Help desk 2019 release notes

SLA reports

Perhaps the most coveted feature is finally here.

How it works

To get the best of Easy Redmine's reporting abilities, we created a new entity with all filters and outputs (charts, trends, ...) as, for example, in tasks. This new entity is called SLA event. SLA event is created automatically under these conditions:

• Ticket is under SLA
• Support agent sends an email to the customer via ticket
• Depending on the setting in Help desk >> Settings, ticket status may or may not be evaluated as well
  

Ticket with SLA

 

Update to customer

 

SLA event

 

Attributes of SLA events

• Name - is constructed from user and ticket ID
• Occurence time
• SLA response - deadline for first human response to customer (at the time when SLA event was created)
• SLA resolve - deadline for ticket resolution (at the time when SLA event was created)
• First response - Time between ticket creation and first SLA event on ticket. This value is only filled for first SLA event on the ticket.
• SLA response fulfilment - difference between SLA response and Occurence time (Positive - success, negative - fail)
• SLA resolve fulfilment - difference between SLA resolve and Occurence time (Positive - success, negative - fail)

There is no possibility to create or edit SLA event manually, it is only generated from email to customer. SLA events can be deleted by admin or users with permission to manage SLA events.

 

Dashboards, ticket performance, ticket owner

There are more points with a synergic effect in this section.

Dashboards

We have prepared importable dashboards with various ticket and performance metrics which you can download in our Community portal.

Why wasn't it sooner?
The simple reason is that there was no standardized way of measuring performance of support agents or operators. Such reports required custom fields, which are not transferable from a preset dashboard template into your specific application. Along with missing SLA reports, such dashboards would have little value.

The solution for standard measuring of user performance came with a new native (standard) field...

Ticket owner

When installing or upgrading to Easy Redmine 2019 with Help desk, you will find a new available field in the tracker settings.

The field is a user selection (such as assignee). The philosophy of this field is to keep information about the responsible support agent for the successful final delivery of the solution to the customer's problem. Unlike assignee, who is regularly changed during the life cycle of the ticket, ticket owner should be kept on one user until closed. You can achieve this through workflow setting - read-only in all statuses after ticket assignment to a support agent.

How it works

• The field is disabled by default - you will need to enable it manually on trackers that you use as help desk tickets.
• Workflow applies - read-only, required for selected statuses
• Visibility of users in the selection is controlled by user type visibility
• It is available in Action (Easy) buttons. You can use these for quick ticket assignment. An example of a universal button for your support agents:
  
• The field is available in "user" section of global filters on dashboards
• If you are already using a custom field with this purpose, it is possible to migrate values from this field into Ticket owner. If you are interested, please This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and we will provide you the script (server solution) or perform the migration (cloud solution).
  Migration is possible from custom fields on tasks in format user, or lookup >> user

Examples of use

• Statistics - Closed tickets per owner in time
• Statistics - agent profitability - ticket volume on most profitable projects
• Statistics/operations - Tickets by status per owner
• Statistics/operations - Active tickets per owner
• Operations - Alert for not-updated tickets for owners
• My page - tickets where I am owner - progress monitoring and follow up

 

Automatic follow-up

This is a powerful expansion of the automatic ticket updater feature in project help desk settings. The emails are configured in help desk email template settings.

Examples of use

• Inform customer about ticket closing
• Satisfaction surveys

 

Quicker reply sending

Based on valuable feedback from our customers, we made an effort to shorten the process of sending replies from ticket to customer. In larger amounts of tickets, this becomes a significant time-saver.

 

How it works

• During ticket update, you can select an email template that will be used for the email to the customer. After saving the comment email is automatically sent along with all attachments (and pasted images) you uploaded.
• If don't select a template, you will be able to use the old way - tick the box to send email to customer, go through the email preview and confirm sending

Both of these options have pros and cons. One is quicker, but missing verification of the sent email. The other is slower, but you can double check what exactly you are sending to the customer.

We recommend revising your email templates and that your agents are fully aware of which ones to use in communication with customers.

Related time-saver feature

As a part of this change we have added another sought function - automatically connect uploaded attachments to email to customer. Not only with quick email, but also in email with preview.

Attached during ticket update

 

Automatically selected on mail preview

 

Changes in email cc field

Story

Ticket is created with field Email to: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

During the course of the ticket, client adds his colleague (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) into CC.

In previous versions, help desk didn't recognize it and didn't add This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. into the field Email cc of the help desk ticket. Support agent had to manually add new recipients into the field Email cc. In Help desk 2019 Email cc is automatically updated.

 

Autoreply behavior changes

In order to ensure visual consistency in help desk autoreplies* and emails sent by agents, the following changes have been implemented.

CSS in autoreply

In previous versions, autoreply from help desk used CSS from regular system email notifications. But if email to customer is sent regurarly by the support agent, it only used format directly set in the email template.

We united the behavior that autoreplies also use only formatting from email templates.

Header and footer in autoreply

Autoreplies from help desk previously used the header and footer from global system settings. Even when help desk project had custom header and footer.

This is now unified that global header and footer is not used in autoreplies anymore. If the help desk project has custom header and footer, autoreply uses those.

*- by autoreply are meant email templates that are used when ticket is created (on default status), and also automatic follow-ups as explained earlier in this article.

 

Easier folders definition

Helpful hint when configuring connection of help desk to a mailbox - folder list. By clicking, you will find the correct names of the folders to enter in the related mailbox settings.

 

Global setting moved to mailbox settings

Setting for accepting/rejecting automatically generated emails has been moved from Help desk >> Help desk settings

to configuiration of particular mailboxes

 

Email without template and ticket history

When you send email to customer without using a template, the ticket history will not be added, as it was in previous versions.

 

Author: Robert Kováčik, Lukáš Beňa