The latest release of PerlDesk is now available in the Fantastico auto-installer which is a feature provided by many web hosting companies that use cPanel control panel software. This provides a one-click installation option for PerlDesk to over 1 million Fantastico end-users.

You simply need to purchase a PerlDesk Fantastico license and enter your license username and password in Fantastico.

Please go to the PerlDesk link in your Fantastico panel to view the order information and follow the link to purchase a license. If you already have a Fantastico license please view the Fantastico panel for upgrade information.

More information on Fantastico can be obtained from the developers site at http://www.netenberg.com/fantastico.php

To view the latest release of PerlDesk, please see the demonstration page.

PerlDesk 4.2 is now available for download from the licensearea.com site, this release includes several new features and fixes.

New Features

1) Time reporting added
PerlDesk now has the ability to generate reports on ‘time spent’ on help desk tickets. This new functionality allows you to generate a report on a per user, all user, or per staff basis to view statistics on the time that has been spent on tickets in a specific period. This data could then be used to bill for tech support using an external system.

2) Response count added to tickets list in staff view
3) Added check for external modules added to upgrade procedure
4) Added check for up-to-date pdesk.sql added to upgrade procedure
5) Ability to re-run upgrade while database version is up-to-date
6) Implemented option to skip backup whilst performing an upgrade
7) Added an option to disable flood protection (incoming email) added to admin interface
8 ) Added an option to explictly disable graphics CAPTCHA added to admin pane.

Fixes

1) Fix for broken ticket submit (empty departments list, captcha key always wrong when IA enabled)
2) Fix for empty ‘Latest news’ on KB section
3) Fix for Retrieve pop email button broken in IE
4) Fix missing message about restricted access to KB articles
5) Fix for saving pop server info without SSL enabled on some hosts
6) Fix for mass mailing to staff/portal users
7) Fix for empty To: address in email notifications
8 ) Fix for users auto registration when ‘process staff responses’ enabled
9) Fix for LiveChat Utility notification about new tickets (server side)
10) Fix for users with % in names
11) Fix for moving tickets to departments without anybody assigned as owner
12) Fix for warning when no piping defined
13) Obsolete options for Desktop Notification Utility removed

View the Demonstration of 4.2 here
Login to LicenseArea.com to download this release.

After installing PerlDesk you need to follow a few steps to get your help desk up and running and ready to handle customer inquiries. This post will guide you through the steps required to get PerlDesk ready to run.

This post is intended as a quick start guide and does not cover the extensive features related to the below steps.

Step 1 - Create Departments
You must create departments in PerlDesk, a department could be ‘Support’, or ‘Billing’ and represents where your tickets will be assigned and the options your end-users have to categorize their submissions.

Create department(s) by logging into your Administration and going to:

Settings > Departments.

Step 2 - Create a Staff Login
It is staff users who respond to and manage incoming tickets, please create a staff account in the Administration by going to:

Staff > Add Staff

After creating a staff user, they can login to the http://<yoururl>/staff.cgi file. Staff users must login to this unique access point. Your staff users can have access to particular departments (created in Step 1) or given global access, meaning that login account will have access to all tickets in the system.

Step 3 - Setup Incoming Email
If you would like your hosted PerlDesk installation to handle incoming email you can do this by allowing it to access a POP3 account, similar to a normal desktop mail client. Simply follow these steps:

In the Administration go to:

Settings > Incoming Email > Email Piping

Enter the email address you would like PerlDesk to manage and map that email address to a department, meaning any emails received will be routed initially to the department you specify. This allows you to setup several email addresses such as support@domain and billing@domain and map them to relevant departments.

Now you must configure your POP3 account details by going to:

Admin > Incoming Email > POP Retrieval

Simply create a new POP server by entering the required credentials. That’s it! PerlDesk will now check your POP account(s) every 10 minutes to retrieve emails.

Step 4 - Set your Logo

PerlDesk can be easily customized to carry your branding on the PerlDesk front-end. To set the logo you simply need to specify the Logo URL in the Admin> Settings section. Specifying this will immediately update the logo displayed on pdesk.cgi for your users.

You can further customize the PerlDesk front-end by editing the  templates in the /include/tpl/v4 folder. Please see the related blog post ‘Customizing the PerlDesk design’ for more information.

If you have any questions please contact us for assistance.

One of the greatest benefits a company will experience after deploying PerlDesk is in regards to email handling. Email handling in PerlDesk is sophisticated, yet easy to use because the workflow is logical. Each incoming email is picked up by PerlDesk, logged as a ticket and confirmation can be sent to the customer with a tracking number. Your customers have the convenience of using a normal email client to contact your staff, and your staff can take advantage of using a fully featured help desk system.

