While thinking about helpdesk/mail management solution I've came to idea to use google mail for your domain (www.google.com/a). I need more of a support and company mail to be shared with 3 person more than a ticketing system. I'm already seting up WHMCS so I have KB covered there, but their builtin support system is not good enough to have all company mail managed by it.
Google mail is pretty powerful, offers enough space, searching, automatically sorting same conversation into threads (like tickets), labeling is quick and fast way to "delegate" inquiry to someone else...

Any thoughts?

Google Apps currently isn't available for sign up (only getting on their beta testing list) and it still routes through their Gmail interface. Definitely not a professional or functional e-mail solution.

I'd suggest trying Cerberus Helpdesk (http://www.cerberusweb.com).

I've signed up 4 domains with google for your domain and it works fine. It definitely isn't "pro" solution, but clients won't know I'm using google and not simply outlook.
While still in beta it works perfectly fine.

I did review cerberus, kayako and some others. Kayako is my second choice. Reason why gmail looks good is that it's simple, can be setup and used quickly and like I mentioned i need of mail management solution more than just helpdesk.

I did review cerberus, kayako and some others. Kayako is my second choice. Reason why gmail looks good is that it's simple, can be setup and used quickly and like I mentioned i need of mail management solution more than just helpdesk.

What happens if more than one persons needs access to a "ticket" do you share the inbox login details? You would be much better off going for helpdesk software

What happens if more than one persons needs access to a "ticket" do you share the inbox login details? You would be much better off going for helpdesk software

Yes. In my case it's not problem, only 3 of us and all will have full access to helpdesk software anyway. By using labels which work great you can simply delegate that "ticket" to someone else, so when he logs on he can check his tickets.

Of course that this is far from the best, but if you need simple company mail management that needs to be shared among few staff members it isn't such a bad option.

Ha ha, a weird coincidence. I do this! I set up a free domain (hebbnet.1.vg) for google apps and I use it for my staff's email addresses. It is pretty handy. During the Google Apps signup I've been able to "request" 300 email accounts, I'm not sure how many you can request untill they deny it. I just really like the GMail software better than Outlook. I use WHMCS also and I use the helpdesk activly. I just use the Google Apps/GMail client for my staff's email that they can use for communications with friends or customers.

I don't use gmail for client emails, that would be frankly unprofessional. I do however use gmail as the epi-center for all the important emails. I use one gmail account that is used as the root email address on all the servers. If something happens, the email goes to that gmail account and that gmail account forwards that email to me and all the server admins.

I don't use gmail for support either. What I was saying is that I use the gmail client availble with "Google Apps for your Domain". And my staff love it and I don't find it unprofessional at all. But like I said before, I also use WHMCS for my clients/billing/support.

This seems to tie in with what you are talking about:

http://groups.google.com/group/google-powered-office-tools-discussion/web/a-google-powered-office

Read about it on LifeHacker.com:
How to power your business with the Google Office

Developer Reto Meier describes how to leverage Google's slate of office tools, based around Google Apps for Your Domain, to power a business.

Meier has put together a Google Group to explain his 4-part series, covering Business Gmail, Client Interaction through Google, building a company knowledge base with Google Groups, and handling timesheets with Google Calendar and Spreadsheets. Pre-Lifehacker, I worked at a couple of places that had built up rather incomprehensible systems of business management, and we could certainly have done worse than a Google-powered office. How about you - think you could power your office with Google? Share your thoughts in the comments. — Adam Pash

Wow. I didn't even know they offered that.

I don't use gmail for client emails, that would be frankly unprofessional. I do however use gmail as the epi-center for all the important emails. I use one gmail account that is used as the root email address on all the servers. If something happens, the email goes to that gmail account and that gmail account forwards that email to me and all the server admins.

I do the same thing as far as having a gmail account be the root email address for all my servers. Everyone on the staff knows to log in and check it at the beginning of their shift and also 2 - 3 times during their shift if not more often.

So far this has worked very well.

I don't use gmail for client emails, that would be frankly unprofessional. I do however use gmail as the epi-center for all the important emails. I use one gmail account that is used as the root email address on all the servers. If something happens, the email goes to that gmail account and that gmail account forwards that email to me and all the server admins.
Gmail has truly become indispensable.

Gmail has truly become indispensable.
We use Gmail apps for our staff private addresses (such as jamie.edwards[at....
]ecarnate.com) - it is easy, and we like the interface. Not only this, but we love the WAP/PDA interface.

Our general addresses such as support@, sales@ are piped directly into our support desk (Kayako SupportSuite - www.kayako.com).

On top of the support desk piping, however, we have all of our support desk e-mails forwarded to a Gmail account too - so that we have a second copy of all e-mail using the 2.5GB storage Gmail gives us.

It provides easy and quality search / labelling of e-mails that we can use to go back years. Also, if the worse would happen to our support desk databases, we have a backup of everything and also a method of continuing to communicate with clients.

This support center looks great. Anyone else using it?

PS
I see the original post is deleted?

Which support center?

It was spammed earlier in the thread....better not to aid his efforts by posting it. ;)

If you are using a free service such as gmail, please remember that according to their TOS they can close down your account for any reason they desire.

This is a big risk if you are a serious business. Can you imagine going to gmail one day, and poof... all your email is gone?

You may feel it's unlikely to occur, but according to the gmail TOS you agreed to when creating your account, there would be nothing you could do about it.

I do not recommend putting the reliability of your business in the hands of a free service, regardless of who they are and how "not evil" they claim to be.

:)