What software are they using and how can I get a copy of it? It seems to work quite well from the customer side of things...

How about a link? :)

www.deskticket.com

It's the ticket system by InverseFlow (http://www.inverseflow.com)... if I remember right.. it costs only around $150 or so.

I always like when people say "it only costs $<insert number here representing someone's idea of cheap>"

Well, a good support system for $150 should be cheap in anyone's mind.

As for me, I've tried them all.. InverseFlow, Kayako, Perldesk, etc, and the best one out of all of those (in my opinion) is PerlDesk.

Which only costs $50.

I have tried Perldesk, Inverseflow and Kayako and Kayako tops them all IMHO, but we have have a favorite so that does not mean much. :)

I've also been eyeing EdgePanel by renaxsolutions.com, and kkimmel, it's free.

Originally posted by mesopia(Jay)
It's the ticket system by InverseFlow (http://www.inverseflow.com)... if I remember right.. it costs only around $150 or so.

http://inverseflow.com/products/helpdesk/index.php says $264.96

I do not like Kayako. 2CO was using it for a while when I was there and I dont like several aspects of it. And PerlDesk dosent cut it for what I want to do.

I like Nectar's support desk because users dont have to register for yet another account. I plan to use this helpdesk to handle my customer service e-mails from my webstore.

I am getting such a volume of customers now, keeping track of all the "wheres my order" and "is this in stock" and "can I get this in red" questions is becoming a pain.

I dont wany my customers to have to create an account just to ask a question and I want to discourage rampant use of my 800 number. For webhosting, its OK for them to register for an account, but not for retail sales because they will probably only ask a question once and they wont remember thier account information anyway, creating yet another support headache.

In my opinion, you cannot, and will never, beat the inbuilt hsphere support system.

Knowledge base and ticket center all built in and nicely wrapped up.

Slightly off topic though, so i'll cut myself short..

Just an FYI you do not need to create a helpdesk account in Kayako to open a ticket, it just looks like a standard contact form with email, name, issue and does it from there, it also integrates with modernbill quite nicely.

EdgePanel has several bugs that haven't been addressed. The email piping script doesn't seem to function on Plesk. If the admin or staff replies to the user's ticket, the user does get alerted but the admins do not get alerted back when the user replies to his ticket. You have to login your admin panel and watch for replies manually. It looks great but it's free so expect some bugs. Kayako is way over the top and even EdgePanel's features are good but we have developed systems that go beyond what any of them offer and I'd hate to be restrained by one system. Would much prefer to write my own graphic CP manual, custom wite a server monitor that I can change as the company changes etc. We have a basic helpdesk (phpsupportdesk). Clients can submit tickets, we get the notification, we answer. What else do you need?

Originally posted by NexDog
EdgePanel has several bugs that haven't been addressed. The email piping script doesn't seem to function on Plesk.

Who in thier right mind uses Plesk? God, I hate that pile of crap even more than I dislike Ensim.

While just so that you know, the bugs Laurence mentions are real bugs that appears anywhere, including on a Cpanel system and of course a vanilla linux system. The email piping seems to be fixed in the latest version but the admin alerts isn't. That's why I scrape it after just a bit of testing. I am not going to sit there and refresh the helpdesk. We use Oneorzero (also free) and like Laurence mentions, you get to send a ticket, we get to answer them, and it works. That's all it needs to be, not some over the head functionality. And with some work, email piping is supported.

Originally posted by sprintserve
While just so that you know, the bugs Laurence mentions are real bugs that appears anywhere, including on a Cpanel system and of course a vanilla linux system. The email piping seems to be fixed in the latest version but the admin alerts isn't. That's why I scrape it after just a bit of testing. I am not going to sit there and refresh the helpdesk. We use Oneorzero (also free) and like Laurence mentions, you get to send a ticket, we get to answer them, and it works. That's all it needs to be, not some over the head functionality. And with some work, email piping is supported.


