Issue Tracking And User Support In Outlook

Version 12 of the kalmstrom.com issue tracking application for Outlook will soon be released, and today I can show you the new slide show. If you are into user support or incident management  I suggest you have a look at it, to get an introduction to Folder HelpDesk!

Convert incoming Outlook e-mails into support tickets
With Folder HelpDesk incoming e-mails are converted into support tickets right inside Outlook, and a workgroup can co-operate on taking care of incidents, solving issues and giving user support without ever having to leave Outlook. The product is highly customizable, and you may use either a shared mailbox or a public folder to share the support tickets.

Slide show presentation
I have written about Folder HelpDesk before, both generally about version 12 and in descriptions of the automatic e-mails sent out by the application and of the e-mail history options. Maybe you have read these blog posts and want to know more? The slide show below gives you an introduction to Folder HelpDesk.

Helpdesk usage and settings
The show begins with some user support cases, where incidents are reported by telephone or e-mail and converted into tickets. After that presentation there are some slides for the administrator, where we show how to make the most common settings. Much more info can be found in the Folder HelpDesk user manual, which will soon be released also. The slide show is just an overview over how our issue tracking application works.

Statistics and reporting tool
Folder HelpDesk has an integrated statistics tool, OLAP Reporting Tool for Excel. This is an advanced report generator which gives managements a useful tool for creating all kinds of reports and study how tickets have been handled.

Knowledge base
There is also a knowledge base connected to Folder HelpDesk. Before a support case is closed you can save the ticket as a knowledge base article by just pressing a button in the Folder HelpDesk ticket. As the knowledge base articles can be full text searched and also sorted in categories, it is easy to find the solution to an earlier issue if it should occur again. The name of the knowledge base is KBase, and just like OLAP Reporting Tool it is also sold as a separate product.



Many organizations worldwide already know how the kalmstrom.com helpdesks can facilitate their user support and issue tracking. Folder HelpDesk has been on the market for 12 years - earlier under the names Outlook HelpDesk and Public Folder HelpDesk - and we will continue adding new features that will make the issue tracking even more smooth and easy.

Multiple Options For The Folder HelpDesk E-mail Thread

With Folder HelpDesk for Outlook you can convert incoming e-mails into tickets to make them easy to manage and co-operate on. Formatting and attachments are included in the tickets, and they can be organized in many different ways. Here is how Folder HelpDesk looks in Outlook:

All about one case in one ticket
If you work with support, handle incidents or manage incoming e-mails in some other way, you know that e-mails often go back and forth a couple of times between the helpdesk staff and the person who reports an issue before the problem is solved. During this process, and also for following up, it is convenient to have all these e-mails gathered in one ticket, and with Folder HelpDesk this may be done in different ways.

Automatic conversion
You may choose to let Folder HelpDesk monitor an Outlook folder and automatically convert all e-mails that come in to that folder into tickets. Outlook rules can be used for making sure the correct e-mails are converted. For the automatic conversion we offer two different kinds of e-mail threading. You may choose one of the methods or use both at the same time, which ever suits your organization best.

E-mail history in ticket body
When you select to save e-mails in the ticket only one ticket is created – when the case is first reported. After that all e-mails concerning the same case are added to the first ticket body in chronological order. Redundant forward chunks of the e-mails are removed through an intelligent algorithm, and only the required and latest replies are added to the body portion along with the HTML formatting and with a header portion that includes when the e-mail was received, from whom and so on.

E-mail history in subfolders
When the option to save e-mail history in subfolders is selected, subfolders with the ticket ID number will be created automatically under the Folder HelpDesk folder in Outlook. All the e-mails connected to the same ticket ID will be saved in the same subfolder. In the first ticket there will be two new tabs, Sent E-mails and Received E-mails, from where the e-mails may be opened, copied or deleted.
 
Manual addition to any ticket
You may also convert the e-mails you want to create tickets from manually, by simply pressing a Folder HelpDesk button in the Outlook ribbon. In this case you may take the e-mail from any folder. A choice is given: create a new ticket or add the e-mail to an existing ticket. When you select the "Add" option you can search for earlier tickets in several ways, and you may also press the button “Only caller tickets”. Then all earlier tickets from the same caller will be shown, and you may easily select the one you want to add the new e-mail to. In this case the new e-mail is added to the body of the existing ticket.   

New version
Folder HelpDesk is the new name for the kalmstrom.com long time flagship product Public Folder HelpDesk. From version 12 we will remove “Public” from the name, as the application may be installed in any Outlook folder. Most of the features described here also exist in the current version, but in version 12 we will add new possibilities. This, along with many other improvements, makes the release of Folder HelpDesk something worth waiting for. In a couple of months we hope to give you a chance to try it!