If you haven’t seen it yet, checkout the new preview page and beta information we posted about version 3!
Author: ianlandsman
New Portal Designs Reply
For V3 we’re not just redesigning the administrative area, we’re also providing 2 new designs for the customer portal as well. A basic minimal blue which is a take on our existing “classic” theme and then a more stylized gray theme with more background images, gradients, etc.
The blue will be a great place to start if you’re customizing while the gray is elegant right out of the box (and of course is customizable as well). Classic is also available and will be the default on upgrading installations so that any existing customizations aren’t affected.
The good news is these new styles are done completely via CSS so changing between them will be easy in the new theme admin screen.
(Note, these themes show a form on the portal homepage. This hasn’t been added, it’s simple where these comps placed form elements for design review.)
Basic Blue
Gray Design
Gray Up Close
New Filter Features Reply
For V3 we’ve added a few new filter features that we think will be very useful, especially for help desk managers. Let’s jump in:
Show a filter at the top of the navigation
It’s common in HelpSpot to use global filters to create new custom Inboxes. Many times in those scenarios the custom Inboxes become the primary mechanism for accessing new requests. In the current version these Inboxes are kept in the global filter folder below the search box. V3 provides a new option to force a filter to the top of the left Workspace navigation giving these filters the prominence they deserve.
Filter Permissions
One of our most requested features is to have more flexibility in filter permissions. While having just global and personal is simple it makes creating filters for groups of people which are less than everyone impossible.
V3 remedies that with our new permission structure. Create a filter for everyone (global), just yourself, for others in a permission group (permission groups are new to V3 as well, more on them another time), or for a selected group of people. So now if you have a sub group of the support department that needs to work together a filter can be created for that without that filter clogging up everyone’s filter navigation.
Filter Views
This image is more a tease I must admit, but in V3 there’s the concept of filter views. The default is the grid which is what you’re all familiar with. However, there’s a new type in V3. I know this new view is one we’ll be using extensively ourselves and I believe will save significant time and help provide greater insight for help desk managers. We can’t take the covers off this just yet, but it will be featured prominently in our beta information when that’s available.
UPDATED
Relative Person Condition
We had this question come in on the forum so I thought I’d add it to this post as well. There’s a new option in the assigned to, opened by, updated by conditions to make the condition relative to the currently logged in user. This way filters can be created for other users which are properly relative to the logged in user as opposed to one specific person as is currently the case.
Request Page Note UI Reply
Welcome to our most revealing peek yet!!
For version 3 we’ve rethought the note area, laying it out more logically and adding features which allow for faster replying. Along the top bar you’ll now see we have the knowledge elements of responses and KB’s. Most importantly you’ll see the entirely new real time response search.
Request Note UI
Instead of navigating to responses, simply type some part of the responses title and it will instantly appear and be selectable. Of course traditional navigation is still available as well.
The knowledge book UI from the request page is also all new, now opening a nearly full screen view of your book page for easy viewing without leaving the page.
Knowledge Book Popup
Navigating between chapters and books is easily done from the same popup and private books are now available as well! The knowledge book popup also fully supports secondary portals so you can link your book pages into the proper portal.
The area below the note box is now more visually distinct. As pointed out in the last post, it’s now extremely clear if you’re adding a public, private or external note. That the system stores drafts and how to access them has been given more visibility as well.
Note options have been tightened up and now have full support for subscriptions which we think is going to be really cool, but more on that in a future post!
Public, Private, External Reply
Just a quick little peek this time. An end to uncertainty and confusion about what type of note you’re currently writing.
The new public, private, external button
Triggers 2
We’ve added a new tool to the automation toolbox with triggers. Triggers fill the gap which Automation Rules can leave when you need truly real time workflow elements or when an action only makes sense in the context of being real time.
Triggers
With a trigger you can check for newly created requests as well as updates to existing requests. The condition can check both the current value and in the case of an updating request the value it’s being changed from. A few possible use cases:
- Generate an email when a request closes to say the issue is closed or send a survey
- Cause an escalation when a request assigned to user A moves to status Z
- When a request is moved from category A to Category B set a custom field value
- When a request meets a set of conditions make an HTTP call (this is a new action!)
The options are pretty much limitless, we can’t wait to see what interesting ways this is put to use.
