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!

Folder HelpDesk For Outlook On Its Way

Public Folder HelpDesk was the kalmstrom.com flagship for several years, before sales of our other products started to grow. Today the customer distribution of the products from kalmstom.com Business Solutions is more even, but our issue tracking software for Outlook is still one of our best selling applications. Now we are working on version 12.

Installation in any Outlook folder
From version 12 this add-on will be called Folder HelpDesk, because it may actually be installed in any Outlook folder and not just in a public one. Many use it with shared mailboxes, and if the tool does not need to be shared it can even be installed in a personal Outlook folder.

New features
Version 12 will have several new features.

• Notification to the person responsible for the case on manual addition of an e-mail to a ticket. Today this notification is only sent when an e-mail is automatically added to a ticket via the e-mail threading feature.
• Search feature like in Outlook. The search result will be shown in the tickets list in Outlook as yellow marks on the found words or phrases.

• Show only Caller tickets. When e-mails are convert into tickets manually you may choose between creating a new ticket and adding the e-mail information to an existing ticket. In the latter case Folder HelpDesk V 12 will have a possibility to directly show earlier open tickets from the caller of the converted e-mail, so that you don't have to search for them.
• Possibility to give a custom general subject in the templates for Manual e-mail to Caller and FAQ answers. In PF HelpDesk we give a number of templates that may be sent automatically at different occasions. Today we give a standard subject for these automatic e-mails, but in Folder HelpDesk you can decide yourself what that subject should be. Also for FAQ answers you will be able to give a default subject.
• A mini HTML editor for e-mail templates will make it easier to modify the default templates.

Welcome to the PF HelpDesk Plans page if you want to read more about these changes.

New technology
In Folder HelpDesk we will use .NET in the Outlook add-on instead of VB6. With this more modern coding we will no longer have to use several additional .dll files. The client will load faster, and it brings the application closer to compatibility with the 64 bit version of Office 2010. With the .NET technique Folder HelpDesk will also handle inline images in RTF e-mails in a better way than before.

The development will take a couple of months or maybe a bit more, but we hope to publish Folder HelpDesk V12 before the summer.

2012 - kalmstrom.com Invests In People And Products

First I want to wish all blog readers a prosperous, healthy and peaceful New Year. Then I will not say more today, as I will call upon our kalmstrom.com CEO, Peter, to inform you about his plans for the future:


I have just left Indore after a very successful and constructive visit. Of course I already knew that we have a talented Indian team, but it was a joy to meet them in person and once again re-confirm it.

kalmstrom.com goes cloudy
To better be able to meet future development requests, the kalmstrom.com team has taken on a task that will change the products profoundly. Current users will still recognize them, but the architecture will be considerably different. We see a future where teams continue to get more mobile and geographically dispersed, and therefore we want to re-build all of our applications for more web-based usage.


Helping users embrace the future
If we keep the current architecture and only add new features to our products, they will eventually become old-fashioned. We don't want to wait for that day to make the necessary changes, because then we will prevent Member organizations from meeting and embracing the future. Members of kalmstrom.com Community deserve better!


KBase pilot project
Our developers have started the new development path with the comparatively simple knowledgebase application KBase. We hope to soon be able to release version 3, which will have a fully mobile and touch-friendly web interface in addition to the Outlook interface.

Next step will be to rebuild PF HelpDesk, using what we have learned when developing KBase V3. The new technique will also mean that our products will support the 64-bit version of Office 2010.

SharePoint alternative
So far kalmstrom.com has mainly done client-side applications, but next year we intend to provide also server-side features and mobile applications that use the new SharePoint 2010 tools. For shared information store we also want to add SharePoint as an alternative to a database in Access or SQL.

Then users will be able to send their time reporting data directly to a SharePoint list from TimeCard or store meeting information in multiple calendar lists from Calendar Browser.

Windows 8
By the end of February we expect to see the first Beta version of Windows 8, and this is a fascinating challenge for kalmstrom.com. Judging from the pre-beta developer release there will be no significant compatibility problems for us. Instead we can right from the beginning start taking advantage of the benefits this new operating system will give, like the Metro interface and the integrated Windows Store.

More team members
For all this development we will need more staff, and during my visit to Indore I interviewed several promising applicants. We have already given an offer to another QA Engineer, and more will come.

Extended team for technical support
After having followed the support cases for several months kalmstrom.com developer Kanak is ready for a more active role, and from January she will take over the responsibility for the second line support. This will give our lead developer Jayant more time for planning and guidance of the new staff, but of course he will still be assisting if needed. To further improve the support our Office Manager Vipul will start helping Sigge with the first line. Beside his Master of Business Administration Vipul has a technical background, so that will work fine.

These are just some of the kalmstrom.com plans for 2012. I feel certain that it will be a thrilling and progressive year, and I hope you want to share it with us!
Peter Kalmstrom CEO, kalmstrom.com Business Solutions