my feedback on supportsuite

[Sheep]

This is a feedback on supportsuite. As i'm leaving today(end of training period) i though it would be nice to share it with the community

I started my training period in november 2006 at EONA(c) (a french company) and i got the project "seting up a web oriented support platform for our customers"
After several months(1,5weeks per month) of analysis, searchs, specifications ... kayako supportsuite got selected (against 45 possibilities) as the main structure of the project.

The main reasons of this choice were the crossing features (quoting KB in ticket, IRS when posting ticket, etc...etc...) but the forum was the final reason. We all know that the product we're going to buy/use won't have all the features we need, but because there's a community you know that some other people might have done something that you could use.
After looking through the posts, you find out that there are regular users (hi craig! hi bear! hi you!) helping a lot the community (and of course nice admins hi jamie!) but also private companies that can help you to customize your helpdesk! (supportskin, softair). You know that you're not alone, and that's always good to know.

After a deep test with the demo, we decided to get the Owned Licence because we knew that we had to devellop something missing (SERM. And it was also missing in almost all other solutions). With this licence you get access to 98% of the code! (only core functions are encoded to ensure the licence check but that's not a problem, we'll see after).

Because of the many features inside the suite, you're a bit lost at first, but after a few minutes, you find out that the suite is intuitive and easy to use (and with a nice design). I think that you have to know what you're looking for before to use the suite for the first time else you'll lose too much time to decide what could be used or not.

Lets talk about the code (because that was a big part in our choice)
When you're looking at the code for the first time, you're completly lost... lost in a big ocean of php. Now that i know -well- the SWIFT framework, my best advice would be to follow first the "creating a helloworld module" guide. The basic ideas are inside. That's how i understood how it was working, and after that you understand that SWIFT is kinda well done and easily customisable.
But that's not the most interesting part of kayako's code, the best are the function's comments: As i'm using an advanced php editor (phpEd) it's configured to display information (if available, ) about the functions you're using (like doxygen generating code documentation from these comments), and guess what, ALL the functions are commented using -doxygen like- notation and phpEd -quick help- feature helped me so much. All the functions are described and some comments inside the functions helps you to understand how it works.
There's tons of functions available that helps you to query informations or display them using advanced javascript. You end up doing complex things with a few lines of code.

As i was digging through the code, i saw that the code (of the v3) got improved step by step many times, creating a difficult to maintain code (that's not kayako's fault, all projects are like that), but still it works
We can expect a lot from the next major release v4 (comming in a few... years?) as i heard that they were doing it from scratch. I hope they'll get the framework more and more customizable, and i think they're on a good way.

At the moment i'm writing , the project got public 2 weeks ago to some of EONA's customers but as they're on vacation i can't give af feedback of the most interesting part: real usage I might be back in a few month to blast kayako with a nuclear blast... who knows

The final world is that kayako's offers a nice support suite but that still can be improved.

Greetings,
Antoine

PS: i have to read again what i wrote , but it's 18:00 and it's friday ... WEEK END!!! so please bear with the english faults and typos

[craigbrass]

It was nice having you here Antoine. Thanks for helping out.

V4 isn't a total rewrite Jamie told me. Part is, the rest is just improving the framework that is already there.

[Sheep]

Ah? i though i read it somewhere out there....
too much mushroom is bad for health

[Jamie Edwards]

Hi Antoine,

You'll be sincerely missed by everyone here (for both your code and words!). Thank you for selecting SupportSuite, and thank you for posting a comprehensive review on both the face of the product, the community and (for the first time we have seen here) the code.

The clarify on Version 4 - treat it as a re-write indeed, but of course some code will be borrowed from an early version. It is too early to say for definite.

Hope you stop by again soon!

[Siora]

See you later Antoine...you were definately a strong asset to this community. Feel free to stop by and provide more mods/fixes anytime . Take care.

[Sheep]

The clarify on Version 4 - treat it as a re-write indeed, but of course some code will be borrowed from an early version. It is too early to say for definite.

From what i've seen (code speaking) i think that it's going to be something like:
-> [Not from scratch] SWIFT engine improvment (mostly re-engineering and restructuration)
-> [80+% from scratch] modules! because they've been built all over the others, over time (improvement). That makes a terrible code hardly maintainable in the future. (But as i said, it works!). I can see the limits of the actual code.
Redoing it from scratch (evolution) by redesigning all the components with all the feature requests (and more) in mind, will ensure a better stability and an easier improvment ability. Kayako should use a fully Object Oriented design for v4 because it's the best approch for reengineering systems (supportsuite has a lot of cross calls, like tickets calling downloads or KB etc...).
Of course, doing something from scratch doesn't mean that what have been done is lost or ignored It's just that it's redone.

Well, that what i think... i might be completly out of topic


Also, i'm using this thread to say the same thing to some people who have contacted me.
I'm sorry but i WONT code <x> feature (even if you want to pay) because, even if i'm on vacation atm (2months! my last one before the end of my studies! ), it would be too much trouble for me as it's not my -activity- to sell mods and i don't really want to have to do support (that would be too much time consuming and i want time for my own projects: i'm also a game designer/concepter ). So this situation is better for you and for me.

Anyway, i'll still stick arround to help people with my mods (but i wont have time to improve them, only if they have fatal flaws).

I'll be back in 1.8 () months because EONA will have for sure some little things they need to be improved

[bear]

You will be missed, Antoine. I've enjoyed reading what you've shared with us.