PerlDesk Email Handling Features Improve Efficiency

One of the indisputable advantages of PerlDesk is that its email handling features improve the efficiency of your team. Some of the features that will have a most notable influence on the speed and quality your Customer Service team will provide are the following:

• Multiple email accounts and addresses. With PerlDesk you can have as many addresses and accounts you need. You can have support@yourdomain.com, sales@yourdomain.com, billing@yourdomain.com. No more need to have only one address that captures all your emails.
• Mapping of emails to specific departments. In addition to having many email addresses, you can set precise rules for email piping – i.e. which email address goes to which department. This way emails are sorted to the appropriate department right away.
• Recognize high priority emails. PerlDesk can recognize and appropriately mark emails received as high priority.
• Tracking Numbers. Each incoming email is assigned a tracking number which can be given to the customer via an auto-reply on receipt of their issue (optional).  The customer can then use this when contacting your team in future to query their issue, allowing staff to quickly access and view the complete communication history.
• Threaded discussion. No matter how many emails a customer or end-user has sent, if they are about the same issue they will be all gathered in one PerlDesk ticket on one page, so you will know right away what the history of an individual issue is.

PerlDesk Email Handling Features Give You More Control

PerlDesk is an application which gives you a lot of control over the support process. There are many aspects you can configure and these include the following:

• Attachments. You can specify if you allow customers to upload attachments and if yes, you can also specify their max size and the allowed file types, as seen from the screenshot below.

• Emails only from registered users. If your help desk is getting lots of emails from users who are not entitled to receive support, you can easily fix this by enabling only registered users to sent you emails. This will require end-users to create an account before submitting tickets (via the web of email)
• Blocked addresses. You can block incoming emails from specific addresses of domains.
• POP3 retrieval. PerlDesk can connect to a common POP account and retrieve emails as your normal client would. This is easy to setup and allows PerlDesk to integrate with the most common of company mail systems including Exchange and Linux based mail servers.
• Incoming email rules. One of the most powerful email features of PerlDesk are the incoming email rules, which allows to create rules how specific emails are treated, you could filter emails with specific words, automatically assign them to specific people or departments.
• SLA rules. SLA rules give even more control because they all allow to set additional rules regarding what to do with emails, which have not been resolved in a specified period of time or are due soon. These options apply to all tickets and provide you with the control and knowledge that issues are resolved in a timely fashion.

PerlDesk Email Handling Features Will Make Your Customers Happy

Although the primary beneficiary of the PerlDesk email handling features is your support staff, your customers will also benefit because they are getting better service without the need for them to install or inconvenience them. If you choose to use the customer support portal front-end, your customers also have a way to track and manage their issues via your internet or intranet installation.

PerlDesk is an intuitive and easy to use Web application. At the same time it is a very powerful help desk solution allowing you to have full control over your customer service process. PerlDesk has 3 interfaces – a customer interface, staff interface and an administration area. Here will will give a brief overview of the new Version 4 designs, along with screenshots of each of these sections.

The Customer Area of PerlDesk

The customer interface, or the support portal area of Perl Desk is what your customers see when they access PerlDesk. The next screenshot will give you an idea of the look and feel of the customer area (click on the screenshot to enlarge it).

The customer interface allows users to register with PerlDesk, submit tickets and track their status, download useful resources, browse the knowledge base and chat with your customer service operators (in the Enterprise release). The customer interface is simple but it has all the features your users need to quickly access self service support and if required, contact your staff.

The Staff Area of PerlDesk

The staff interface is where each of your customer service team will login to manage and respond to incoming help desk tickets or emails. Each member of your staff has an account and based on his or her credentials, he or she will have access to different features. A sample screenshot of the home page of the staff area is provided below.

As you see from the screenshot above, the staff area gives access to tickets, messages, tasks, reports, settings. What each of your staff members will see depends on how you configure your help desk, each staff user can be limited to specific departments or given global access. They can also re-assign incoming tickets to other staff members or departments. All the time PerlDesk keeps a history log that allows you to monitor and track the progression of an issue.

The Administration Area of PerlDesk

The administration area of PerlDesk is only used to setup and modify the PerlDesk installation, including the creation of staff users/departments and setting up incoming email. The administration area allows to configure application-wide options of PerlDesk. A screenshot of the home page of the administration area is shown below.

 Try the Demonstration of PerlDesk to see each of these sections.

Almost every business uses software to help them operate more efficiently, hosted solutions are becoming increasingly popular as a way for companies to immediately deploy applications for their company without the need to download, install and configure an application. Utilizing SaaS (Software as a Service) also allows you to eliminate any ongoing maintenance costs in house, perform software upgrades or manage any servers.

PerlDesk fully hosted allows you to have a help desk solution up and running within minutes for you to deploy to your staff and customers, and start managing your email communications. A hosted installation of PerlDesk can still be configured to retrieve emails from a POP account, and can be customized in terms of look and feel. Using our unbranded domain names, you can also provide your customers with a professional help desk they can visit via yourcompany.help-desk.net, or alternatively you could use a sub-domain of your existing domain name.

Hosted Versus In-house

Hosted services are becoming more and more popular for critical software applications, when in-house installation, configuration, and maintenance become too costly or if you do not have the expertise in house, or simply want the convenience of knowing that it is being monitored and maintained for you. Hosting PerlDesk with us allows you to take advantage of all of the usual customization features but you won’t have to deal with the daily maintanence of the server, handle backups or perform upgrades manually.

