Simple Help Desk Software

[Peter]

Hi,

I´m looking for a simple self-hosted helpdesk software (preferably PHP) that comes with a nice design out-of-the box (or at least one that can be easily styled).

Been googling around for a while and found RT: Request Tracker (Perl). RT seems good, but I would like to get some opinions.

...or, maybe I should just get started building my own helpdesk with PW

-Peter

PS. Tested Ryan´s Pro Cache on two sites today and it's really lightning fast.............

[Joss]

Build your own sounds nice - you can then leave out all the huge amount of data, reports, additional fields and so on which looks wonderful when trying to sell it, but just creates a vast amount of work for the users and a ton of meaningless reports and stats that no-body reads.

There are a large parts of the IT industry who have never got their heads round the idea of "the more you add to something, the more useless it becomes."

So, go for it!

[Pete]

Funnily enough I'm building one currently in ProcessWire but will be a while before it's ready

[pwired]

Who, among us here is running his on-line helpdesk ?

Try this:

http://www.helpdesksoftware.org/

http://www.web-based-soft.com/top-6-online-help-desk-software-tools/

http://www.sitepoint.com/customer-service-help-desk-apps/

[Pete]

I've looked at many of them and still decided to build my own, which says something since it's not like I've got lots of free time

After looking at your last two links, most the examples fall foul of my main gripe with helpdesk software -  too many config options and trying to be all things to all users. They're fine for enterprises that have a team of IT folk to manage and man them and someone willing to pay a lot of money (in some cases), but I'm betting that the most commonly overlooked market for helpdesk software is people and smaller companies simply wanting departments, tickets and a knowledgebase with a little ticket escalation thrown in which is what I'm aiming for.

[Joss]

Actually, I would argue they are not fine for enterprises either.

I sat on a help line today while a furious amount of typing was going on the other end - complete with lots of "needed" questions.

The call probably took 3 or 4 minutes longer than needed. Okay for me, but multiply that up by however many thousands of calls that company receives and the wasted time and resources is vast.

Even with internet forms. I was submitting a bug somewhere the other day, and I needed to fill in OS, Browser, browser version, my machine OS, date, full name, dogs name, and so on and so forth.

Then in the bug fields I wrote "You have got the date wrong on the script."

So, a ton of information that was not required, got stored and some poor bugger had to read before getting to the actual information.

The clever thing about old fashioned help system (some trained individual standing behind a counter with a pencil shoved behind their ear) was that they asked what the problem was FIRST and then asked for additional information based on not what the system said do, but what the problem actually was. And it was 100 times more astute than the automated variety. 

Enter your problem. "My site is offline."

Please choose one of the following from our helpful FAQ:

"What to do when your lawnmower breaks down."

"The best place to buy chickens"

"How to get your wall vertical."

I once wrote a TV sketch about it (that didn't get used). A person walked into a store, went to the information desk and said hello. For the next ten minutes the helpful person asked loads of nice questions, took down details and so on at the end of which they asked what the problem was.

"I have just backed into your car."

[Pete]

The handy thing about building one in ProcessWire is that you can have it out of the box as simply "Enter your question", but for those companies that like to add complexity, customising it to add more questions is simply a case of adding more fields to the "ticket" template, which is easier than most helpdesk packages I've used

[Joss]

Yes, but just add a popup warning that says:

• Are you sure you want to add another field?
• Are you certain you will know what to do with it?
• Have you calculated how much money it will cost to deal with the data created by that field?
• Will you customers hate you for adding that field to their stressed, high-blood-pressure, sleepless, anxiety ridden, miserable little existences?
• Are you happy to have that extra field on your conscience?

[Peter Falkenberg Brown]

The handy thing about building one in ProcessWire is that you can have it out of the box as simply "Enter your question", but for those companies that like to add complexity, customising it to add more questions is simply a case of adding more fields to the "ticket" template, which is easier than most helpdesk packages I've used

Hi Pete...

I'm making a lot of very fun progress on a regular ol' magazine site, where only staff members enter data, in PW's default Admin pages.

But -- I believe I'm still missing something about modifying things like a "ticket template", where you can add fields, etc, for users to enter data, and have it look different.

Based on the view that a ticket system, or any kind of special app, might not want to use the default admin "look and feel", does one have to replace the admin system, or can one plug in a modified template for users with certain roles?

I'd like to be able to have someone log in and then show them a specialized template that still uses all of PW's goodness, without having to roll my own forms and save functions. Can it be done by modifying, replacing or adding onto the PW admin backend?

