Staff Manual

A few key concepts

Types of user
Type

Description

Where to
manage them

(End) user

Your customers.

Staff control
panel

Staff user

Your organization's team, the people who deliver the customer support.

Administrator
control panel

Administrator Also regular staff users, these staff users have been granted access to the
administrator control panel (so in that context, we can refer to them as helpdesk
administrators).

Administrator
control panel

Areas of your support desk

Area

Description

Administrator
control panel

A control panel which is accessible only to staff users who are a member of an administrator
group. The default location for the administrator control panel is www.yourdomain.com/supportfolder/admin. Your support desk's settings are controlled and major configuration (such as
adding and removing staff users, configuring SLAs and controlling permissions) are performed
here.

Staff control
panel

Your staff users use the staff control panel to deliver customer support, such as managing tickets,
creating knowledgebase articles, managing end users and generating reports.

Support center

The support center is your helpdesk's home page, the public face of the helpdesk. It is primarily
where your end users land. For example, depending on your configuration your end users can
register with the helpdesks, login, review their support history, raise new tickets and browse the
knowledgebase.

Tickets
Name

Description

Ticket

The definition of a ticket

depends on how you use your
helpdesk. For most, a ticket is a
conversation - a thread of
replies, entered via the helpdesk
or by email.

Tickets are
managed in the
staff control
panel.

Ticket
departments
and statuses

A ticket department (such as

Sales, Support, Billing) is much
like a folder in your email
program, or an email queue in
some other helpdesk systems. A
ticket belongs to one
department.

Custom
departments can
be defined in the
administrator
control panel.
Custom statuses
can be defined
(and tied to
specific
departments) in
the administrator
control panel.

Every ticket has a status, such

as Open, Closed or On Hold. A
ticket can only have one state,
represented by the status

What it looks like

Where it can be
managed

Ticket
priority

Every ticket also has a priority,

such as High, Medium and
Low. A ticket can only have
one priority.

Custom priorities
can be defined
(and tied to
specific
departments) in
the administrator
control panel.

Ticket owner

A ticket can only have one (or

no) owner. A ticket can
be assigned to a specific staff
user, who then becomes the
owner of that ticket.

Tickets and their

properties are
managed in the
staff control
panel.

Ticket tags

Tickets can be tagged when

managing tickets in the staff
control panel.

Tickets and their

properties are
managed in the
staff control
panel.

Ticket elements and properties

Area, item
or element

Description

Could also be
referred to as

Ticket

A ticket is typically a thread of correspondence, usually between one or more of

your staff users and one or more end users. However, the definition of exactly
what a ticket is depends entirely on how you use your helpdesk. A ticket could,
for example, be a task, a work log or a thread of correspondence between several
of your staff users.

Issue
Conversation
E-mail
Entry

Ticket post

A ticket post is a post or message that is part of a ticket.

Message
Reply
E-mail

Staff Dashboard
The dashboard is your staff user's helpdesk homepage, providing them with an overview of what is
currently happening and what new things have come into the desk.

Various parts of the dashboard

An introduction to various sections displayed at the staff control panel dashboard is given below

Navigation menu bar and sub-menu bar

The navigation menu bar is the top most section of the dashboard which allows you to make system
wide configuration settings and under the main menu bar is sub-menu bar which allows you to insert
and mange knowledgebase articles, news articles etc.

Department and ticket tree

This column shows the departments/sub-departments assigned to the staff that is currently logged
in along with the tickets and their statuses.

Staff status box

Displays the staff users who are logged into the staff control panel, administrator control panel or
Kayako Desktop chat application.

View and manage ticket settings

To view and manage the ticket settings, click on Settings under Tickets on the Options menu, as
shown below.

You will be directed to the page where you can make all the necessary settings. The settings section
is categorized into eight parts, which are
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.

General Ticket Settings

Spam Handling Settings
Client Support Interface Settings
Mail Settings
SLA Settings
Parser Settings
Ticket Lock Settings
Bayesian Filtering Settings

All the editable fields specific to these categories are explained in the following section

General Ticket Settings

Send Complete
History in Staff
Replies?

If enabled, the reply sent from the Staff CP will include all the replies in the previous
posts as well. For example, if a ticket includes six posts, then all the posts will be sent
along with the reply sent from the Staff CP.

