Greetings!!

Vision Helpdesk team is constantly working on new features to bring you best helpdesk tool for your business.

Our upcoming version is schedule to be released in first week of Nov 2009 — This new version will include powerful tool i.e Pre & Post Parser.

Pre and Post parser will allow users to set filter criteria and based on criteria they can specify several actions.

Filter criteria allows users to define what conditions they want to match against incoming emails.  Users can create pre or post parsing rules and decide execution order for rules.

Pre and Post parsing turns out to be perfect tool for automation — based on rule actions can be decided — example changing department, marking ticket as spam, changing ticket priority, ticket status and so on.

Pre and Post parser gives you complete control over your incoming emails.

We will keep updating this post with more information on release schedule.

Vision Helpdesk V2.2.2 is released and now it supports Two Way Email Parsing.

What is Email Parsing?

User sends email to helpdesk and helpdesk email parser further parse this email and converts it in to a ticket. This process of converting email into helpdesk ticket is called as email parsing.

Vision Helpdesk offers two options for clients to open ticket (issue).

1. Client can open ticket using Vision Helpdesk client portal (i.e, web form)
2. Client can directly send email. In this case Vision Helpdesk email parser converts clients email in to ticket.

What is Two Way Email Parsing?

Previous version of Vision Helpdesk allowed clients to open ticket by sending email to support@yourcompany.com and this email used to get converted in to helpdesk ticket and Staff could reply to those tickets by login to Vision helpdesk Staff area..

Now with Two Way Parsing — Vision helpdesk sends email alerts to Staff email address whenever a client opens a new or updates existing ticket.  Further staff replies to alert message and this staff reply gets appended to ticket in Vision helpdesk.

What’s the big deal?

Two way parsing allows your support staff to reply to tickets via email too. Your staff is not required to login to Vision helpdesk in order to reply to tickets.

Best scenario of two way email parsing –

A company staff can have their email address configured on their mobile  phone - They can receive email alerts on their mobile and reply to those alert messages without actually log-in to web-based helpdesk.

Today we have released Vision Helpdesk V2.2.2 Release — this includes fixing of some important bugs in V2.1.1  and added new features..

Features added in Vision Helpdesk 2.2.2

• Two Way Email Parsing
• Migration of WHMCS tickets to Vision Helpdesk
• Migration from Cerberus to Vision Helpdesk
• Open Ticket in New Tab is now supported

Bug fixes in V2.2.2

• Error while attachment download from client side
• Kayako Support Suite Migration to Vision Helpdesk
• Kayako3.x Migration to Vision Helpdesk
• Spam Plugin
• Right Plugin Panel is blank after new installation

Change Log

You can find the list of files that were edited during version change V2.1.1 to V2.2.2

http://thevisionworld.com/forums/index.php/topic,38.0.html

How to Upgrade to V2.2.2?

Vision Helpdesk offers Auto upgrades from Admin Panel   Click on >> Software Information >> Available Updates will shows updates avalaible for upgrade.

The culmination of  one year work by our development team, Vision Helpdesk 2.0 Stable Version is now available.

Vision Helpdesk 2.0.0 Stable

Vision Helpdesk 2.0 is about High Speed Performance,  Security,  Reliability, Scalability,  Portability and User-Friendliness. Vision 2.0 reflects the state of the art in web based helpdesk solutions. It well derives benefits of latest Web2.0 technology and equip support staff with fast, secure and user-friendly interface.

Ajax Based — Lightning Speed Interface

The first thing you’ll notice about 2.0 is its new Lightning Speed Interface. From the top down, we’ve listened to your feedback and thought deeply about the design and the result is a Vision Helpdesk that’s just plain faster. Nearly every task you do on your Helpdesk will take fewer clicks and be faster in 2.0 than it did in a previous version.

A major challenge while designing online softwares is the page reload time - for all operations that you do (may be its submitting form or clicking event etc) requires communication between server and reloading the complete page to display the results.

We have used AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) to overcome the complete page reloading issue, AJAX is a web development technique used for creating interactive web applications. AJAX makes your pages feel more responsive by exchanging small amounts of data with the server behind the scenes, so that the entire web page does not have to be reloaded each time the user requests a change. This way it increases the web page’s interactivity, speed, functionality, and usability.

