A TUTORIAL TO OMNI
HELP DESK
Congratulations on your purchase of Omni Help Desk and welcome to our quick and
easy solution for managing, monitoring and maintaining a client archive base.
Please take the time to read the entire Tutorial that follows – in a
single sitting if possible.
Omni Help Desk (OHD) is highly customizable. During the time you are learning how to us
the software, please apply the defaults as directed. You will later be able to change these. Let’s get started!
SETTING UP YOUR PRODUCTS
Products are the items or services you sell or perhaps even
give away. To enter a product in the OHD
software:
From any page of the software, click on the Manage
tab of the overhead menu and open Products.
Click on Add New Product and enter the new product name in the Product Name field.
For the purposes of this Tutorial, please create a new
product, A-1Batteries.
A Description field is available for adding any
information you may wish about this Product. To save the new name and description, click
on Add Product.
SETTING
UP YOUR DEPARTMENTS and DEPARTMENT PRIVILEGES
Departments are
the branches of your organization. The OHD default Depart-
ments are Admin, Agents &
Sales.
Click on the Manage tab, open Departments and
select Add New Department. In the Name
field, create a new department named Parts. Use the Comments field
to enter any remarks, if relevant, about this new product.
Department Privileges are the permissions you extend to the Agents
(members of your company team) who will use this software. There are 3 such privileges, and they give Agents
the authority to:
Add a user to a
department;
Delete a
user from a department, and/or
View all
tickets assigned to any user in the department.
You may grant one or more of these privileges. Save your selections by clicking on Add
Department.
SETTING UP SYSTEM PRIVILEGES
You will note that the OHD System Privileges and Department
Privileges have been grouped on the same page. This has been
done as a convenience, since you will usually want to assign both kinds of
privileges to your Agents at the same
time.
System Privileges always override Department
Privileges. Therefore, if you
assign one or more System Privileges to a
user who has not been given that same privilege under Department
Privileges, he will be allowed the privilege since System
Privileges override Department Privileges.
System Privileges are
quick, simple, easy and self-explanatory.
They are saved, as above, by clicking on the Add Department
button. You may assign one or more, or none of these rights to any Agent. These rights include the ability for the Agent to:
Add users to
the system;
Add groups
to the system;
Delete
users from the system;
Delete
groups from the system;
Delete
tickets from the system;
Edit
privileges and information for any user in the system;
Edit group
information;
Assign/Reassign tickets to user;
View any unassigned tickets in the system;
View all
tickets in the system assigned to other users;
View the
performance statistics of any user in the system, and
Change
System Preferences.
To each Department we will now want
to add the names of Agents who work on your
team.
Begin by clicking on the Manage tab,
select Users and then click Add New
User and add fictional Agent Bob Smith this
way:
Enter his First Name & Last
Name in the appropriate fields, then create
an Email (use [email protected]).
Also create a Login and Password for
him, then assign him to the Parts department. Click on Add User to
save these assignments.
CREATING A TICKET
We are ready to create a ticket in which you, who are the Administrator by default, will now assign ownership of a ticket to Agent Bob Smith. Lisa
Martin will be the Client.
From the overhead menu, select Tickets and
click on Add A Ticket.
Enter Lisa Martin’s Name and Telephone
in the appropriate fields. Make her Email address: [email protected]. We will use the email addresses created for
both Bob and Lisa later to demonstrate how the OHD Email system works.
In Ticket Description,
enter “Needs estimate on new battery and cost to install.” Finally, assign the ticket to Parts,
which will be handling Lisa’s problem.
Then, from the Ticket Owner dropdown, assign
the ticket to Agent Bob Smith.
Use of the term “Ownership” is extensive throughout the
Omni Help Desk software. It allows you
to impress upon your Agents that a ticket
assigned is a problem owned. Tickets can
of course be re-assigned any number of times from any Administrator to
any Agent and vice versa.
The concept of “ownership” means you are will always be
able to go back in the OHD archive as far as necessary and obtain a clear
history of how each Admin and/or Agent
participated in a given ticket.