The Top Left Corner 4
A look at HelpSpot’s new top left corner of the admin screen. There’s more there than meets the eye! More…
Our first V3 Sneak Peek: Admin Themes 2
Our first peek at the new HelpSpot version 3 UI! More…
HelpSpot in the Wild: activeCollab Reply
The fine folks over at the project management tool activeCollab have a really great HelpSpot portal installation. They’ve obviously put some thought and time into their portal and have fully integrated it into the rest of their site.
The design is clean and the heavy emphasis they’ve added to submitting and checking on requests makes it easy to know where you need to go. If you’re looking for some inspiration for your HelpSpot portal check it out: https://www.activecollab.com/support/
activeCollab Support Home
activeCollab Knowledge Book
Creating a Help Desk Priority Structure 1
A common need of many help desks is to create a priority structure for incoming requests. While this is common, it is very often done wrong. Unfortunately technology is often to blame. Most help desk software defaults to having a 1-5 list of priorities with 1 being High and 5 being low priority.
A generic list like this can cause confusion and often makes the help desk less efficient. The reason is that there’s no clear definietion of which type of requests are high and which are low. This is especially true when trying to figure out if a request is a 2 or a 3, a 3 or a 4.
HelpSpot by default takes a simpler approach. Requests are either urgent or not urgent. For many help desks this is all you truly need. It also has the side benefit of being extremely simple to determine for help desk staff. It’s usually very easy to tell if something is urgent or not. It’s much harder to determine the proper place on a 5 point scale.
That said, in larger or more structured help desks having a priority system can be very effective. The key is to properly construct the priorities. In HelpSpot, it’s easy to do the technical aspect of this using custom fields. What takes proper planning and consideration is the priority scale, what it is and why it is.
A generic 1-5 scale with no reasoning behind it and no clear definition of what each point on the scale means is a recipe for chaos as each staffer makes their own determination as to what a 3 is.
The key to defining priorities is in understanding the business impact of a request. To do this you need to know how important the technology/product/person (a component) is and how severe an event is occurring. Some people are more important to a business than others, some technology is more important than others.
For example, in a small business where the president (component) handles most sales meetings, their email being offline (severity) is a top priority issue. A large company where an Accountant II (component) has occasional (severity) browser crash issues would be a lower priority issue.
There’s no universal formula here though, it’s very dependent on the organization that’s being supported. Is the support for internal IT or external customers and so on. The key thing is to analyze the type of systems that can be affected and what severity types those systems can go through.
If you’re unsure where to begin I recommend starting with a big list. List all the components you support, with each component list the severity levels that component can go through. Here’s a partial sample list:
- Email Server
- Down, no email in or out
- Intermittent connection error for all users
- Individual user having connection issues
- VOIP Phone System
- Down, no phone calls in our out
- Inbound calls only, all users affected
- One workstation has no phone connectivity
- Intranet
- Down, unable to access
- One module is unavailable to all users
- One user is unable to login
- …
Once you have this information you can start to sort and prioritize into common and more manageable groups. It’s also good to keep this list available and updated so that it can be reviewed and priorities re-aligned quickly as needed.
Once analyzed create a scale. I personally think refining down to the minimum number you can is always best. 3 is much easier for staff to choose from than 5 so use the least possible while still capture the data you need. Here’s some examples of priority scales with useful definitions.
A standard 5 point scale.
| Priority | Definition | Example |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | A critial component is affected with direct business impact | Sales registers are offline, online store is down, key people have no email accesss |
| 2 | A component is degraded | Slow response times on back office systems, intermittent errors |
| 3 | Non-critical component is down with some business impact | Back office reports are non-functional, spam filtering is offline |
| 4 | Non-critical component is down with no direct business impact | A user cannot print, A staffer needs a software update |
| 5 | Little or no impact or need for immediate attention, cosmetic issues | Out of place icons, constructive user feedback |
3 Level scale based on severity and breadth of issue
| Priority | Definition |
|---|---|
| 1 – Severe | Component is critical and multiple users are affected |
| 2 – Important | Component is important and multiple users are affected |
| 3 – Low | Component is not critical; few users are affected |
These are just a couple of examples, coming up with your own based on your organization is the key. In addition, the logic and thought that went into each priority level should be documented (perhaps in a HelpSpot knowledge book) and available to staff as well as part of the training regiment for new staff. This helps ensure that all staff prioritize requests based on the same set of conditions and ideals.
