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.

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

Managing thousands, even hundreds, of emails a day in a normal email client is almost impossible. Keeping track of customer conversations, outstanding emails and effectively managing your daily activities in relation to your customer communications can be immensely difficult.

PerlDesk vs an Email Client

An email client will suffice for handling your incoming and outgoing emails, but to effectively handle volume an email client will not offer the same features that a help desk product such as PerlDesk can offer. Some of these features include automatic assignment of emails to department queues, shared email access for your team, threaded discussion, private and public responses. You also have a lot more options in relation to single emails (or tickets) you can mark them as Resolved, Assign them Internally to other staff members, or escalate an issue to another member of staff or department. There is no forwarding emails and email getting ‘lost’ in your internal network.

How PerlDesk Can Improve Your Email Efficiency

All of the features detailed above are there to help you to increase your email efficiency and to better serve your customers. Here are some of the many outstanding features PerlDesk can offer that differentiate it from an everyday e-mail client:

• Assign emails to departments. You can create rules that automatically forward an incoming e-mail to the right department. So, if you have received an e-mail with a pre-sales question, there is no need to bother your technicians with it.
• Assign emails to specific staff members or technicians. This allows you to assign particular incidents to specified employees, thus improving your internal organization and providing for faster response times.
• Easily view the history of a single incident. No matter how many emails have been exchanged in order to resolve it, all the correspondence is kept into one PerlDesk ticket.
• Respond and update the status/priority of emails. When you receive an email, you can set the priority of that email (ticket) within PerlDesk allowing your staff to effectively view which emails are urgent. You can also update the status of an e-mail, so that both your staff and the customer know how things are going – is the issue still open, is somebody working on it, or is it already solved.
• Ban IP adresses and users. PerlDesk allows you to ban particular IP addresses and/or allow emails only from registered users, thus significantly decreasing the amount of spam that makes its way to you.

PerlDesk has many other features in addition to the ones listed here and if you want to get a more in-depth idea of its email features, please have a look at the demo.

You can also test the email handling features of the demo by sending an email to perldesk@logicdemo.com, all of the automated correspondence can be disabled and customized.

Accountability and auditing are two of the most important tools for successful management of a customer help desk. You will never know for sure how much you have achieved, which areas you have failed in or who has been doing what, if you don’t have the right statistical tools at your disposal. Statistics and reporting are important in any sector but in customer service they could be the primary way to keep track of your team’s successes and failures.

Why Reporting Is Important

Statistics and reporting are the history of your business. Even if you are not buried in the past and are looking confidently into the future, statistics and reporting is not something you should overlook. It is very easy to say that the past is past and you disregard past operations but to really succeed you should be able to look back, evaluate efficiency and make improvements. When you can see your activities history at a glance, you can learn from mistakes (and avoid them in the future) or see if there are particular trends you need to pay attention to or perhaps tackle in the way of producing more documentation or literature for your customers. PerlDesk’s built in reporting gives you detailed reports about your help desk activity, so you can quickly see what has been going on in the past days, months and years.

How PerlDesk Reports Can Improve Your Efficiency

The reporting features of PerlDesk are of huge importance to a team leader or manager who wants to measure the performance of his or her team and improve support or customer communications. PerlDesk offers many reports and statistics, as seen from the screenshot below.

For instance, if you want to see basic data such as the average response time, the number of support requests, the number of accounts (users and staff), or the percentage of various submission methods (Web desk, via email, or staff logging), the Statistics page offers all this information. If you want to see more detailed data, such as tickets by assignment, tickets by department, priority, status (open, closed, hold), you can also view it from the Reports page. You can generate reports for any period of time and thus you can compare how your team performed over time. If you examine reports carefully, you can quickly see who from your team has the most open tickets, how long they have been open, who the most effective employee is, etc.

Who is logging the most tickets, to which department, what is the most common problem your customers have - and how are your staff at effectively managing these incoming requests… time to look at the PerlDesk Reporting modules!

Help Desk software is not a new type in the business software class and more and more companies are beginning to use it because they understand that using help desk software has many benefits. There are benefits for clients, customer service staff, management and the company as a whole.

The Help Desk Benefits for Clients

Clients benefit directly when a company uses help desk software because when they have a problem, they have a central point of contact for their problem – the help desk solution. For clients it is a great relief to know that when they submit a question or a complaint, the issue will be automatically directed to the individual within the company, who is responsible for resolving it. Additionally, help desk software is on 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, so clients can report their issue the moment it occurs. After an issue has been reported, clients can easily log in and check its status.

The Help Desk Benefits for Customer Service Staff

Customer Service staff also benefits when help desk software is used because it makes their jobs easier and allows them to provide timely service. When there is an integrated help desk solution, which contains data about present and past incidents, customer service staff has the right tools to check the history of the client and take adequate action. Help desk software improves the communication within the Customer Service team and the company as a whole.

The Help Desk Benefits for Management and the Company

Help desk software offers many benefits for management and the company. Managers have a tool to monitor the efficiency of their employees and to generate reports on the fly. Help desk software provides an automated way to escalate incidents, so there is no more need to manually approve each escalation.

The benefits of help desk software for clients, support staff, and management translate as benefits for the company as a whole because happy customers, effective staff and management mean better service and increased profits for the company. The benefits of using a help desk solution are so extensive that after getting used to it you will wonder how you could have managed without it!

We have launched a free hosted trial of PerlDesk. You can now have a private hosted trial created to try a fully functional installation of PerlDesk for 7 days. As the installation is private, you can customize the install URL, setup POP retrieval and see all the benefits of using PerlDesk within your organization for managing incoming emails and support tickets.

To setup your help desk trial please go to http://www.perldesk.com/hosted.html and follow the relevant link in the header.

You can easily convert your trial to a full paid hosted solution prior to your trial expiring, alternatively fetch a backup and replicate your installation locally if you decide to purchase.

Try the hosted PerlDesk Help Desk solution now!