician Report 35

Individual Report for All Technicians 37

All Technicians—Open Tickets Report 38 All Technicians—Average Open Time Report 39 Tech Group, Location, Location Group, Depart- ment, and Problem Type Reports 40 Technician Billing Report 40

Tech Group, Location, Location Group, Depart- ment, and Problem Type Billing Reports 40

Chapter 10: Surveys and Messages

Managing Surveys

Viewing Survey Results

Messages

Creating Messages 44 Viewing Tech Messages 44

Viewing Client Messages 45

License Key Expiration Message 45

Chapter 11: Client Interface

Request

Help Request 46 Select Asset 46

History

FAQs

Profile

Logout

Select a Database

Before installing the Web Help Desk, you should decide on which database the application will use. JDBC drivers for all supported databases are installed by default.

Supported Databases:

FrontBase (included on MacOS X and Windows 2000) MySQL 4 or 5

SQL Server 2000 Oracle 8i/9i/10g PostgreSQL 8 OpenBase

If installing on MacOS X or Windows 2000 and you wish to use the embedded FrontBase database, you may skip ahead to Chapter 2.

Database Setup

MySQL

Create a new database named “whd” and assign a user to it named “whd,” having select, insert, update, delete, create, drop, references, index, alter and lock tables privileges.

Refer to your MySQL database administrator or the MySQL documentation for details.

SQL Server 2000

Open the SQL Server Enterprise Manager and select your server from the tree. Right-click on your server and select Properties. Select the “Security” tab, and make sure your authentication is set to SQL Server and Windows.

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Expand your server tree, then expand the Security folder and right-click on the Logins icon. Select New login... Create a new login named whd. Select SQL Server Authentication and set a password of your choice. You can leave the Data- base default to master and the Language at <Default>. Save this login.

In the SQL Server Enterprise Manager, right click on the

“Databases” folder and choose the “New Database” menu item.

In the new database properties panel, type the name “whd”

then click “OK”.

Chapter 1: Database

2 Database CHAPTER 1

Expand the whd database folder, then right-click on the Us- ers folder. Select the “New Database User...” menu item. Add the “whd” user to the database.

Make sure to check the db_owner checkbox for the user.

Click “OK” to save.

Oracle

Create a new table space and user account having select, insert, update, delete, create, drop, index, and alter privileges. The user account should be named “whd” and the password can be set to one of your choice. You will need the SID value for the table space to make a connection from the Web Help Desk.

PostgreSQL 8

As the postgres admin user, create a new “whd” user and a new database called “whd”. Grant all permissions to the whd database for the whd user.

OpenBase

Create a new database called “whd” and enable automatic start on reboot. For the default “Admin” user, set the pass- word to one of your choosing. Refer to the OpenBase docu- mentation if you more explicit instructions.

Backup Strategies

Having a regular backup schedule is very important to protect your data in the event of a catastrophic hardware failure. The Web Help Desk can automatically make scheduled backups on the embedded FrontBase database. Backup for all other supported databases must be handled separately from the Web Help Desk. The backup should always be moved to a separate hard disk or tape.

Chapter 2: Installation

MacOS X

Pre-Install Requirements

MacOS X 10.2 or later

If not using the embedded FrontBase, your database of choice should be setup as described in Chapter 1.

Installation

Mount the WebHelpDesk-<version>.dmg disk image in the Finder and double click on the WebHelpDesk.pkg installer.

The application will be installed into:

/Library/WebHelpDesk

Utilities to start and stop the Web Help Desk and the Front- BaseManager application are installed into:

/Applications/WebHelpDesk

The application is configured to start automatically after installation and on reboot. However, if you do need to stop or restart the application for any reason, you can use the start and stop options in /Applications/WebHelpDesk.

By default, the Web Help Desk serves web pages on port 8081. If you would like to configure the Web Help Desk to work with Apache, or run on port 80 directly, follow the instructions described in the Apache Integration section.

Connect to the Web Help Desk by going to the URL:

http://localhost:8081/helpdesk

The application will attempt to connect to the FrontBase em- bedded database by default. You will be prompted to update the database to the latest version. Login to the application, using the default account:

E-Mail Address: admin Password: admin

Tip: In a new installation, the application will not prompt you for a database connec- tion or license name and key. It will automatically use the embedded database and start up in demo mode. If you don’t want to use the embedded database, you will need to go to Preferences > General > Database to update your settings. You must restart the application to use the new database connection. To enter your license name and key, go to Preferences > General > Server Settings.

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Windows 2000

Pre-Install Requirements

If not using the embedded FrontBase, your database of choice should be setup as described in Chapter 1.

Installation

Launch the WebHelpDesk-<version>.exe application and follow the on screen instructions. By default, the application will be installed into:

C:\Program Files\WebHelpDesk

The Web Help Desk is configured to start automatically on reboot. However, if you do need to stop or restart the applica- tion for any reason, go to Start > Programs > Web Help Desk and use the stop/start options.

By default, the Web Help Desk serves web pages on port 8081. The application can be configured to run on port 80, but IIS must be stopped. Refer to the Microsoft IIS Integra- tion section at the end of this chapter for more information.

Connect to the Web Help Desk by going to the URL:

http://localhost:8081/helpdesk

The application will attempt to connect to the FrontBase em- bedded database by default. You will be prompted to update the database to the latest version. To login to the application, use the default account:

E-Mail Address: admin Password: admin

Tip: In a new installation, the application will not prompt you for a database connec- tion or license name and key. It will automatically use the embedded database and start up in demo mode. If you don’t want to use the embedded database, you will need to go to Preferences > General > Database to update your settings. You must restart the application to use the new database connection. To enter your license name and key, go to Preferences > General > Server Settings.

