I’m looking for some help-desk style software with some very specific features:
- Users create new help requests by emailing a support@example.com-style email.
- There should be some sort of concept of “support queues” with each queue having an associated email address. So there might be a “sales” queue by emailing sales@example.com, a client-specific queue at client-a@clients.example.com, etc.
- New issues (i.e. new emails) get automatically assigned to one of a pool of support staff. The bare minimum would be a round-robin or random assignment from the pool. Bonus points for some sort of rules engine (“emails from @example.net get assigned to Joe, Jane, or Jeff”). Double-bonus points for a PagerDuty-style calendar-based rotation system.
- The primary interaction should be via email. Follow-up emails cc’d or sent to the support email get appended to the ticket. Ticket numbers in the email itself is OK; smart subject matching would be better.
- Staff members get a web dashboard with the standard stuff: issues assigned to me, open issues, closed issues, etc. They can also mark issues as resolved, etc. A configurable workflow would be nice, but non-essential.
- The system needs to be very good at keeping multiple support staff in sync. So everyone in the support pool needs to maybe get cc’d on all follow-ups? Or at least be able to see the whole thread in the web interface.
- The users — the people sending the issue — don’t need access to the web interface. In fact, they probably shouldn’t have it. Assume that issues are sensitive and shouldn’t be shared with other reporters.
- Open source is preferable, but access to the data is non-negotiable. So if it’s self-hosted it needs to store data in a standard way (relational database, probably), and SaaS is fine only if there’s a read/write API.
It feels like this has got to exist, but so far I’m unable to find anything that Just Works out of the box. I’ve tried some general-purpose issue trackers (Bugzilla, Trac, RT), but in each case they’d take lots of custom work to support the workflow I’d want. FogBugz looks like it’d work, but it’s prohibitively expensive. Zendesk was far too web-oriented.
And yes, I could probably build this in a week or two with Django and Lamson, but I simply haven’t got the time.
So… any ideas?
Comments:
When I worked enterprise tech support, we had a system that worked sort of like this, but that isn't what you want—it was a horrible POS ;) Though, they recently moved to SalesForce, and I know they would still want the same, if not more, feature set.
Another couple features you might need that you didn't mention is marking comments on a ticket internal. A customer really does need a website to check the status of their tickets (add notes, upload files, escalate, etc). Then it is helpful for support to be able to add internal notes to the ticket. Also, for the email side of things, when an email automatically added to the ticket notes, don't forget attachments.
Then you need to be able to set custom sorts and views for the support staff and the ability to prioritize tickets.
Being able to link support tickets to bugs is great (note that this is not a one to one, several support tickets from different customers could be linked to one bug). Then when the bug is closed, the customer is notified that the bug is closed and fixed in X release or patch or something like that. Also, you probably want some sort technical document system with step by step directions for common issues like misconfigurations.
Some of this might be more than you need, but it is better to decide you don't need a feature than to not realize you need one.
I've heard good things about www.helpspot.com although I haven't used it personally (I mainly know it from reading the developer's blog about micro-ISVs: www.ianlandsman.com). All of the 'enterprise' solutions I've encountered suck.
I'm going to second Ian on Helpspot.
This is Ian from UserScape. HelpSpot can certainly do everything you describe, though it may implement some of the features in ways slightly different or labeled differently then you've described above.
I'm happy to have a chat/email about your needs when you have some time. You can email me at ian / userscape.com
p.s. great blog template!
I have used RT to do all of this. Like you said, it takes a bit of config, but it will do it if all the pieces are in place.
I'm pretty sure Roundup could do this, unless I misunderstand some of the requirements. It is open source and written in Python (but I'm sure you knew that already).
I'm voting for HelpSpot also. I've used it for years as the heart of a small business with great success. I put a minimalist Python wrapper for its API on github too. See my name URL for the link.
While I'm not sure it does everything exactly as you requested, I have to recommend Zendesk. With the exception of our application itself, it is the single most important piece of software at our company.
Our company uses the email interface exclusively. We do not want our users having to visit another site. You can adjust the email template to remove links back to your support site.
I especially like their queues: it's easy to train new support staff to watch their queue. You can even set SLAs like "no unassigned tickets more than n hours old", etc. On top of that, they have a good API that we were able to easily integrate with our applications and back office systems. Their API plus some email cleverness would probably help meet all your requirements.
I wholeheartedly recommend Zendesk.
I wasn't able to find anything that really matched all of that (same basic requirements we had for our CS tools search). Tender was the closest I found, but it is 1) hosted and 2) seemingly inflexible. Our plan is currently to build from scratch :-/
I would highly recommend Cerberus Helpdesk: http://www.cerberusweb.com/
It covers all of the criteria that you list in your post above, plus it's commercial open source (but very reasonably priced). What particularly stood out to me is the rules-based queue system that you're looking for. You can match nearly anything on incoming email and redirect the messages as necessary, setting any needed fields on the ticket along the way. They have both a hosted and self-hosted option, depending on your specific needs.
We've been using it at our organization for about a year now and we're very happy with it. It sounds like a great fit for what you're looking for as well. They have a free demo option on their site to give it a try if it sounds like a good fit.
We have a workflow like this setup with JIRA and minimal additions. I think it is worth to checkout.