Split Ticket Posts By

Page

If enabled, the ticket posts for a ticket will be displayed on separate pages instead of
all the posts on a single page.

Number Of Tickets
Posts Per Page

Specify the number of posts to be displayed on a single page. This option is

only relevant if the option "Split Ticket Posts By Page" is enabled.

Add Users As
Recipients When

When two tickets are merged, the users whose email addresses are associated with
either ticket, will be added as recipients in the ticket that results from the merge. This

Merging

ensures that all users will receive future correspondence associated with both the
tickets.

Display Order for

Ticket Posts

This settings specify whether the oldest or latest ticket post will be displayed in the
ticket.

HTML Conversion
(Rendering and Staff
Alerts)

Choose how HTML content should be treated when displaying tickets in the web
interface and when sending staff alerts.
HTML Entities: Converts HTML to normal text so that you can see the
code.
Strip Tags: Removes HTML formatting completely
No Processing: Allow HTML code as it is created. This setting is not
recommended as it can allow malicious code to be executed in staff users'
web browsers and/or email client applications.

This setting affect the final on-screen display of the contents, however it does not affect the

HTML Conversion
(Staff Replies)

Choose how to handle HTML content in email replies sent by staff users. This will
affect the content that ultimately reaches the client user.
HTML Entities: Converts HTML to normal text so that you can see the
code.
Strip Tags: Removes HTML formatting completely
No Processing: Allow HTML code as it is created. This setting is not
recommended as it can allow malicious code to be executed in staff users'
web browsers and/or email client applications.
This setting affect the final on-screen display of the contents, however it does not affect the

Allow HTML Tags

If enabled, some (specified below) HTML tags will be allowed, even if rendering is
set to Strip Tags.

Allowable HTML
Tags

If the option above is enabled, the HTML tags specified here will be allowed.

Enable Post Preview

in Ticket List

If this settings is enabled, then you will be able to preview the last ticket post by
hovering over a ticket in the Staff control panel, without opening a ticket.

Ticket ID Type

You need to select an option whether the support desk generates new ticket identifiers
in Random or Sequential manner.
Random: The ticket identifiers will be generated in a random manner for
example USZ-819-85822, ZLS-608-96519 and so on
Sequential: The ticket identifiers will be generated in a sequential manner
for example 7, 8, 9 and so on

Restrict New Ticket

Creation To Assigned
Departments

If enabled, the staff users will be allowed to create a ticket only in the department they
are assigned to. For example, if a staff user A is assigned to a department Sales, then,
he will be allowed to create a ticket from the staff control panel only in the
department Sales and none other.

Default Ticket Status

for Client Reply

This will be the default ticket status when a client replies to a ticket from the client
support center or via email.

Search Results Limit

This value specifies the number of results returned following a search. For example, if
this value is set to 11, then only 11 search results will be returned following a search.

Spam Handling Settings

Move Spam
to Trash?

If this setting is set to Yes, then all the tickets that you mark as spam (by selecting a ticket or
tickets and clicking on the Spam icon in the Staff control panel) will be moved to the Trash
immediately.

Ban Spam
Emails?

If enabled, the creation email of all tickets marked as spam will automatically be banned.

Client Support Interface Settings

Users Can View

Third-Party
Replies

If enabled, the user will be able to see third party recipient replies when viewing a ticket in
the client support interface.

Enable the Instant If enabled, Fusion will search the Knowledgebase for relevant articles in real-time while
Response System the user is drafting a query for submission. For example, there is an knowledgebase article
(IRS)
on piping issues, and the client is submitting a ticket regarding the piping issues he is
facing, so the IRS will search the article and present it to the client when the word piping
appears in his query. This feature cuts down on the amount of new tickets submitted, as
users may frequently find the answers they are looking for before submitting their tickets.
Maximum Word
Count for IRS

Specify the maximum number of words, after which IRS (Instant Response System) will
stop searching the knowledgebase.

Require users who submit tickets via the client support interface to enter text displayed in
Enable
a special image to attempt to verify whether they are human.
CAPTCHA for
Ticket Submission
Display Order for
Ticket Posts

This setting allows you to choose whether to display the latest posts or the oldest posts at
the top in a ticket to the users when they login to their client support interface accounts.

Users Can Upload If enabled, users will be able to upload file attachments when they create or reply to a

Attachments

ticket. If disabled, the user will not be able to see the file attachment option while creating
or replying to a ticket.