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4 Installation CHAPTER 2

Linux

Pre-Install Requirements

RPM Package manager

The application has only been tested on RedHat Linux, but should work on other distributions.

Database setup as described in Chapter 1.

Installation

Decompress and install and install the RPM:

gunzip webhelpdesk-8.x.x-1.noarch.rpm.gz sudo rpm -ivh webhelpdesk-8.x.x-1.noarch.rpm

The RPM installs and starts the Web Help Desk at:

/usr/local/webhelpdesk

The application is configured to restart automatically upon reboot. However, if you do need to manually stop and start the application, using a shell:

cd /usr/local/webhelpdesk sudo ./whd stop

sudo ./whd start

By default, the Web Help Desk serves web pages on port 8081. If you would like to configure the Web Help Desk to work with Apache, or run on port 80 directly, follow the instructions described in the Apache Integration section.

If no Apache integration is required, connect to the Web Help Desk by going to the URL:

http://localhost:8081/helpdesk

Provide your settings to at the database configuration screen.

You will be prompted to update the database to the latest ver- sion. To login to the application, use the default account:

E-Mail Address: admin Password: admin

Tip: In a new installation, the application will not prompt you for a license name and key. It will automatically start up in demo mode. To enter your license name and key, go to Preferences > General > Server Settings.

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Solaris

Pre-Install Requirements

Database setup as described in Chapter 1.

Installation

Extract the package using gnutar:

sudo gnutar xvfz webhelpdesk-8.x.x.tgz -C /usr/local/

The application will be installed in:

/usr/local/webhelpdesk

If your Java home directory is not /usr/j2se/jre, edit the JAVA_HOME variable in webhelpdesk/conf/whd.conf to point to your Java home directory.

To configure the Web Help Desk to start up automatically at boot, execute the following commands:

cd /usr/local/webhelpdesk/bin sudo ./install_autostart

To remove the autostart configuration:

sudo ./remove_autostart

Start the application with the following command from within the webhelpdesk directory:

sudo ./whd start

By default, the Web Help Desk serves web pages on port 8081. If you would like to configure the Web Help Desk to work with Apache, or run on port 80 directly, follow the instructions described in the Apache Integration section.

If no Apache integration is required, connect to the Web Help Desk by going to the URL:

http://localhost:8081/helpdesk

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Provide your settings to at the database configuration screen.

You will be prompted to update the database to the latest ver- sion. To login to the application, use the default account:

E-Mail Address: admin Password: admin

Tip: In a new installation, the application will not prompt you for a license name and key. It will automatically start up in demo mode. To enter your license name and key, go to Preferences > General > Server Settings.

Apache Integration

By default, the Web Help Desk runs on port 8081. If you don’t need Apache, and would prefer to run the application on port 80, do the following:

Stop Apache

Set the DEFAULT_PORT variable in webhelpdesk/

conf/whd.conf to 80 Restart the Web Help Desk

To configure the Web Help Desk to work with Apache, per- form the following steps:

In your Apache configuration file (httpd.conf ), enable the mod_proxy module by making sure the following lines are uncommented:

LoadModule proxy_module AddModule mod_proxy.c

Add the following lines at the end of your Apache con- figuration file (httpd.conf):

ProxyPass /helpdesk http://localhost:8081/helpdesk ProxyPassReverse /helpdesk http://localhost:8081/helpdesk

Restart Apache

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Existing Tomcat Integration

To simplify installation, the Web Help Desk comes bundled with its own copy of the Apache Tomcat application server.

However, if your deployment server already has Tomcat installed and you wish to use it in place of the included copy, move the following two directories to your existing Tomcat/

webapps directory:

webhelpdesk/bin/webapps/helpdesk

webhelpdesk/bin/webapps/WHDReminderDaemon

If you are running Tomcat and Apache, you will need to add the ProxyPass entry described in the previous section.

Microsoft IIS Integration

By default, the Web Help Desk runs on port 8081. If you don’t need IIS, and would prefer to run the application on port 80, do the following:

Stop IIS

Set the DEFAULT_PORT variable in C:\Program Files\webhelpdesk\conf\whd.conf to 80 Restart the Web Help Desk

The recommended method for running the Web Help Desk along with IIS is to update any external links to the Web Help Desk to include :8081 after the host name (e.g., “http://www.

company.com:8081/helpdesk/WebObjects/Helpdesk” ).

Open a web browser and connect to the Web Help Desk using http://localhost:8081.

Log in as an admin user and go to Preferences > General

> Server Settings. Append “:8081” to your Server DNS Name or IP Address setting.

Update any links to the Web Help Desk to include :8081 in the URL:

http://<host>:8081/helpdesk/WebObjects/Helpdesk

Tip: There is an open-source adaptor to enable a direct connection between IIS and Tomcat, but currently this configuration is not officially supported. If you would like more information, see http://jakarta.apache.org/tomcat/tomcat-4.1-doc/jk2/jk/iishowto.

html.

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6

Chapter 3: Getting Started

Preferences

Log in as an Administrator and click on the Preferences tab.

Tip: Pop-up help is available throughout the preferences. Mouse over any prefer- ence label for a detailed description of the setting.

General

Server Settings

Specify you server DNS name or IP address and define time- out lengths for Clients and Techs. Update your license key and create a custom login message. Other settings include an auto-login option and the text character set used for display and storage in the database.

Tip: On a new installation the application assumes you are running on the default port of 8081. If you have configured the application to run on port 80, you should remove the :8081 from the Server DNS or IP Address setting.

Custom Logo

Upload a customized logo used in the web application and client e-mail. Logo should be 259 x 61 pixels in size.

Global Options

Specify settings that affect the entire application, like the use of Departments or enabling Parts and Billing.

Date and Time

Define your date format, hours of business, and iCalendar time window. Business hours are used in all date related ticket calculations.