Benefits of Hosting With PerlDesk

If you choose to host your PerlDesk installation, you will enjoy all the benefits of our hosting solution, some of these benefits include:

• The same functionality. When you host with PerlDesk, you will enjoy exactly the same functionality as if you were to download PerlDesk and deploy it in-house.
• Your own domain. If you already have your own domain, you can use it for your installation. Alternatively, you can use a subdomain of our own such as yourcompany.help-desk.net.
• Options for small and large companies. Our licensing policy provides options for small and large companies. If you are a small company with 5 or less users, then our Limited license is for you. If you are a large company, consider our Enterprise license, which does not limit the number of users and has additional features, such as dedicated IP address, SLA tracking and Live Chat.
• Data backup. We regularly backup your data in your PerlDesk install, you also have the option to make a full backup from the Administration.
• Cost efficiency. PerlDesk hosted solution eliminates the need to manage your server, or the installation - eliminating the need to perform backups or upgrades.
• Peace of mind. You can feel comfortable knowing it is hosted and maintained by professionals, we can assess and respond to any problems you may have quickly. It is also deployed within minutes of your order.

Find out more about our hosted solutions by visiting www.perldesk.com/hosted.html

Response templates play a big part in making your support or staff team more efficient and timely at handling customer communications. If you receive common questions or inquiries you can create a response template in PerlDesk to use when responding to future similar help desk tickets.

These templates can then be called instantly when responding to a customer help desk ticket. On selection the template will populate the response box with the response template text, which you can further customize with product details, order information or personalize before sending to the customer.

To create a response template, login to your PerlDesk installation as a staff user and go to ‘Your Settings’ by clicking the link at the top right of the staff area, you can then create and manage your response templates from this screen.

To use a response template, when using the quick response feature or advances response page simply select your desired response from the drop down menu.

Kambee, a hosted survey software solution allows you to measure and analyze the success of your customer service and help desk team by giving your customers a link to an online survey. Using Kambee you can easily create a hosted survey within minutes which you can send to clients via a link in your PerlDesk response template. Allowing your customers to provide extensive and measurable feedback on the service they have received from your staff.

To create a Kambee account please visit www.kambee.com

Using Kambee in PerlDesk

To take advantage of Kambee within PerlDesk you are able to modify the response email sent to your customers by PerlDesk, simply edit the /include/tpl/email/user_response.email file. This is the email template used whenever a staff member responds to a customer ticket, you could simply edit this and put the unique link to your Kambee survey.

You can use Kambee for free, simply visit www.kambee.com to create your free account.

We are currently offering free remote installation on all PerlDesk (download) orders placed before February 2008. To take advantage of this, please just tick the installation option on the order form and we will email details on how to request your free installation after your purchase.

To install PerlDesk we will need remote access to your machine via Telnet/SSH or Remote Desktop for Windows servers. Please ensure the dependencies are installed prior to your request (Web Server, Perl and MySQL) which can all be obtained from the following sites:

http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/mysql/5.0.html#downloads
www.activestate.com
www.apache.org

After supplying the details we aim to complete all installations within 24 hours (excluding public holidays. Please also inform us of any email handling options you would like us to setup (and the relevant pop access details) when requesting your installation.

PerlDesk runs on HTML templates, allowing you to easily modify and customize the front-end that your customers interact with. There are varying degrees of customization, I will start with the most simple options available.

Changing the Logo

To change the logo on your installation, you simply need to login to your Administration Area and go to Settings, there is an option on the main settings page to specify a logo url, you just need to enter the web address of your logo image file. PerlDesk will then display the logo on your customer portal.

Template Modifications

The templates for PerlDesk are stored in the directory below:

/include/tpl/

HTML and Interface templates are stored in the relevant theme folder, the most current and default at the time of this post is ‘v4′ and to modify the user front-end you would need to edit the files within this folder. There is no header or footer template to edit in order to customize the general look, there is just one main template file DEFAULT.TMPL, you can edit this to make changes throughout the frontend. If you are experienced in CSS, you can also modify the CSS file by modifying the relevant .css file in /images/v4/userend.css.

When editing templates, please be extra careful not to remove or damage any of the template tags which are crucial to the functionality of PerlDesk, these tags are usually in the form of <TMPL_VAR title> and should not be removed. If you are using a WYSIWYG editor such as Dreamweaver please ensure that your editor does not damage these tags.

Email Templates are stored in /include/tpl/email and you can completely customize the correspondence between PerlDesk and your customer.

Complete De-Branding

You are free to modify PerlDesk as you wish for your own licensed use, however, the ‘Powered by PerlDesk’ link must remain intact and visible. You can remove it by purchasing a de-branding license from our product order page at www.perldesk.com/order.html

If you require any further assistance please visit our own support portal installation at www.licensearea.com/desk.