Ajax contributes –

• User-experience improvement
• Decreasing user delay
• Decrease in bandwidth usage
• High speed results

Satellite Helpdesk — Manage Multiple Companies

Next thing that you’ll notice Improved Satellite Helpdesk  Feature (Managing one or more company support under single helpdesk ) Vision Helpdesk pioneers to implement true satellite helpdesk feature — With Vision 2.0 we have introduced Staff Access Control that gives hierarchical control over access rights to staff and admins.. The system has Super Admin on top level followed by Domain Admins at middle and Staff at bottom level..

Paid Support — Bill your customers from Vision Helpdesk

Digging further you’ll find the complete new feature that is Paid Support — We know its everyone’s deep dark wish to have ability to bill customers from helpdesk software. Vision Helpdesk makes your wish complete by integrating with top class Billing Software — WHMCS.

Vision Helpdesk integrates with WHMCS Billing Software to offer Paid Support feature, that means now you can add billing note to a ticket and create invoice right from your Vision helpdesk. If you are thinking the integration will be complex — then delete the thought!! Trust me you don’t need any coding knowledge it’s just matter of adding your whmcs details in vision helpdesk and your vision helpdesk is ready to bill your customers

Plug-in Architecture

Another interesting and complete new feature is Plugin Architecture — Vision2.0 offer Plug-in architecture that allows users to enable / disable several features.  Plug-in frameworks help to handle complexity, simplify application configuration and deployment, and enable users or third parties to easily enhance existing applications with self-developed modules without having access to the whole source code.

Currently Vision2.0 includes Plug-in’s like –

• Scrap Book
• Quick Links
• Email Alerts
• Favorites
• Calendar
• Antivirus
• Address Book
• Online Staff

Our development team is working further on this feature  to implement more and more easy methods for third parties to develop their own code and plug-in to vision helpdesk.. In next upcoming version of Vision you will get a better test of this feature.

Robust e-Mail Parser

Robust e-Mail Parser — We have redesigned Vision2.0 mail parser to accommodate various email parsing functions, here is the feature list of V2 parser..

• Ticket Creation
• Email Detection
• Auto-assign Tickets to departments
• Auto Responder
• Infinite Auto responder Loop Control
• Break Line Detection
• File Attachments
• Follows RFC Standards
• E-Mail Banning
• Users Ticket Creation
• Accepts E-mail Piping input
• Supports text and Multi-Part eMail messages
• Blocks executable scripts through emails
• eMail Parser Log and more…

SLA & Ticket Escalation Management

Improved SLA Management & Escalation Support – This time we have comeup with complete new clean method to manage SLA in helpdesk — Vision 2.0 SLA management system is more acurate and provides a transparent reports to Admin / Staff and clients.. We have simplified the concept such that even a novice user can setup SLA ..

Advance Graphical Reports

More Graphical Reports & Staff Performance Reports — With the help of rich GUI including charts, figures & table of contents - Vision generates accurate report on run time for —

• Last 7 days staff activity (Matrix Report)
• Monthy Staff Work Activity (Statistics)
• Monthly Staff  Performance (Scale / Point Graph)
• Monthly Staff SLA Record (Pie Chart)
• Annual Ticket Bar Graph Report
• Work Report
• SLA Report
• Response Report
• Performance Report
• Client Tickets and Billing Report

Self Help Tools

Advance Self Help Tools ( Knowledge Base | Downloads | Predefined | News | Troubleshoot) — Vision2.0 offers fast and simple tools to manage self help.

Migrate From other Helpdesk to Vision Helpdesk

Helpdesk Migration Tool – Vision 2.0 supports Migration Tool for Kayako Support Suite 3.x version — Migration from Kayako to Vision Helpdesk is seamless and takes just 3 steps.. Migration for other helpdesk like Cerberus, Support Trio and WHMCS will be included in next immediate 2.1 release.

The feature list is long and the post will become epic if I start writing each and every feature — I have explained each feature in my other posts, Below listed is list of urls for your reference –

• Wide Screen | Large Work Space
• Color indications to improve user visibility
• Staff Access Control
• Email Templates
• Faster Ticket Operations
• SMTP an alternative to PHP’s mail() function
• Multiple Personalities with Multiple Signatures
• Customized Tool Bar
• No Pagination for Ticket Replies
• Ticket Statuses | Priorities | Flags | Labels | Filters
• Tree View Ticket categorization
• Database Maintenance
• Improved & Faster Custom Fields creation tool
• Common Admin & Staff Login
• Evaluating Staff Performance
• Improved Private Messaging and much more…

You can find a complete feature list at –

http://www.thevisionworld.com/vision-helpdesk/key-features

Vision Helpdesk Quick Links

Vision Helpdesk Online Demo

http://www.thevisionworld.com/vision-helpdesk/online-demo

Vision Helpdesk One Month Free Evaluation Version

http://www.thevisionworld.com/purchase

Limited Time Offer for Vision Helpdesk 2.0 Owned License  —

50% Off on Vision 2.0 Owned License

Please use coupon code:  cheers

What’s Next ?