Database

Specify the database vendor, machine name or IP address and connection account.

Logs

Specify the logging level of the application (default is Error).

Enable sending the log to a remote server for monitoring with the Chainsaw log tool. Logs are stored in WebHelpDesk/log/

helpdesk.log.

System

Displays system environment information: application ver- sion, Java version and memory used.

Users

Client Options

Specify the client login attribute (e-mail or user name), define which client fields are editable and required, and list which domains you want to accept e-mail from.

Client Custom Fields

Create custom fields for your clients and define viewing/ed- iting permissions for clients and techs. Custom fields are always visible to administrators.

Default Tech Permissions

These options serve as default values for any new Technician account. Each technician can have his/her own unique prefer- ence values specified in their detail record. Important options include:

Editing options on assets, models, parts and purchase orders

Ticket related editing options

Tickets

Ticket Preferences

Set the default priority for tickets and enable file attachments.

Other important options include:

Enable clients to set ticket priority

Lock the ticket to the client’s assigned location so that service locations remain private

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Field style for rooms (text or popup menu) See the online help pop-ups for more information.

Custom Fields

Create custom fields for your tickets and define viewing/edit- ing permissions for clients and techs.

Problem Types

Define what categories of issues your Web Help Desk will support. By default, the application has two problem types defined: Sample Problem and E-Mail Report. The Sample Problem can be renamed or deleted. Any new e-mail based ticket is assigned to the E-Mail Report problem type, which cannot be deleted. Click on the New button to define another problem type. A problem type can be defined at the top level, or as a child beneath any other level.

In the sample above, the “Kid Pix” problem type is de- fined as Child of the “Desktop Support” Parent, which was previously created.

Assign the problem type to a Tech Group (optional at this point – can be assigned when tech groups are created).

Define the default priority that tickets of this type will be assigned.

Specify if a detailed description of the problem is re- quired in the ticket when the problem type is selected Provide any default text you want to appear in the ticket’s problem description when the problem type is selected.

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Create internal problem types that are not visible to clients by unchecking the Visible to Client option.

By checking Model Required, a ticket with this problem type must have a hardware model selected by the client.

Specify which locations the problem type is visible from (default is “all”).

Custom fields can be linked to the problem type. The de- fault option is to display “All” custom fields – additional options include “Specific” and “None”.

The Lead Technician will receive any 2nd level escala- tions for tickets of this type. If the problem type isn’t added to any Tech Groups, the Lead Technician will be assigned all tickets of this type automatically.

Assign the survey to be linked to tickets using this prob- lem type.

In the Problem Type list view, you can expand a Parent/Child grouping by clicking on the triangle icon next to the Parent type name. Parents with no children will not have a triangle.

Status Types

Ticket status falls into two main states: Special and Other.

By default, the Web Help Desk defines the special states as Open, Closed, Resolved and Cancelled. These types cannot be deleted, but they can be re-named. The application creates one “other” type by default: Pending.

The pending state can be deleted or re-named. You can also add as many additional “other” states as you wish. All states, besides Closed and Cancelled, have the option of enabling alert e-mail messages. In addition, there are general settings to allow clients to re-open closed tickets and to automatically close tickets that have been in Pending state for a particular time period. Clients can be periodically reminded about tick- ets using by enabling the Client E-Mail Reminders option.

The reminder interval applies to all status types with Client Reminders enabled.

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8 Getting Started CHAPTER 3

Priority Types & Alerts

The application defines four priority types by default: Urgent, High, Medium and Low. Additional priority types can be created and the names and display order for each priority can be changed. Each priority type may have its own set of Alert Conditions that are used in conjunction with a ticket’s status to determine what the current alert status is. When a condi- tion in each alert level is reached, you have the option of trig- gering e-mail events, sending a message to the assigned tech, the tech’s supervisor or the group manager for the ticket’s problem type. The alert repeat interval can also specified for each priority type.

Each priority has a “Due Time” value that is used by a ticket to automatically calculate the due date and time. The due date and time can be overridden within each ticket if desired.

Tip: If the status type for the ticket has alerts disabled, no alert level changes will be observed regardless of the alert settings.

Assets

Asset Options

Specify if asset numbers should auto-increment and set view/

editing permissions for technicians.

Custom Fields

Define custom fields and specify view/editing permissions for techs.

Tip: Client permissions cannot be set for asset custom fields because they are never visible to clients.

Asset Types

The application defines a single Sample Type asset type by default. To add additional types, click on the New button at the bottom of the list, or click on an existing type to edit.

Each type can be linked to one or more models — common types include: Desktop, Laptop, Printer, etc.

Status Types

Define the various status that an asset can be categorized with. Common types include: Deployed, Storage, Donated, etc. Any status type can be additionally flagged as “Retired”

which means that assets using this status won’t be available for use in new tickets.

Warranty Types

Specify the warranty options available for your models. War- ranties can be named whatever you like, and the expiration can be defined in days, weeks, months or years.

Lease Types

Leases are only used in purchase orders (POs) for orders de- fined as “Lease” (vs. “Purchase”). The lease periods defined in this tab are available in the PO, and the period is used by any assets linked to the PO to calculate their lease expiration date.

Locations

Custom Fields

Define custom fields and specify view/editing permissions for techs.

Tip: Client permissions cannot be set for location custom fields because they are never visible to clients.

Billing

Options for Billing are available only if Parts and Billing is enabled in Preferences > General > Global Settings. There are four sub-tabs available: Invoicing, Custom Logo, Billing Rates and Billing Terms. Billing preference values are used in calculating ticket cost and for invoicing. The Invoicing >

Preferred Client Contact Info controls which address will be used on the invoice: “Help Desk” uses the Client’s assigned Location address, while “Personal Address” will use the address defined in the client’s profile. Tabs to upload a logo, define billing rates and billing terms are also available.