At this point we will use the 4 more fields which are
available to more exactly define Lisa’s ticket, namely:
A Ticket Status dropdown with
default options:
New, Open, Closed, Pending, Ready and Deferred…………………………………….….select
Open;
A Ticket Priority
dropdown with default options:
Urgent, High,
A Ticket Action dropdown with
default options:
Query, Estimate, Quote, Installation
Problem, and Upgrade Request……….select
Estimate, and
Finally, an Email Customer
checkbox, when ticked, automatically notifies a client anytime you update his
ticket and also copies him with any and all changes, comments, etc., entered
into all ticket fields.
ADDING,
DELETING AND/OR MODIFYING PREFERENCE DEFAULTS
All OHD field defaults can be added to, deleted or
replaced. To do this, select the Configure
tab, open the Ticket option and click
on Preferences. In the
template that opens you will find categories for Ticket Statuses, Ticket
Priorities and Ticket Actions. Use the available blank windows in each for
adding any new Preference in that category. Highlight any existing default in a category
to delete it.
Finally, use the Move Up, Move Down buttons to change the
chronology of your Preferences. Then save your edits by clicking
on the Save Preferences button. Finally, click on the Add New
Ticket button!
REVIEW
YOUR NEWLY CREATED TICKET AND/OR MAKE EDITS!
You have been returned to the Home page
at this point by virtue of clicking on the Add New Ticket
button above.
Note that with the exception of the first two columns – ID and Last Update
– the data you have entered up to now appears under columns sharing the
identical names used in creating the ticket, namely under the Client, Product,
Action, Priority,
Status and Ticket
Owner columns.
You will also see that your ticket for Client Lisa
Martin has been added and that her particulars
are: ticket is Open (meaning it needs to be resolved),
problem Product is her
Priority of the ticket is
As the conditions surrounding one or more tickets evolve,
you are easily able to redefine the new conditions. Moreover, you are able to do this right from
the Home page, as follows:
Use the handy shortcuts provided across the bottom of the columns to
quickly delete one or more tickets or to redefine the Priority, Status
and/or Ticket Owner of one or more
tickets.
To modify a single ticket, locate the checkbox to the left of the
client’s name under the ID column and place a checkmark in it.
Use the identical procedure to redefine multiple client
tickets.
To redefine all tickets simultaneous, enter a single
checkmark in the checkbox to the left of the ID
header.
Always click Apply to save your
edits.
UPDATING
YOUR TICKETS WITH INCOMING INFORMATION
Two means exist for updating ticket
information, one manual, the other automated.
First, the manual system…
From any page of the software, select Home. Under the Client column, click on Client Lisa Martin’s name.
This will open the Manage Ticket page
where you may now deal exclusively with a single Client account
– in this case, Lisa’s.
A system of shortcuts across the top --just like the ones
across the bottom of the Home page – allow
you to quickly delete one or more
tickets and/or to redefine the Priority,
Status, Ticket
Owner and other information pertinent to this ticket.
USING
THE MANUAL EMAIL SYSTEM
In addition, a Post New Message
window on this same page allows you to manually post and archive pertinent
messages to your tickets. A few but very
important rules apply to the use of this window:
First, any message you post
in this window is automatically archived;
Secondly, any message you post in this window can be also automatically
copied to the Client -- but only
if you have placed a checkmark in the checkbox on the Add New Ticket page (accessible at:
Tickets->Add New Ticket-> checkbox: Copy Client When Ticket Is Updated);
Finally, any message you post in this window is automatically archived whether
or not a checkmark is placed in the checkbox mentioned above has been
checked, and,
A Tech Notes window just to the
right of the Post New Messages window
allows you to manually post informal notes that cannot be viewed by Clients.
Comments posted to Tech Notes are chronologically grouped with messages posted to Posted New Messages.
Use the Post Messages and Post
Notes buttons below the windows to save your postings. To view a chronology of the group postings,
simply scroll down below the two windows.