Meh, the bugs that your talking about are resolved with a couple of minor edits of the source. PHP is not picking up the environment variables they set correctly, hard coding the full path to the scripts allows it to work perfectly.

When i get a little more time I'll rewrite the environment variable functions so they dont need to be hard coded.

As for email pipeing, I dont have a problem with it, tested on both linux cpanel and freebsd cpanel.

I tested the hardcoding and it didn't work, and there's no admin notifications, which I sorely wanted. I don't care much for all the other functions that much.

Originally posted by kkimmel
Who in thier right mind uses Plesk? God, I hate that pile of crap even more than I dislike Ensim.
What, are you trying to qualify that you know something about control panels, lol.....

We use Plesk and so do over a thousand of our clients. AussieHosts (EnhancedHost) also uses Plesk and so do over a thousand of their clients. And Gary and I represent companies bigger than 99% of those that frequent this board. Cpanel seems to be very popular with small time hosts (yes, and a few big ones too) because of its reseller appeal. ;)

Originally posted by NexDog
What, are you trying to qualify that you know something about control panels, lol.....

We use Plesk and so do over a thousand of our clients. AussieHosts (EnhancedHost) also uses Plesk and so do over a thousand of their clients. And Gary and I represent companies bigger than 99% of those that frequent this board. Cpanel seems to be very popular with small time hosts (yes, and a few big ones too) because of its reseller appeal. ;)

Oh the sweet sound of a good post.

We use Hsphere for shared account users, and plesk on our dedicated servers, we have had absolutely no complaints in either department.

Some posts are just music to the ears

Plesk I do actually sort of like. But there are 3 problems with it (why are we even talking about plesk?)

1.) It's pricing.
2.) The design of it. It's ugly. Simple as that.
3.) Upgrading.


But what I do have to say is that I've had many clients come from a host that uses the Plesk control panel (mainly ex-featureprice clients) and then be amazed at the design and functionality of cPanel. It has it's problems but every software does.

As for the actual topic of Support Desks. At this moment, I plan on using EdgePanel for my new web hosting venture, however eSupport is really looking nice so I may dish the dough for that.

Of course if I'm going to spend money, I might as well go all out and buy a programmer to program my own helpdesk. Now that sounds like a plan ....

Originally posted by NexDog
What, are you trying to qualify that you know something about control panels, lol.....

We use Plesk and so do over a thousand of our clients. AussieHosts (EnhancedHost) also uses Plesk and so do over a thousand of their clients. And Gary and I represent companies bigger than 99% of those that frequent this board. Cpanel seems to be very popular with small time hosts (yes, and a few big ones too) because of its reseller appeal. ;)

Yes, as a matter of fact I do know something about control panels. I know that every Cpanel server I have had has not given me any problems or come up with stupid errors that no one has an answer for.

And I know that when I was hosted by two different companys that used Plesk, it ran slow as hell and annoyed me with all kinds of errors of this type and that. Ensim was just a piece of **** that didnt work at all. And I dont like the navigational layout of either one of them.

I am glad that you use and like Ensim. More power to you. And I personally dont care how big your company is, that dosent mean anything in my book. I have learned the hard way that bigger is usually worse, not better.

Originally posted by kkimmel
Yes, as a matter of fact I do know something about control panels. I know that every Cpanel server I have had has not given me any problems or come up with stupid errors that no one has an answer for.

And I know that when I was hosted by two different companys that used Plesk, it ran slow as hell and annoyed me with all kinds of errors of this type and that. Ensim was just a piece of **** that didnt work at all. And I dont like the navigational layout of either one of them.

I am glad that you use and like Ensim. More power to you. And I personally dont care how big your company is, that dosent mean anything in my book. I have learned the hard way that bigger is usually worse, not better.

:emlaugh:Prozac?

My wife says bigger is better. :)

Originally posted by NexDog
My wife says bigger is better. :)

LOL, a little off topic... but funny.