Some questions in regards to SS

[teddyjohan]

Hello, and thanks in advance! I have browsed the forums and briefly read as much as possible of the 500+ pages documentation of SupportSuite, but there are still some questions. As follows;

1) If all contact is handled via e-mail (SS is used only to keep track), I understand that SS will automatically connect all e-mails sent from the same adress to the same user/client, meaning that if I were to want to see the history, I could just enter the adress in SS and "voila". Is this correct?

2) Must billing info/minutes always be entered manual, there is no way to automatize this? I have read about some paid extension ("pay per support") on this forum, but it's not an option at this point. How about a timer, with a "start/stop" button that stores it's value with each ticket?

3) I have read that it's possible to run querys to the database, and hence create an XLS-table which could be used as billing information. Are there any examples of this actually being made so this is confirmed?

3B) Our customers (in Kayako terms, "departments") require certain statistics to go with their bill, such as the total number of e-mails received, forwarded, closed etc. and if time is entered on some tickets, this must be specified also as we have different pricing.

I operate my business in Sweden, where creditcard and PayPal payment is not legitimate means of payment for companies. Therefor invoicing is the only way to go for us, and customers want to know exactly what they pay for.

3C) I have read that extended report making will be available in V4, but there is no date for V4. If I purchase V3, is update to V4 free of charge?


Thank you!
Sincerely,
Johan Johansson

[Digital Mayhem]

1) Yes this is correct you will be able to see/view their Ticket and Chat History.

2) Start/Stop Button really wouldn't work as for me I get notified of the ticket on my email and read the problem work on the problem then when its done I will login and submit my reply... So with me for example it wouldn't work as I don't login to press the stop button... Then you got the problem of people who would press the start bar and then end up surfing to another page or closing the browser and then it doesn't keep track of time... So Manual is probably the best way..

3) Its possible I don't have any examples... Anyone else wanna way in here?

3B) This is probably possible but would require alot of Custom Modifications to the software that you would need to do or hire someone else to do and you would have to purchase SupportSuite Owned as the Owned version is the only one that comes with 98% of the Source Code.

3C) I am not certain if they are going to raise prices or anything so this is not a solid answer but if the prices and policy is the same then yes it will be free as long as your Support/Upgrade Subscription is Active...

[teddyjohan]

Thanks for your swift reply, I have checked out your website during my research and I am considering DM as the place to buy from! Looking forward to more replies!

In regards to the timer/billing, I know it's a tricky one. I would prefer manual entry but how weird as it sounds, our customers prefer to have it done automatically. Either way we can make do with the field as-is, as long as we can extract the data on a regular basis to do our invoicing!

Edit: I do not wish to alter the code in any way, however I will probably edit some of the files (as intended). So any custom-coding options goes out the window!

Sincerely,
Johan Johansson

[Digital Mayhem]

hmm buy the Branding Free option to remove the copyright notice, have it custom skinned to match your site and then people wont know what software your using let alone that your manually entering in the information.. tell them oh it automaticly calculates the stuff

[Jamie Edwards]

Hi Teddy,

Welcome to the forums and thank you for your interest in Kayako products.

1) If all contact is handled via e-mail (SS is used only to keep track), I understand that SS will automatically connect all e-mails sent from the same adress to the same user/client, meaning that if I were to want to see the history, I could just enter the adress in SS and "voila". Is this correct?

This is correct - every ticket is associated to a user account (which is in turn sibling to an e-mail address). You can access a ticket history instantly either via search, ticket filters, when viewing the user's account or when viewing another ticket created by the same user (there is a "History" tab you can click on). This is also the same for chat session logs.

2) Must billing info/minutes always be entered manual, there is no way to automatize this? I have read about some paid extension ("pay per support") on this forum, but it's not an option at this point. How about a timer, with a "start/stop" button that stores it's value with each ticket?

It would not be hard to modify the code to change the default value from 0 to a number you want - a lot of us here would be happy to help you with this edit. Other than changing the default (prefilled) value, there is little else that can be efficiently done to automate this.

3) I have read that it's possible to run querys to the database, and hence create an XLS-table which could be used as billing information. Are there any examples of this actually being made so this is confirmed?

Take a look here - http://forums.kayako.com/showthread....8924#post58924

Steve's answer is correct for 3B.

3C) I have read that extended report making will be available in V4, but there is no date for V4. If I purchase V3, is update to V4 free of charge?

There is no official word on this yet, and there won't be for some time as Version 4 is a fair time away.

Hope everything was covered

[teddyjohan]

Thank you for your great replies! I am as said much interested in Kayako; however I have now understood that I would probably do just as well with eSupport for my purposes, or what do you think?

