Launched: Web Help Desk Software – Version 9
Aug 27, 2008 by Bill Morrison MyTestBox News
We’ve all been there. When we need it most, the ‘help desk’ turns out to be a ‘no-help desk’, leaving us frustrated and mad at the host company (which might be our company). Well, they’ve actually been paying attention to this. Newer, server-side hosted, browser based help desk solutions keep getting closer to the holy grail of a fully functioning service desk.
With this in mind, MacsDesign Studio LLC announced version 9 of their popular cross platform product, Web Help Desk. This entirely web-based product now adds a rule-based voting and approval system for change requests, a user interface enhanced with AJAX, and an extensible plugin architecture. It’s still cross platform, with installers for all the popular servers- Windows, Linux, Unix and Mac OS X.
Point and click
So far, the focus in these help desk ‘improvements’ always seems to be the customer over the service personnel. It’s about time someone realized that servicing the enduser (the tech or manager) is key to getting the problem resolved. And problem resolution is what the customer is going to remember in the end.
Understanding this, Web Help Desk uses a filtering, point and click interface to categorize service requests before the e-mail goes out.
From their site:
- These Request Type Categories assist in providing high-level information to service desk personnel, as well as assist in Web Help Desk’s automatic assignment of tickets to the correct personnel, group of personnel, location, and correct department.
But there’s even more point and click. Installation and customizing your filters are set up for non-programmers. This allows the people who need the information set up the forms.
Next, the software displays a list of all software and hardware assets assigned to the request submitter. This gives techs the unique info they need without having to pry it out of reluctant and largely ignorant users. (”When I double click the thingie, that other bit with the colors doesn’t come up.”) From a service department management point of view, Web Help Desk provides loads of report options- tracked and linked to incidents and assets involved. You can bet when the complaints about X not doing Y start rolling in, they aren’t going to stop with the first fix.
Finally, Web Help Desk allows shunting similar problem types to the right solver. It can rank and send tickets to the people most likely to solve them quickly and correctly. This last one might be the most important feature of all. I can’t tell you how often I get the phone tag shuffle until finally (maybe) I get routed to the right person.
You can see their demo here.
The Web Help Desk software is deployed as a Java servlet running under the Apache Tomcat 5.5 servlet container (included in the installation). A compatible Java 5 Runtime Environment (JRE) is included for all platforms except Mac OS X and Solaris, which have a pre-installed JRE. Because the application is 100% pure Java, you have the freedom to install the Web Help Desk server-side software on the operating system of your choice without the worry of OS lock-in.
Sphere: Related ContentWant more web software reviews, news and tips/tricks?
Then make sure you subscribe to our RSS feed!
Tags: customer support, email support, java servlet, mysql, open-source, software, tomcat, web help desk
(2 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
Loading ...
Get News by RSS feed
Leave a Reply
Additional comments powered by BackType