Tip: Your logo will be automatically scaled to a width of 3 inches in the PDF file. A medium to high resolution file is suggested.

E-Mail

Sending E-Mail

The Web Help Desk can send and receive e-mail notifica- tions. In order to send e-mail, the you must provide the fol- lowing settings:

SMTP server address

Helpdesk e-mail address (the “from” address for all mail)

Other options include a setting to send mail in either plain text or HTML format. You can also specify if clients can see an estimated due date for the ticket, and show or hide action links which allow clients to update or cancel a ticket via e- mail. Additional options include the ability to set the order- ing of information in the mail message (Client info, Ticket info, Notes), and specify how many notes should be included in the mail message. See the help pop-up items for a more detailed description of each option.

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Receiving E-Mail

In order to receive and update tickets via e-mail you must provide:

E-Mail address for submitting tickets (POP or IMAP) Mail server address

Account user name and password

The account is checked for new mail every minute.

Custom Greetings

Create customized greetings for your mail messages. Greet- ings are linked to specific ticket status types. SMS mail text can also be customized.

Techs

This module is used to create new Tech/Admin accounts and to link techs with specific problem types by creating Tech Groups. Click on the Techs tab to work with this module.

Technician List

The application starts with a single Administrator account which can be edited but not deleted. Click the New button to create a new Tech or Admin account, or click on an existing name to edit the account.

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10 Getting Started CHAPTER 3

Account Info

Provide name and contact information for the account and define the account type. If creating a Tech account, you must provide a Supervisor, which can be either an Admin or anoth- er Tech. When a ticket is overdue or escalated, the assigned Tech’s Supervisor may receive an e-mail. You may optionally specify a weekly work schedule. The schedule is used when determining if a technician is available for the auto-assign- ment of tickets. A backup tech can be specified to receive any auto-assigned tickets when the tech is unavailable due to schedule or vacation.

Permissions

All new Tech accounts inherit the permissions defined in Preferences > Users > Default Tech Permissions. These values can be left as is for the new account, or they can be edited to customize the behavior for each Tech. Administra- tor accounts always have full access. Permissions are divided into four main sections: Ticket, Client, Asset and Other.

Tech Groups

Assign the Tech to one or more Tech Groups. You must have already defined your Tech Groups to use this tab.

Location Groups

Assign the Tech to one or more Location Groups. You must have Locations and Location Groups setup before you can use this option.

Tech Groups

The main purpose of creating Tech Groups is to match a group of related Problem Types with one or more Techs who are qualified to handle the problems in the group. Tickets can be auto-assigned to a tech, the group manager the problem type lead, or assignment can be left at the group level. Group level assignment provides a queue of tickets for techs to select from.

Tech Group List

Selecting the Tech Group sub-menu option presents a list of your groups. By default, the application has one group:

E-Mail Reports. This group contains only the E-Mail Report problem type and cannot be deleted. To create an additional group, click on the New button, or click on an existing group name to edit.

Tech Group Info

Provide a group name and choose if a ticket with any of the group’s problem types will be auto-assigned to a tech.

Auto-assign options include: Group Tech, Group Manager or Problem Type Lead. If auto-assign is disabled, you have several e-mail options when new tickets for the group are created: None, All Group Techs or Group Manager. Also required is the selection of a Group Manager. This can be either a technician or administrator account. The manager

receives all 1st level escalations for tickets belonging to the tech group if Preferences > Tickets > 1st Level Escalation

> Tech Group Manager is selected. E-Mail ticketing can also be enabled at the tech group level. This feature allows you to define a unique mailbox for the tech group. Any new messages delivered to this mailbox will have tickets created based on the assignment rules defined for the tech group and will use the “E-Mail Problem Type” defined for the group.

Assigned Techs

Use this tab to assign the technicians to the group. A techni- cian can be in any number of tech groups. To remove a tech from the group, click on the small “-” button in the tech’s row.

Problems Supported

Specify the problem types for the group. A problem type can only be assigned to one Tech Group. As problem types are assigned, they disappear from the list of available types.

If a problem type has children, you cannot assign the parent type — only the children are available for assignment.

Tip: If you have a problem type that will always be assigned to a specific tech, don’t add the problem type to any tech group. Instead, define the specific tech as the Lead Tech for the problem type and any tickets of that type will automatically be assigned to the tech.

Locations

Click on the Locations tab — this module is used to define support locations and to organize locations into Location Groups.

Location List

The application defines a single Sample Location at instal- lation. To add an additional location, click on the New button at the bottom of the list, or select the name of an existing location to edit.

Location Basics

Provide a name and optional address for the location. Each location can be assigned one or more Administrative Con- tacts — a Client account that can view all tickets for the location, as well as create tickets for themselves. Admin Con- tacts may also be allowed to editing permission on all tickets for the location. Admin Contacts can also be sent a copy of all e-mail updates sent to clients at the location. A default ticket priority can be set for the location. If billing is enabled, the location can be designated as a parts storage option, and a default billing rate can be specified. To facilitate service level agreements (SLAs), a default priority for the location can be defined. Tech note work time can be displayed to clients at the location.

12 Getting Started CHAPTER 3

Room Editor

If Preferences > General > Use Rooms is enabled rooms can be linked to the Location by clicking on the Room Edi- tor tab. Add rooms by clicking on the New button at the bottom of the list. Remove rooms by clicking the “-” button on the room’s row.

Tip: Locations and rooms are created automatically when using the Asset or Client Importer. If you plan on importing assets or clients, you may want to hold off using the web interface for creating locations and rooms and let the importer do it for you.

Location details would need to be added via the web interface after importing.