Our development team is too fierce to rest on its laurels — every improvement just whets our appetite for more. And more is coming.. we will publish road map for next upcoming version in coming few days..

Thank you for your time We sincerely hope this new version of Vision Helpdesk helps you to offer top notch support to your customer’s.

Vision Helpdesk offers powerful e-Mail Parser to manage email communication between user and helpdesk staff - The core function of e-mail parser is to automatically convert e-mail messages into tickets or tickets responses.

Our e-Mail Parser includes some advance features like :

• Ticket Creation — Vision Helpdesk e-mail parser reads email messages and automatically converts them in to ticket.
• Email Detection — Vision Helpdesk automatically detects whether  the incoming message is for a new ticket or is simply a response to an existing ticket.
• Auto-assign Tickets to departments — Vision Helpdesk categorize tickets company and further department wise — E-mail parser auto assigns tickets to respective mail queues (departments) i.e Sales emails goes to Sales Mail queue (Department) and so on..
• Auto Responder — e-Mail Parser sends an auto responder email whenever a new ticket is created - The auto responder email contains the ticket information and user login credentials.
• Infinite Autoresponder Loop Control — e-Mail Parser sends out autoresponder to user email message and if user email too has auto responder set, it will create infinite auto responder loop floading helpdesk with tickets. Our email parser breaks such loops automatically by using advance loop controling mechanism.
• Break Line Detection — This feature will auto remove the old responses / email quotes.
• File Attachments — Both user and staff can attach files to their email messages and ticket replies.
• Follow’s RFC Standards — Our e-mail parser follows RFC standards and it supports email messages originated from all email servers.
• E-Mail Banning — Vision Helpdesk allows staff to ban e-mail addresses,  e-Mail Parser silently excludes parsing email messages originated from such ban email id’s.
• Users Ticket Creation  — User’s can open ticket using Vision Helpdesk client portal or their favorite email client. (example outlook, thunderbird etc).
• Two Way Email Parsing — It allows Client and Staff both to update tickets in Vision Helpdesk via e-mail (they can use their favourite email client to reply tickets.) With this Staff does not need to login to Vision helpdesk to reply to tickets.
• E-mail Piping — Our e-Mail Parser accepts emails using piping method too. (Email Piping is basically email forwarding where emails are just pushed to parser from actual email accounts — This is instantaneous process and widely used)
• Fetch emails using Pop3 / Pop3 SSL / IMAP / IMAP SSL / TLS – This is alternative method for email piping. This requires login and password for respective email accounts that you wish to configure in Vision Helpdesk. Parser is designed to support POP3/IMAP/POP3 SSL/ IMAP SSL / TLS protocols.  This method requires setting up cron job that fetch emails after every 5 mins.
• Supports text and Multi-Part eMail messages — Our e-mail parser supports parsing text and multi-part email messages - images and other mime types are stored as attachment in tickets.
• Blocks executable scripts through emails — Our parser checks email content while ticket creation and deactivates any malicious scripts included in email messages.
• Iconv Supported — We use the iconv function to  handle most email encodings - Using IconV mail parser converts encoding to UTF-8, Example — If a client sends ticket in Persian language IconV converts this encoding to UTF-8 in order to preserver email content.
• Pre and Post Parsing –Pre and Post parser will allow users to set filter criteria and based on criteria they can specify several actions. Filter criteria allows users to define what conditions they want to match against incoming emails.  Users can create pre or post parsing rules and decide execution order for rules. Pre and Post parsing turns out to be perfect tool for automation — based on rule actions can be decided — example changing department, marking ticket as spam, changing ticket priority, ticket status and so on.
• eMail Parser Log –  e-Mail Parser maintains parser log that gives in site of each activity carried out on email message while its conversion to ticket. This is helpful to troubleshoot if something goes wrong while parsing emails.