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Help Desk Software

Knowledge . Efficiency . Management

Help Desk Software Blog

Read on about: Optimising Help Desk Applications

Use e-mail in the Helpdesk

Help Desk Software, e.g. NetHelpDesk, uses e-mail to keep both Operators and Contacts informed. E-mail is used: When actioning a Job you have the choice of sending an e-mail to the Contact and the Operator the Job has been assigned to. To mail a list of overdue Jobs Help Desk Software supports the following e-mail clients: Outlook Express Outlook 98 Outlook 2000 Eudora (you must enable Automation from Eudora Options menu) Lotus Notes * Novell Groupwise * Other MAPI compliant e-mail clients. *depends on version Alternatively, you can select SMTP and you don't need a local email client. The system defaults to using Outlook (Express, 98 or 2000) as your e-mail client. If you have one of the other e-mail clients installed, select Tools, Personal Preferences from the main menu and select your mail client from the list. Change the name of the Custom fields

Most windows display two custom fields which can be renamed and allow you to store up to 255 characters in each field. To rename these fields (see custom fields). Remove the Custom fields from my windows If you don't use some or all of the Custom Fields, you can prevent them from being displayed by setting their names to blank (see custom fields). Hide Customer or Department information if you don't use it Help Desk Software uses a hierarchy of: Customers Departments Contacts Depending on whom you are supporting, you may not need all of these levels. For example if you are a small company, Customers and Department may not be relevant to you as you only have one. In that case you can specify your Organization Structure and the system will hide the irrelevant information. NB any views that you created before changing the Organization Structure may still show e.g. Customer or Department information. But you can remove these columns yourself (see Data Views) Temporarily delete Customers, Departments, Contacts, Operators etc.

Deleting records is permanent and when e.g. you delete a Customer, all related records are deleted as well. This will obviously affect your reporting. Sometimes you might want to disable e.g. a Customer or Operator so that they can't be used. To do this you will need to open the database in the relevant tool and update a record manually. Most tables in the database have a column named Deleted. Normally this is set to 0. To disable this record, set the value to 1. For example, to hide a particular Customer, open the Customers table, locate the Customer record you wish to disable and set the Deleted value to 1. You can do this for Customers, Departments, Contacts, Operators, Assets, Asset Types, Categories and Prioirities. Use Function Keys The following function keys are available: F1 - Help F2 - View History * F3 - New Job F4 - New Item F5 - Edit Item F6 - Delete Item F7 - Create Child Job * F8 - View History * *only available on Jobs-Detailed, Jobs-Summary and Jobs-Operator Activity views.

Spell Check Whilst entering information in most fields, you can perform a spell check by pressing the F7 key. You must have MS Word installed for the spell checker to work. How to ... (Record and Manage Helpdesk Jobs) Show a list of Jobs To see a list of Jobs, open the System maintenance folder in the tree view and select either the Detailed or Summary icon: As the name implies, the Detailed view shows everything there is to know about a Job, including all related information such as Customer address details. Obviously, the more information the system has to retrieve the slower retrieval may be. You may find it better to use the Summary icon instead. You can then do one of the following: Create a new Job File menu, New Job F3 or F4 Right click on Data View and select New Job Action an existing Job

File menu, Action Job

F5 Right click on Data View and select Action Job View Job (same as Action Job, but can't edit) File menu, View Job Right click on the Job then select View Job Press F2 Delete a Job(s) Highlight one or more Jobs then: File menu, Delete Job F6 Right click on Data View and select Delete Job Create a Child Job File menu, Create Child Job Right click on the Job then select Create Child Job Press F7 Show History File menu, Show History Right click on the Job then select Show History Press F8 Create a new Helpdesk Job

Once you have logged in, you can create a new Helpdesk Job by one of the following methods: File menu, New Job F3 Right click on Data View and select New Job F4 when showing Jobs Detailed, Jobs Summary or Operator Activity Data Views If you are on a Customers View and have highlighted a particular Customer, creating a new Job will display the new Job Window and automatically select one of the Contacts from this Customer (actually the first default Contact for this customer - see Contact Window). If you are on a Department View and have highlighted a particular Department, creating a new Job will display the new Job Window and automatically select the default Contact for this Department. If you are on a Contacts View and have highlighted a particular Contact, creating a new Job will display the new Job Window and automatically select this Contact. If you are on an Assets View and have highlighted a particular Asset, creating a new Job will display the new Job Window and automatically select this Asset. Edit/Action an existing Job Open one of the following Data Views from the tree view in the main window: Jobs - Detailed Jobs - Summary Jobs - Operator Activity Highlight a Job in the Data View, then do one of the following: File menu, Action Job Right click on the Job then select Action Job Press F5 This will display the Job Window. Re-open a previously closed Job

A closed Job is one that has been previously marked as completed. If you have the appropriate privileges you may re-open a Job. Open one of the following Data Views from the tree view in the main window: Jobs - Detailed Jobs - Summary Jobs - Operator Activity Highlight a Job in the Data View, then do one of the following: File menu, Action Job Right click on the Job then select Action Job Press F5 After confirming that you wish to re-open this job, the Job Window will be displayed. Create a Child Job A Child Job is one that must be completed before the Parent Job can be completed. Use the Jobs - Detailed view to identify Parent/Child Jobs Parent Job Id Value Meaning Empty Neither a parent or a child Same as own Job Id This is a parent Job Different to own Job Id This is a child Job To create a Child Job, open one of the following Data Views from the tree view in the main window: Jobs - Detailed Jobs - Summary Jobs - Operator Activity

Highlight a Job that you wish to become a Parent in the Data View, then do one of the following: File menu, Create Child Job Right click on the Job then select Create Child Job Press F7 You can also create a Child Job whenever you are on the Job window, by clicking the "Save and create Child Job" button. NB, it is not possible to have 'grandchild' Jobs, i.e. if a Job is already a Child of another Job, it cannot become a Parent. Show Job History without Actioning it Open the System maintenance folder in the tree view and select either the Detailed or Summary icon, then highlight a Job and do one of:

File menu, Show History Right click on the Job then select Show History Press F8 View a Job without Actioning it Open the Jobs folder in the tree view and select either the Detailed or Summary icon, then highlight a Job and do one of: File menu, View Job Right click on the Job then select View Job Press F2