Use the Post Message and Post Notes buttons beneath these two windows to
save your postings.
USING
THE AUTOMATED EMAIL SYSTEM
We earlier noted that an automated email system is available in
addition to the manual system already described. By default, the manual and automated systems
run concurrently, the importance of which we’ll cover in our closing notes on
this chapter.
To setup the automated system, simply click on Configure, choose Email
Piping and the open Email Accounts.
Enter the 4 pieces of information requested, then click on Submit Settings. The result of this action is that email which
would otherwise normally dump into your Outlook Express, etc., will now dump
instead dump into OHD!
If you are unsure of the information you should enter in
these 4 fields, simply contact your Host and ask them to provide you with them.
Thereafter, your email will be automatically added to the Home page,
where you can further convert it to Client
tickets.
Incoming email can be filtered by the automated OHD Email
system in such a way that most, if not all of the information, in Department,
Product, Ticket Owner, Ticket Status and Ticket
Prirority are automatically propagated in the appropriate software
fields for you.
A From, To and Subject field
help to refine this ability even more, as do a Has Words field
and a Doesn’t Have field.
The more information you add to the filters, the more
completely your tickets can be propagated for you, saving valuable time and
eliminating errors that tend to increase with repetitive, manual entry.
USING
THE “CANNED EMAIL” FEATURE
Canned Email is a group of
individual responses on different subjects that can be written in advance and
stored for ready use when a customer asks certain frequent questions (example:
“How do I change my password?”)
This feature in OHD further allows you to create groups of
prepared responses pertaining to each of your Product
groups.
Begin by clicking on Manage from
the overhead menu, then select Canned Emails and
open Groups.
Enter the names of the different product groups by clicking
on the Add New Group button and entering each group
name in turn. Add any Comment about
the group, if relevant, and save by clicking on the Add Group
button. For the purposes of this
Tutorial, add the Parts group.
Next, under the Manage tab,
select Canned Emails and open Templates, which is the
device used for composing and storing each of your canned messages.
Now click on Add New Template and
enter the product the message will relate to in the Product Group field
and a name for your message in the Message Name
field. Compose your message in the
Content window and then click on the Save Email
button to save your new template.
TIP!
Placing the following at the beginning of the message will
automatically date your outgoing Canned Email with the current date:
%CURR_DATE%
Immediately place the following underneath the first line ( %CURR_DATE% ) to also automatically greet your customer
with a “Hi” and by his or her name:
Hi %USER_NAME%:
To complete the Tutorial, now go back and create a short
Canned Message as follows:
LAST STEP BEFORE REVIEWING YOUR TICKET!
%CURR_DATE%
Hi %USER_NAME%:
Thank you for your enquiry into Forever Batteries.
It happens that we are having a 50% sale on these
at the time. Moreover, installation is free if you
purchase before this
Friday, October 10th.
To set an appointment with us, just call Shop
Manager Bob Smith at your convenience.
Bob Smith
Parts
512-111-1111
SENDING
YOUR CANNED EMAIL MESSAGE TO CLIENT
For the final step in the Tutorial,
return to the Home page and click on Client Lisa
Martin’s name.
When her personal account opens in Manage
Tickets, click on her Email Address.
This will automatically cause your list of Canned
Messages to appear as a pop-up.
Simply click on the Canned Message you
wish to send, add any edits you may wish to further personalize the message,
and click on the Send Emails button.
In addition to Lisa receiving this email, a copy of it has
also just been automatically
Archived. To view it and any others you’ve written Lisa
at any time, simply click on the Email Log on this same Manage
Ticket page.
MISCELLANEOUS NOTES AND OTHER ISSUES:
A Flood Protection system is included with OHD. In the event mischief or some other reason
should result in an attempt to “flood” you with emails, you may restrict the
number of messages a person or persons may send by configuring the Ticket List feature.
This can be easily accessed by selecting Configure from
the overhead menu and selecting System Preferences. The settings are straight-forward
and therefore not discussed in this Tutorial.