Location Groups

This sub-module is used to define groups of Locations and link them to the Techs that will handle their tickets. The application defines a single Sample Location Group at installation, to which the Sample Location was added. To add an additional location group, click on the New button at the bottom of the list, or select the name of an existing group to edit.

Group Name

Name the location group and assign a Group Manager. The group manager can be any a tech or an administrator, and will receive all 1st level ticket escalations if Preferences >

Tickets > 1st Level Escalation > Location Group Manager is selected.

Assigned Locations

Define the locations for the group. Each location can only be assigned to one group. As locations are assigned, they disappear from the list of available locations. To remove a location from the group, click the “-” button on the location’s row.

Assigned Techs

Use this tab to assign the technicians to the group. A techni- cian can be in any number of location groups. To remove a tech from the group, click on the small “-” button in the tech’s row.

Tip: If you wish to have jobs routed to a different Tech for every location, you must create a separate Location Group for every location. Only group locations together if you want the Techs in the group to handle jobs from multiple locations.

Assets

The Web Help Desk can be used as a complete asset manage- ment solution, however if you want to include basic asset information in tickets, you must at minimum define Asset Types, Manufacturers, and Models. Chapter 6 deals with asset management in detail.

Models

Use this sub-module to define the models your help desk will support. Before adding specific models, you need to create Manufacturers to link the models to. The application defines a singe Sample Manufacturer by default. To add a new manufacturer, click on the New button at the bottom of the list, or click on the name of an existing manufacturer to edit.

Manufacturer Info

Provide a manufacturer full name and short name — the short name is used in all drop down menus for any models linked to the manufacturer. Any additional information be- yond the full and short names is optional.

Model Editor

Add models for the manufacturer under this tab. You must provide a model name and an asset type. If you plan on using the full asset management options of the application, you should assign a default warranty as well. If you need to add additional asset or warranty types, go to Preferences > As- sets.

Tip: Manufacturers and models are added automatically when using the Asset Importer. If you plan on importing assets, you may want to hold off creating your manufacturers and models and let the importer do it for you. You will still need to go back to each entry and fill out details using the web interface.

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Chapter 4: Managing Clients

Manual Web Entry

Individual clients are added to the application by going to the Clients > Search Clients and clicking on the “New Client”

button.

All clients must have at least a last name and an e-mail address to be saved successfully. A client can be assigned to a primary location, room and department. Once the cli- ent record is saved, the client can be assigned to additional rooms. Personal address information can be stored in the client record – expose the fields by clicking on the triangle in the label row. By default, clients log in using their e-mail address, but clients may instead log in with a user name if enabled at Preferences > Users > Client Options > Client Login Attribute. New account confirmation is mailed to the client if enabled at Preferences > Users > Client Options >

E-Mail Client When Account is Created.

Tip: Passwords for web entry clients are created automatically using the value set at Preferences > Users > Client Options, or the value can be set manually.

Data Import

Importing is an efficient way to populate your client list.

The import is facilitated by a template available at Clients >

Import Clients. Click on the Download Template link and open the client_import_template.txt file in Excel. When adding client rows to the spreadsheet, it is very import to leave the column header and all columns in order and intact.

If you do not wish to import data for a particular column, it is fine to leave the cells empty for the column. If you delete the headers, columns, or change the column order, the import will receive an error message. When e-mail is the client login attribute, there are two required columns for any client import:

Last Name E-Mail Address

The importer adds a new client for each unique e-mail ad- dress it encounters and synchronizes data based on the sync key you select. The sync attribute is client e-mail address by default, but you can also choose user name or one of your custom fields. If you have Location, Room or Department information contained in the data file, the importer creates new Locations, Rooms and Departments for any uniquely named values.

Once your template is prepared, make sure to save as the file as tab or comma delimited, then use the Choose File button to navigate to your file. Click the Import button to upload the template and import the clients. When the upload is com- plete, go to Clients > Search Clients to check your upload results.

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LDAP Synchronization

The Web Help Desk can be configured to use multiple LDAP directories as a source for client data. To optimize performance, the Web Help Desk downloads client data from the LDAP directory to the Web Help Desk database;

consequently, changes to LDAP data require the Web Help Desk database to be re-synchronized. Synchronization can be performed manually or at scheduled intervals.

Creating an LDAP Connection

LDAP connections are specified at Clients > LDAP Connec- tions. To create a new LDAP connection click on the New button or click on an existing LDAP connection name to edit. In the Connection Basics, provide an optional connec- tion name and the required host and Base DN parameters for the LDAP connection. If the LDAP directory is a Microsoft Active Directory, be sure to select the Microsoft Active Directory checkbox. You can also select SSL for secure con- nections and several authentication options are available.

Tip: For most directories anonymous access is all the Web Help Desk requires to im- port your client data. Active Directory, however, requires authentication to read the directory. The connection account should look like [email protected], where the domain name matches the dc values in your Base DN. You must also provide a password for the account.

LDAP synchronization does not import any passwords into the database, so your directory must store password infor- mation if you want to use it with the Web Help Desk. To authenticate your clients, the application performs an LDAP bind with your directory passing the user supplied password as part of the bind.

Tip: There is an option to ignore all client passwords, which is helpful if your directory doesn’t store passwords and client privacy isn’t an issue. The option is set in the whd.conf file located at <install path>/WebHelpDesk/conf/whd.conf.

Mapping Attributes

Besides importing basic client information, LDAP synchroni- zation can also be used to map values stored in your directory to Web Help Desk entities like Location and Department or to custom fields. To map these attributes, select an LDAP connection, then click on the Attribute Mappings tab.

You may select to use either the default schema (user for Active Directory, inetOrgPerson for others), or a custom schema. If a custom schema is selected, a popup menu will appear containing schemas provided by the LDAP directory.

The LDAP attributes to which the Web Help Desk entities may be mapped are determined by the selected schema.