A follow-up question; how does this work with IMAP? Is it possible to use the two-way-mail-alert process the same way and so forth, or do I need a POP/SMTP gateway? Either would probably work out; but IMAP would be useful to keep it separated in Outlook!

Sincerely,
Johan

[supportskins]

Thank you for your great replies! I am as said much interested in Kayako; however I have now understood that I would probably do just as well with eSupport for my purposes, or what do you think?

If you do not any Live Support or Live Chat related requirements then you should be good to go with eSupport.

A follow-up question; how does this work with IMAP?

It works absolutely fine with IMAP.

Is it possible to use the two-way-mail-alert process the same way and so forth, or do I need a POP/SMTP gateway? Either would probably work out; but IMAP would be useful to keep it separated in Outlook!

Two-way-mail alert would work fine if you set the email parser correctly as explained in the manual which is provided along with the software. You will need SMTP gateway if your PHP mail() function does not work hence you will have to manually set the SMTP gateway in the software which shall be used to send out email replies and alerts.

HTH

[teddyjohan]

This sounds great! Thanks for your replies; I'll post again in this thread if any other questions occur!

Have a nice weekend, folks!

/Johan

[teddyjohan]

Actually, I forgot one question. I think I know the answer, but I can just as well post and ask! I thought I'd take a minute to describe my intention for you so there's no misunderstanding!

I plan to expand my business into new fields, one of which is handling e-mail for my clients. E-mail will come in from a lot of different accounts, I will use Kayako not for handling tickets (it's simply easier by doing so in Outlook) but to keep tabs of billing and to maintain a customer registry. Using the DB querys I intend to get what I need to bill my clients, and since most e-mails will be handled in 1 minute or less, I can set the time to default = 1. If an email takes longer, which is not happening that often, I can go in and change the value via Kayako. It's OK! If a client wants to see a specific e-mail history, I can go in Kayako and pull it out for him.

As you understand almost everything comes down to the e-mail bit, hence all these questions. It is indeed possible to set different autoreplies for different departments, correct? And do you think that Kayako will suit these needs?

Again - have a great weekend!
/Johan

[teddyjohan]

*bump*

[Jamie Edwards]

Hi Johan,

It is indeed possible for you to set autoresponders for different e-mail addresses that bring mail into your installation (using pre-parse mail parser rules).

With regards to the default billing number - of course it is possible with an edit, but you will still need to switch to the billing tab and hit "Insert" when viewing the ticket for the value to be recorded; it will not be done automatically when replying to a ticket (for example) despite showing the default value.

[teddyjohan]

Hi again!

I have read the plus 500 pages technical docs to be 100% sure this software meet my demands. In regards to the e-mail queuing (I know, I'm repeating myself, I'm sorry) I have the following questions:

1) Can E-Support connect to and download e-mail from, say, 50 different IMAP accounts? These accounts would be on different domains.

2) Or do all e-mail need to be redirected/forwarded to one or more email adresses on my domain (e.g. inbound@domain.com)
?

3) If not, how will this work with replies (won't they go to inbound@domain.com)? And how will this affect the ability for me to overview this by department?

To clarify, each department has a unique domain with one or more unique adresses. I want to collect mails from IMAP-accounts on multiple domains. Although Kayako will only be hosted on one domain!

Thanks for your time!

/Johan

[Jamie Edwards]

Hi Johan,

1) - Yes, this is possible. However, I would look to ensure your web server can cope with polling and parsing from 50+ e-mail accounts; depending on how many tickets you pull each day, it could create quite a load (i.e. one not suitable for a web hosting environment).

2) You can do this without additional domain licenses (pull e-mails from different domain names).

[supportskins]

1) Can E-Support connect to and download e-mail from, say, 50 different IMAP accounts? These accounts would be on different domains.

Yes, although it is not advisable to use 50 IMAP accounts in Kayako as if each of your account receive large size emails, it may end up overloading your server on which Kayako would be installed on. It would be rather wise to forward the emails to a single IMAP account which is polled into Kayako.

2) Or do all e-mail need to be redirected/forwarded to one or more email adresses on my domain (e.g. inbound@domain.com)
?

This is more advisable.

3) If not, how will this work with replies (won't they go to inbound@domain.com)? And how will this affect the ability for me to overview this by department?

The from email address for the outgoing emails for tickets would yet be specificemail@domain.com to which when client replies, all replies are forwarded to inbound@domain.com which is polled into Kayako. Kayako will accept the client reply and append it to its specific ticket.

HTH

[teddyjohan]

Excellent replies from both of you, thank you very much!

Will this affect the ability to sort by department, alternatively will this affect the ability for department admins to browse tickets (will other departments tickets show up, as they go in at the same e-mail adress)?

Thanks!