Mail Settings

Lookup Ticket ID in Email

Body?

If enabled, support suite will try to lookup the Ticket ID in the body of the
email if it cannot be located in the email subject.

Send Latest News In Auto

Responder Message

If this setting is set to Yes and the News module is active, then the five most
recent news posts will be sent within the autoresponder.

SLA Settings

Clear Overdue
Time for Tickets
After Staff Reply

If enabled, the SLA overdue time will be cleared automatically whenever a staff user
replies to the ticket. For example, the overdue time is 4 hours and the staff user replies
to it within 3 hours, the SLA overdue time will be cleared for that ticket. A new SLA
overdue time of 4 hours will be associated with it when the client replies back to that
ticket.

Use Default

Use this value (in Default Overdue Hours and Default Resolution Hours) to calculate

Overdue and
Resolution Hours

overdue times for a ticket when an SLA plan is not assigned to the department, user,
usergroup, or ticket itself.

Default Overdue
Hours

Mark a ticket as overdue after this number of hours. The time specified here is in hours

Default Resolution
Hours

A ticket will be marked as overdue if it is not resolved within the time specified here.
The time specified here is in hours

Overdue Tickets
Background Color

The tickets which have been marked as overdue, will have a background color as
specified here

Parser Settings

Allow Staff To Reply By If this settings is set to Yes, then the staff users can reply to the ticket alerts from
Email
their email clients. For example, if an email is received in the staff control panel,
and a particular staff receives an alert at his email address configured for alerts, then
he can reply to that ticket from his email client as well.
If enabled then only the file extensions that are listed under Tickets > File
Restrict Incoming
Attachments To Custom Types will be processed. All other file extensions will be ignored.
Attachment Types

Ticket Lock Settings

Threshold for Post

Ticket Locking

Any update to the reply made after this threshold (in seconds) will not be displayed to
other staff users.

Ticket Lock Timeout

Once this amount of time (in seconds) has elapsed (that is, if the staff user causing the
lock has been idle for this amount of time) the lock icon will not be displayed on the
ticket

Bayesian Filtering Settings

Enable Spam Filtering?

If enabled, you can train the naive Bayesian filter to filter out spam and
non spam messages. Even with spam filtering disabled, you can still use the
Bayesian filtering engine to route tickets based on specified categories.

Minimum Word Length

Specify the minimum length of a word for the Bayesian indexing engine.
Any word that does not meet this criterion will be ignored by the system.

Maximum Word Length

Specify the maximum length of a word for the Bayesian indexing engine.
Any word which is bigger than the specified length will be ignored.

Index Numbers

Toggle the indexing of numbers.

Minimum Number Length

Minimum length for a number to qualify for Bayesian indexing.

Ignore Words with Symbols

If enabled, any Word with a symbol in it will be ignored. This includes

ULRs, Phone Numbers (with in them), tickets IDs etc.

Ticket listing (ticket view)

The manage tickets section of the staff control panel shows all tickets currently logged in the support
desk along with department and ticket tree under which these tickets are logged. A pictorial
representation of various components under the Manage Tickets section is shown below

The various icons that are seen besides the Ticket ID and Subject of a ticket are used to identify
various ticket properties. The various icons are described in the following section.
Icons Description

From within a ticket list, click on a ticket's ID/subject to access the ticket view. You will then be
presented with the ticket view interface similar to the following:

The various tabs on the ticket management menu are explained in the following section

Tabs
General
The general tab shows the ticket contents and other properties associated with it, viz. ticket
department, ticket owner, ticket note, SLA associated with the ticket and much more. The various
properties of a ticket under general tab are shown here.
Reply
Clicking on the rely tab will present you with the ticket reply interface. The ticket properties and
information can be altered while replying to a ticket.
Follow-Up
The follow-up tab is used to add a scheduled task for a ticket. For example, if you wish to change the
ticket status from Close to Open at some particular date and time, then you can schedule a followup task for that ticket. The follow-up tab has the following components.

You can check the follow-up status, by clicking the follow-up tab. The status will be shown along with
the time left for the task to execute, as shown below

Release
The release tab allows you to perform multiple tasks on a ticket viz. changing ticket department,
ticket owner, billing time, adding a note, ticket resolution and due time in a single go. Select the
required options and click Update to make all the required changes to the ticket.
Chats
The chats tab logs all the chats which originated from the same client user who has submitted this
ticket. The identification is made on the basis of the email address used while submitting the ticket
and initiating the chats. Click on the chats tab to see all the chat history of the client user, as shown.