Clients can log into the Web Help Desk using either e-mail address or a user name as defined in Preferences > Users

> Client Options. If a custom schema is selected, name, e- mail, and phone attributes may be mapped; otherwise, these attributes are automatically mapped to the givenName, sn, mail, and telephoneNumber attributes of the default schema.

Tip: If your LDAP does not define separate first and last name attributes, but combines them into one, choose the Full Name option in the Name Attribute. The last word in the name value is used for the client’s last name and the rest of the value is used for the first name.

The location, room, and department attributes have checkboxes indicating whether new corresponding entries should be added to the Web Help Desk database if they don’t already exist. In order for the LDAP location, room, and department data to map to existing Web Help Desk entities, the values of the LDAP attributes must exactly match the names of the mapped Web Help Desk entity. For example, if mapping the LDAP “l” attribute to the Web Help Desk Location entity, you must be sure that you created your loca- tions with the exact same names as the “l” entries in LDAP.

Note that once new location, room, and department entries have been added, they will not be modified by subsequent

CHAPTER 4 Managing Clients 16

LDAP synchronizations.

Some LDAP implementations do not allow the discovery of Schemas and Attributes. In that case, the “Detect Schemas

& Attributes” button will not be shaded, and the drop down menus will be replaced with text fields where mappings can be entered manually.

Synchronizing LDAP Connections

Once an LDAP connection has been defined, you must synchronize it with the Web Help Desk database. Although password authentication is performed directly against the directory using an LDAP bind, all other client data is refer- enced from cached copies contained within the Web Help Desk database. You can perform a manual synchronization of the LDAP data by clicking on the Sync Now icon in the list of LDAP connections. If more than one LDAP connection has been defined, an additional synchronization icon is pro- vided in order to sync all connections at once. You may use the Auto-Sync Schedule setting of each LDAP connection to define when automatic synchronizations should take place.

Tip: You can combine LDAP sync with client import to populate values that are not available in your LDAP directory. For example, if your LDAP directory only stores client name and e-mail, you can still use it to create WHD client accounts and for authentication. To populate values like Location, Room and Department, you can use an import template and sync to the client’s e-mail address.

Web-Based Ticketing

New tickets are created at Home > My Tickets or Group Tickets and Tickets > Ticket Search. Click on the “New Ticket” button at the top-left of the list or the “New” button on the bottom-right of the list.

Client Info

By default, new web-based tickets open to the Client Info tab. Tickets do not require a client, unless specified at Prefer- ences > Tickets > Client Required. Use the “Client Look- up” search panel to find clients by name, e-mail, location or department. Search results are displayed below. To assign the client, click on the hyper-linked name. If only one match is found for the search criteria, that client is automatically as- signed to the ticket without having to select it from the list.

Tip: To search by partial name or e-mail, use an asterisk (*) as a wildcard.

Once a client is selected, his/her contact information is displayed in full on the upper left section of the Client Info panel. If a mistake was made, you can click the “Clear” but- ton to remove the client assignment. The client record can be edited in a popup window by clicking the “Edit” button next to the client name.

In addition to client info, a list of “active” (non closed or cancelled) tickets for the assigned client is displayed on the right side of the panel. If an issue has already been reported in a previous ticket, clicking on the ticket number or problem report replaces the new ticket with the selected one.

Asset Info

Click on the Asset Info tab to link an asset to the ticket, or supply a model if a defined asset is not available. An asset or model is not required in a ticket. If assets are disabled at Preferences > General > Global Settings > Use Assets the Asset Info tab will be hidden from in the ticket detail.

Any assets assigned to the ticket’s client are displayed, or an asset can be looked up by asset number, serial number, model, location or room or custom field. To assign an asset, click on the hyperlinked asset number. The assigned asset can be edited by clicking the button containing the asset number.

To remove an assigned asset from the ticket, click the “-” but- ton at the right side of the assigned asset. Multiple assets can be assigned.

Tip: A ticket is not required to have an assigned asset or model. If the issue you are reporting doesn’t need this information, the Asset Info tab can be skipped entirely.

Chapter 5: Tickets

CHAPTER 5 Tickets 18

Ticket Details

Saving a New Ticket

The Ticket Details panel is where you define the ticket’s problem type and provide a subject and problem description.

A problem description can contain a maximum of 4000 char- acters. The ticket’s Location and Room can be specified here as well — if the assigned client or asset had location informa- tion, that will already be reflected in this panel. A problem type and description are required before the ticket can be successfully submitted. You may also create a tech note with time and billing info for the ticket, and set the job status. If the status is set to “Closed” the ticket is automatically as- signed to the current tech regardless of any auto-assign rules in effect. Clicking the “Continue...” button saves the ticket to the database.

Assigned Tech and Escalation

If the ticket’s problem type belongs to a tech group, and auto-assign is enabled for the group, the application will as- sign a technician to the ticket. The ticket is escalated to the Tech Group Manager of the ticket’s problem type by click- ing on the round escalate button next to the assigned tech’s name. If the manager is already assigned to the ticket, it will be escalated to the ticket’s problem type lead technician. If auto-assign is disabled for the ticket’s tech group, the ticket will not be assigned to a specific tech, but will belong to the tech group’s pool of tickets. For more information on the application’s auto-assignment logic, click here.

Status, Priority and Due Dates

All new tickets are assigned with the “Open” status type, and the ticket’s priority is set according to the value specified in Preferences > Tickets > Ticket Options. The priority may also be set based on the ticket’s problem type or location. If both location and problem type have a default priority setting, the location priority takes precedence. The due date is calcu- lated based on priority, but can be manually overridden. If the priority is changed, the due date is re-calculated on the fly.

The ticket can also be scheduled for work at a specific date and time range – due dates and scheduled dates are displayed in the calendar view (web and iCalendar).

