Connect Office 365 To Cloud-Based HelpDesk From kalmstrom.com

In the blog post from 6 June, "kalmstrom.com Goes Cloudy", I mentioned that we have started developing a totally cloud-based version of HelpDesk OSP, the kalmstrom.com add-on that connects Outlook to SharePoint. The new version will be called HelpDesk OSP Azure, and  today I can tell you more about it.

HelpDesk OSP Azure will run on Windows Azure and convert e-mails received in Exchange 2010, in-house or online (Office 365), into list items on a SharePoint site. This conversion will be automatic and happen 24/7 with a minimum of configuration. Just like with HelpDesk OSP it will be possible to decide in what way the e-mails should be converted ino tickets, and you can of course use your custom SharePoint list fields also.

You will access HelpDesk OSP Azure directly via the web, and above you can see the user interface for the login page. On the HelpDesk OSP Plans page, Peter explains in an animation how HelpDesk OSP Azure will work. Welcome to have a look into the future!

kalmstrom.com Goes Cloudy

As you might have understood from previous posts in this blog, we are very excited about cloud-based services in general and  Microsoft´s offerings in that area in particular.

We just released a new version of  PF HelpDesk, the kalmstrom.com issue tracking tool for Outlook, and it has support for the cloud-based SQL Azure database. This is not because many have been asking for it yet, but because we felt the urge to learn the new technology. We attempt to stay ahead of the curve and understand what our customers want before they even request it!

Now Community Members and Evaluators are asking if our applications work with Office 365 every day. The answer is that HelpDesk OSP and TimeCard already supports Office 365, and we will very soon update PF HelpDesk and Calendar Browser to support it too. However, they still work on the client-installed Microsoft Office applications we all know and love - not directly from a cloud-based service. That is where we are heading, though. We will of course continue to use and support client-based technologies, but we will expand into cloud-based services also.

One experiment-project we just concluded was a synchronization-engine between the cloud-based Office 365 and the likewise cloud-based ERP-system Fortnox. We used the Exchange Web Services and Fortnox´s API to enable synchronization between the ERP system and an Outlook Contacts list in Office 365. This was exactly what the Swedish building company Melander Bygg AB needed.

We will continue to build upon this experience to enable a variant of our other issue tracking product, HelpDesk OSP, to run entirely in the cloud, converting e-mails received in Office 365 to tickets in a SharePoint ticket list. We will of course retain the control of how the e-mails are converted, support for custom fields  in SharePoint and more. I will come back with more info about this product later on.