Although I *would* like to understand more about how to add hooks to those templates and forms. In an app that I built in Perl, I had "pre-processor" and "post-processor" hooks (i.e. subroutines) that ran before and after most operations, like viewing a record, editing, updating, adding and saving. For example, before the save or update functions, I would check for required fields, or other special needs, and in the post-processor, I would calculate fields and do additional save operations.

I know I'm missing something. Do you have any quick tips about how to accomplish something like the above, for any kind of basic "custom forms"  application?

Thanks!

Peter

[teppo]

Hi Peter,

Just wanted to point out that there are couple of interesting discussions related to custom forms around; this one for an example.

Essentially you'll have to create a form, by using PW elements or your own, and mostly put the logic together yourself. Depends of course a lot on what you're trying to achieve; simply sanitizing and saving user submitted content to pages (or users or..) is very simple to do via API, as you most likely already knew

Lately we've been using Ryan's great Form Builder for almost all of our front-end custom forms stuff. It's super versatile and in the long run saves so much time that it's well worth the cost ($39.00 USD for one site etc.)

[Peter Falkenberg Brown]

Hi Teppo,

Thanks for the tips!

Does that mean that the interface can't be built on the foundation of the admin interface? Just checking... .

Peter

[Soma]

Peter, depends what you have in mind.

You can create custom admin pages and build your form using PW forms and API, so building on the foundation. The thread teppo linked to shows how to use inputs and form, whether for frontend or backend. Using PW components gives to plenty of possibilities to validate and manipulate and hook into various parts of the form and it inputfields. There around 400 hookable functions in PW http://processwire.com/api/hooks/. With this at your fingertips you can do almost anything pretty quickly, whether in backend or in front-end. It depends (as always) a lot what exactly you want to build and what the need are in detail and then look at what would fit best.

Also remember all the PW backend stuff is built out of modules exactly the way you would build custom admin functionality and you always can look at how it's done or copy a module to site folder and start modifiying it. You could create your own admin pages and build mini apps that help editing, creating content and it's pretty straight forward. It would be in the same way for when building it in front-end. PW doesn't have a solution to all ready, but a strong foundation to build anything you want.

I'm not sure what else you need to know or what you're exactly have in mind. I think you're still maybe need to play with that stuff to better understand all of that stuff and how to go about it in PW. So you should slowly start building custom admin pages I think and ask away.

[Peter Falkenberg Brown]

Dear Soma,

Thanks, that's very helpful. I've looked at the hooks page. I'm halfway done with my first "regular" PW website, and I know that the hooks are my next stop.

Is there any other documentation on the hooks, besides just looking through the admin code? (Which I've started to do.)

Thanks again!

Peter

[Pete]

I personally think that for a ticket system you will be adding front-end forms for submitting tickets and displaying helpful articles (in the system I'm building at least) that I would add the management side of things to the front-end too.

The page tree in the admin doesn't really lend itself to listing tickets, though I realise it is simple enough to add another page there. My other reason is I would like to add lower level users in to reply to tickets and want to keep the interface as simple as possible for them.

Actually, reading that back they're all pretty weak excuses for not doing it in the admin, but I guess my main thought was that keeping it all front-end managed allows for more consistency for less experienced users, and the large intranet I'm building this to run inside already has a look and feel that is identical when adding content or viewing content.

[Soma]

Dear Soma,

Thanks, that's very helpful. I've looked at the hooks page. I'm halfway done with my first "regular" PW website, and I know that the hooks are my next stop.

Is there any other documentation on the hooks, besides just looking through the admin code? (Which I've started to do.)

Thanks again!

Peter

There is some "infos" on that sheet, you click "infos" see? There's "useful links".

Also the forums contains lots of examples and bits of informations. Otherwise the source might be your best bet, and the HelloWorld.module.

If you find any helpful posts you can send me links and I'll add it to the sheet.

[Peter Falkenberg Brown]

Actually, reading that back they're all pretty weak excuses for not doing it in the admin, but I guess my main thought was that keeping it all front-end managed allows for more consistency for less experienced users, and the large intranet I'm building this to run inside already has a look and feel that is identical when adding content or viewing content.

Dear Pete,

Thanks for this feedback. I think I may do the same.

Best regards,

Peter

[Peter Falkenberg Brown]

There is some "infos" on that sheet, you click "infos" see? There's "useful links".

Also the forums contains lots of examples and bits of informations. Otherwise the source might be your best bet, and the HelloWorld.module.

If you find any helpful posts you can send me links and I'll add it to the sheet.

Dear Soma,

Thanks for this info! I actually didn't click on the "Infos" link.

This is very helpful.

Best regards,

Peter