Ticket Notes

Technicians add information to a ticket using a tech note. A ticket can have any number of notes, and notes can be added by any technician. Notes are date and time stamped when saved and the tech who entered the information is automati- cally associated with the note. The amount of time that was spent on the work can be added to the note using the “Work Time” drop down options. By default, notes are visible to cli- ents and are colored blue. Notes can be hidden from clients, and appear gray in color. Clients can also add notes, which appear yellow. Client and tech notes can store a maximum number of 4000 characters per note.

If Preferences > General > Global Options > Parts &

Billing Enabled is checked, a billing rate for the work can be specified. If the ticket’s location has a billing rate set, new tech notes will use it by default. A tech note can also be used to create a new FAQ — the problem report is used as the question and the tech note is used as the answer. New FAQs created from tech notes are set to “unapproved” status by de- fault and use the ticket’s problem type as the FAQ category.

Tip: Clicking the “Save” button at the bottom of the ticket will save any open tech note as well as any changes made to other ticket fields. A tech note can be saved independently from the rest of the ticket fields by clicking the note’s “Save” button.

Using FAQs in Notes

A link to an existing FAQ can be embedded into a tech note using the “Insert FAQ Link” button when editing the note.

Clicking this button opens a FAQ search popup window.

Once the FAQ you wish to link is found, click the “Link”

button on the right side of the FAQ row. This copies a link tag into the current tech note. If you happen to know the FAQ number by memory, you can skip the lookup and enter the tag yourself. The format is: <faq id=x> where x is the FAQ number.

Ticket E-Mail Recipients

E-mail to the client, assigned technician (or group techs if unassigned) or other addresses via the Cc: field can be sent when the ticket is saved. Select the recipient checkboxes and add Cc: addresses (comma separated) if necessary, then click the “Save & E-Mail” button. No mail is sent when clicking the “Save” button.

Other Ticket Options

Hot Tickets

A ticket can be designated as a “Hot Ticket” by clicking on the hot ticket button (red thermometer). Once a ticket has been designated hot, other tickets related to the hot ticket can be linked. When the problem is resolved, closing the hot ticket will automatically close all linked child tickets.

To view the current hot tickets, click on the “Hot Tickets”

tab on the right side of the ticket detail. Clicking on “Link”

will make the current ticket a child of the selected hot ticket, while the “View” hyperlink replaces the detail view with the selected ticket.

A ticket with a linked parent hot ticket adds a row in the Job Details to display the parent ticket number. The link can be broken by clicking on the round delete button. Clicking on the ticket number switches you to the parent hot ticket.

Print View

To display all of the ticket information in a printer-friendly view, use the “Print” button at the top of the ticket. Clicking the button opens the ticket in a separate window suitable for printing.

CHAPTER 5 Tickets 20

Editing Permissions

Administrators are free to re-assign technicians, change ticket status and delete tickets. Technicians can have various levels of access depending on their individual preferences set by an Administrator. Any newly created technician inherits the permissions defined in Preferences > Users > Default Tech Permissions. These defaults may be overridden by an Administrator by editing the permissions of an individual technician record. The ticket related preferences are:

Limit Tickets to Assigned Location Groups allows the tech to create, view and edit tickets belonging only to locations in the tech’s assigned location groups.

Limit Tickets to Assigned Tech Groups allows the tech to create, view and edit tickets belonging only to Tech Groups to which the tech is assigned.

Change Others’ Ticket Status allows the tech to change the status of tickets not assigned to themselves.

Edit Ticket Dates enables the changing of the report and close dates on a ticket.

Edit Problem Report allows the tech to update the text of the reported issue.

Allow Re-Assignment enables the tech to re-assign the ticket to any other tech. Disabling this option allows the tech to only re-assign jobs to themselves.

Change Priority allows the tech to change the priority of tickets assigned to themselves or, if Edit Other’s Tickets is enabled, the priority of any ticket.

Close Tickets enables the tech to set tickets to the

“Closed” status type.

Delete Tickets exposes the ticket “Delete” button to the tech.

Import Tickets allows the tech to access the Tickets >

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Import Tickets module.

Edit Tasks allows the tech to create and edit tasks created at Tickets > Task Manager.

E-Mail Ticketing

Reporting by E-Mail

Tickets can be created by sending an e-mail message to the dedicated help desk e-mail address. A ticket is created for each new message sent to the address provided the sender’s e-mail address exists in your Client list. If the sender is not a registered user of the application, the sender can be added to your client list along with a new ticket, or an error e-mail can be sent in reply. Preferences for handling e-mail tickets are located at Preferences > E-Mail > Receiving E-Mail.

All settings in this panel are ignored unless “Enable E-Mail Tickets” is checked. All tickets created from this mailbox are designated as an E-Mail Report problem type and therefore belong to the E-Mail Reports tech group.

The e-mail account may be either POP or IMAP (Exchange Server must enable IMAP), and can connect via SSL if re- quired. The receiving preferences can be configured to ignore requests coming from a list of accounts – several are created by default at installation. E-mail may also limited to particu- lar domains. When Create New Tickets From Replies is enabled, the application will parse the subject of the e-mail to determine if the message is in response to an existing ticket, and if so, append the message body as a note. Please pay special attention to the popup help related to this setting.

E-mail tickets can be targeted to a specific tech group by enabling a separate mailbox for each tech group. Select the checkbox at Techs > Tech Groups > [select a group] > En- able E-Mail Tickets to expose e-mail receiving preferences for that group. The e-mail address must be different from

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the one specified in the general e-mail receiving preference, and must have a default “E-Mail Problem Type” defined for tickets created from that mailbox.