History
The history tab logs all the tickets which originated from the same client user. The identification is
made on the basis of the email address used while submitting the tickets. Click on the history tab to
see all the ticket history of the client user, as shown.

Click on the ticket ID or ticket's subject to see the ticket properties and contents.
Audit Log
The audit log of a ticket details every action performed by the user, system or a staff user on a ticket.
The audit log provides a powerful way of overseeing the path a ticket has taken through the support
system. These logs entries cannot be modified using the support desk interface. An example of a
ticket's audit log is shown below.

Buttons
Add note
Notes can be attached to tickets, client user accounts or user organizations. These notes can be
viewed only by staff users (or specific staff users - this is defined at note creation). Notes can be used
to share information between staff users, or simply as a record whilst working on a ticket or dealing
with a client.
A note that is attached to a ticket will be visible on the ticket information bar when viewing the
corresponding ticket. A note that is attached to a user account will be visible in the same place for
every ticket the user creates, as shown below.

To add a note, click on the Add Notes tab. This will open the add note interface, as shown below.

Take/Surrender

Dispatch
The dispatch tab allows a staff user to assign a particular ticket to a particular staff user. Clicking on
the dispatch tab, a list of all the staff users will be displayed, and the ticket can be assigned to one of
the staff users.

After selecting a staff user, click Assign to assign to this ticket to the selected staff user.
Watch
The watch tab is used to track the activities on a ticket. On selecting this option, staff member will
receive alert on his/her email address for every reply/update on the ticket by the client and staff
users.
Flag
A ticket can be flagged with a flag of a certain color. This functionality is useful for dynamically and
quickly organizing tickets from within a ticket listing or ticket view. Click on Flag tab to select a flag
from the drop down menu and attach it with the ticket.
Spam
Clicking on the spam tab, the ticket will be marked as spam, and according to the Bayesian feature,
software will mark the content/email address as spam and will restrict such emails.
Trash
Click on the Trash tab to move the ticket into the trash folder. From within the trash folder the ticket
can be deleted permanently.

Creating a new ticket in staff control panel

The staff users can create tickets from within the staff support center. This feature is particularly
beneficial if the staff needs to create a ticket on clients behalf, if for some reasons the client got
disconnected from the live chat and his queries went unanswered or you wish to send a mass mail to
some of your clients regarding a server outage etc.
In order to access the new ticket option, click New Ticket tab on the tickets navigation menu bar, as
shown.

On clicking the New Ticket button, you will be prompted to select the department in which you wish
to create the ticket, as well as you need to select the type of ticket you are creating, as shown.

Creating a new ticket with type as Send Mail

Select the ticket type as Send Mail and a department you wish to create the ticket in, and click Next.
You will be directed to the page where you need to provide the information regarding this new
email.

There are two different sections that are provided on this page, which are:
New Ticket: Department_name

Recurrence
The recurrence feature allows you to set a recurrence date and time for this ticket and this ticket will
be re-created with the same ticket properties at that set date and time.

Once you have specified all the fields, click Send to send the ticket from the support desk.

Ticket filters
Ticket filters allow you to quickly access and sort through your tickets across all departments by
setting a variety of filter criteria. Filters can be created publicly or privately. A private ticket filter is
only accessible by the staff user who created it, meaning that staff members can create and manage
their own ticket filters. A public ticket filter is accessible to all staff users.
When created, a ticket filter will appear in the Filters drop down menu provided on the tickets
navigation menu bar. When a filter is executed (clicked on), a ticket listing of all tickets that match
the filter's criteria will be displayed.
An example ticket filter is shown below. It has been created to display all tickets that have been set
to the status In Progress that have a Critical priority.

View and manage ticket filters

In order to view and manage the ticket filters, click Manage under Filters tab on the tickets
navigation menu bar, as shown.

You will be presented with a list of all the current ticket filter rules present within the support desk
system, as shown.

Inserting a ticket filter

In order to insert a new ticket filter in the support desk, click New, and you will be directed to the
page where you need to provide the information regarding the new filter you are inserting, as
shown.

Click Insert once you have specified all the required options, to save the newly create ticket filter in
the support desk system.