Shameless self promotion: have you looked at django-helpdesk? It's simple, but it can do everything you want except for the auto assignment and letting staff send email replies.
It's open-source and written in Django.
http://github.com/rossp/dja...
I came in to recommend HelpSpot, but it appears I've been beat to the punch. I've used it for years.
I might be being dumb, it is late, but I think we get at least 80% of this functionality just by having a support email address that all staff have access to, which we take turns attending to on a daily basis. On Monday I handle all support emails, my colleagues ignore them. On Tuesday, it's some else's turn. All replies we send are cc:ed to support, so everyone can see the full conversation. It's not ideal, but it works with five minutes setup.
Zendesk (http://www.zendesk.com/) I used it for a while. Fully customizable.
I'm currently "playing" with django-helpdesk (thanks and hello, Ross ;-) ) and it seems well fitting my needs so far (for a small sized company).
As mentioned before, Zendesk can do what you wanted, and I've also seen Salesforce configurations do the same. I once looked for an open source solution that does the same but couldn't find it.
I'm not recommending it per se, but you may want to take a look at Kayako Resolve, formerly eSupport. I haven't used Resolve, but I've used eSupport at a few organizations and while a bit ugly, it's functional. I think it might do what you want.
http://www.kayako.com/produ...
It's not open source, it's PHP, it's ugly, and it stores data in an RDBMS.
If I wasn't busy building other things on top of Django I'd love to work on a better help desk.
I'm not sure why you think Zendesk is too web-oriented, but it seems to meet all of your requirements (minus the scheduled assignment rotation, afaik). As a developer, I interact with our Zendesk install almost entirely via Email. Our client services lead really loves Zendesk and just wrote a blog post in support: http://policystat.com/blog/...
I'd recommend giving their trial another go and see if you can find an email-only flow that works for you. There's also a django single sign app for zendesk if you'd like your users to access FAQs, message boards, etc https://bitbucket.org/jonkn...
After digging around my bookmarks I think http://www.osticket.com/ may deserve some look. I haven't used it, though. PHP, unfortunately.
As far as I know http://bestpractical.com/rt/ can be integrated with email and is seriously scriptable. Surely very solid and proven tool. Perl.
You may have a look at OTRS...
http://otrs.org/
I used Trellis Desk a while back: http://www.accord5.com/trel...
We've just started using TenderApp and Lighthouse from ENTP, and so far it seems to be working really well. http://tenderapp.com and http://lighthouseapp.com
http://demos.iservices.com.mx/
Hi Jacob, I'm a product manager at Zendesk and I just happened across your blog. I'm late to the discussion but your requirements seem to fit Zendesk very well -- you can create multiple support queues and define business rules that assign support requests based on support email address or content and attributes of the request.
We have many customers that use us as an email-only help desk and their customers never need to log in to create a support request, though we do also support end-user support portal out of the box so that your customers can access history of their support issues if necessary.
We also have a REST API available on all plans which supports an ecosystem of over 70 3rd-party integrations, so integration into the system is very flexible.
I encourage you to sign up for a trial and our customer advocate team will assist you with any questions you may have. http://www.zendesk.com/signup
Best,
Steven
You should also have a look at www.assistly.com - I thought it was much more intuitive to use that Zendesk.
Jacob, how did you go with your search?
I'm going though exactly the same process now, and find the choice very difficult. We have about 12 people we want to use the system for sales/support/etc. Zendesk looks cool, but at $50/month/user sounds expensive. But if it's awesome, then it might be worth it.
Just looking for anyone else's experiences to help guide me.
Jacob, Would invite you to try http://www.helpdeskpilot.com/ built on Django and can be deployed on your own server.
It has Smart Rules that help you assign tickets automatically to relevant Helpdesk Staff. Covers most of the requirements above. Pricing starts at $387 one-time license.
We would also be soon launching a SaaS edition of the same (http://www.happyfox.com).
I would recommend you to try out http://www.manageengine.com.... Its features perfectly match all your requirements.
With ServiceDesk Plus, you can convert all your helpdesk emails into tickets and log request for all phone calls or walk-in or web-form requests. You can even create multiple support queues and define business rules. You are provided with some default templates for placing incidents, requests, problems, resolution, reply etc.
ServiceDesk Plus provides you an auto-assign technician functionality which follows the Round Robin or Load Balancing model, and based on the availability of the technicians and criticality of the incident. You can even exclude some technicians, enable some matching criterias or assigned based on
the business rules.
Technicians can mark the issues as resolved, open, pending or closed thereby providing a user-friendly workflow. You can get multi site support from serviceDesk Plus which allows your business units across all the geographic areas to have a single help desk which takes into account all the different rules and regulations of each unit.
Users dont need to access the web interface to submit issues. Rather, they can use the self-service portal from ServiceDesk Plus where they can raise their request, search solution in the knowledge base or check the status of their tickets.
ServiceDesk Plus allows flexible API integration with monitoring software, Remote Control, E-mails and pagers, AD Synchronization, Windows Single Sign-on and Mobile Access.
If you are looking for SaaS, you can even go for IT helpdesk on the cloud from ServiceDesk Plus Ondemand.
Hope it helps
Check out Request Tracker -- http://bestpractical.com -- GPL, used in high support areas, does it all.
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