Updating by E-Mail

Clients receive an e-mail confirmation on e-mail tickets based on the preference set at Preferences > Tickets > Ticket Options > E-Mail on Client Update. “Action links” can be enabled in the e-mail reply which allow the client to add notes or cancel the ticket. Action links are enabled at Prefer- ences > E-Mail > Sending E-Mail > Include Action Links and appear as buttons in an HTML e-mail or as hyperlinks in plain text e-mail messages. It is important that an e-mail re- ply has its subject line left intact, as the Web Help Desk uses the subject to determine if the e-mail triggers a new ticket or an update to an existing ticket. Only the client that created the ticket or a client that has been carbon copied (Cc:) on the ticket can update it via e-mail. If enabled, any files attached to the message are added to the ticket as attachments.

Techs can also update tickets by e-mail. In addition to adding notes, techs can change the status of the ticket by clicking on one of the status links at the bottom of the message. This will create a reply e-mail with a pre-formatted subject line the ap- plication uses to carry out the action. For example:

Ticket:1532 Action:TechUpdate Hidden:NO Status:Pending EmailClient:NO Reas- sign:[email protected] MinutesWorked:30 BillingRate:Standard

This subject tells the application to add the body of the mes- sage to ticket 1532 as a tech note visible to the client, change the status of the ticket to “Pending”, don’t send the client an e-mail confirmation, reassign the ticket to another tech (Sally), set the work time for the note to 30 minutes and the billing rate to “Standard”. To use the “reassign” option in the subject, you must supply the full e-mail address of the tech.

The specified billing rate must match an existing rate name.

If the tech is an administrator, a “Delete Ticket” button is also available in the e-mail message.

CHAPTER 5 Tickets 22

Task Management

Creating Tasks

A Task is a container for one or more ticket templates called

“Elements”. A task can be scheduled to repeat at daily, monthly or yearly intervals. A task may also have a Client as- sociated with it — the Client would be assigned to all tickets created by the task. To create a new task, go to Tickets >

Task Manager. Click the “New” button at the bottom of the Task list.

At a minimum, the Task must have a name in order to be saved. If tickets created by the task should have a client as- signed, use the search feature to find and select the assigned client. Selecting “Yes” for the Scheduled option exposes a Start Date field and a frequency selector. A scheduled task can be made repeating or can be run once and deleted. When the Task is saved, the “Task Elements” tab becomes active, and new ticket templates can be added.

Task Elements

To add an Element to the Task, click the “New” button at the bottom of the Element list. To save the Element, you must provide a problem type, subject and detail for the ticket to be created. Optionally, location, room, department, technician, priority and asset number can be added. If the Task needs to create multiple tickets when triggered, continue adding ad- ditional Elements as needed.

Triggering Tasks

Tasks run automatically on their scheduled date or they can be triggered manually using the green “Play” button next to the task name. Running a scheduled task manually will set the last run date to the current date, and set the next run date based on the schedule interval.

Search Tickets

Tickets > Search Tickets provides two search options: Basic or Advanced mode. Basic searching is a simplified sub-set of the search criteria available in the advanced search mode.

Tip: To clear the current search criteria, click on either the “Basic Search” or “Ad- vanced Search” tab.

Search results are sorted by clicking on a column header. The sort order of a column is reversed by clicking on the header again. Download the search results in PDF format by clicking on the Tickets PDF button, or download the results as a tab separated text file suitable for viewing in a spreadsheet by clicking on the Download TSV button. The buttons can also act on a subset of the search results checked off in the left column.

To edit a ticket, click on the hyperlinked ticket number or problem report text in the search results list. After saving any changes to the ticket, clicking the back arrow button on the save confirmation dialog returns you to your previous search results list. You can also return to the search results by using the back arrow button on the top left of the ticket detail or by clicking the “Cancel” button at the bottom of the ticket.

Tip: Shift-clicking on the save button in a ticket will both save and return you to the ticket list view. Alt-clicking will save the ticket and create a new one.

Refining Search Results

The search results list can display a large amount of ticket data. To control what information is displayed use the Column Set widget to control column visibility. The widget is located at the upper right corner of the search results list.

Click the “+” button to add a new set, or the pencil button to edit an existing one.

Column sets are saved individually for each Tech by name.

Each column set can specify a different PDF download op- tion (Invoice or Ticket format) and full text option.

Saved Queries

Search criteria that you plan to re-use can be saved as a named query using the Advanced Search tab. To save a query, define your search criteria, then provide a name in the “Save Query as:” field. By default, a query can only be seen by technician who creates it. Selecting the “Shared” checkbox allows all techs to use the query.

To run a query, select the query name from the Query drop down list at the top of the search results display. The query will be run automatically upon selection.

To re-run the same query, use the “play” button. To remove the selected query from the list, click on the “-” button. To subscribe to an iCalendar made up of tickets captured by the query, click on the calendar button.

Tip: In Advanced Search mode, you can use the Technician, Status and Priority select list options to search for multiple criteria in your search or query.

Ticket Bulk Actions

Bulk actions allow you to run a saved set of ticket changes against one or more tickets in a search results list. To create an action, click the “+” button.

A bulk action template looks similar to the Ticket Details tab of a normal ticket. The template allows you to assign a client, create tech notes, change status, etc. — any set of values you can change in a normal ticket can be specified in the bulk action template. Once changes have been made, you have the option of running the action against any tickets you’ve selected from the search results list without saving the tem- plate, or you can save the template by name to be run at any time in the future. Bulk actions can be private or shared, and can be edited and re-named.

CHAPTER 5 Tickets 24

To run a saved action, select one or more tickets from the search results list, then the appropriate action from the popup menu. Click the “run” button — you will receive an alert that summarizes what changes will be made to the selected tickets with a chance to cancel the action.

Tip: To select all the tickets in the search results list, click on the small checkbox in the column header for the selection column.

To edit an existing action, select the action from the popup menu, then click the pencil button.