Satellite Setup - Definitive answer...

[gbrown100]

Hi,

My chats with online sales resulted in me being told that I could achieve personalised helpdesk for my customers by using the Satellite feature. Now I cannot find anything documented and the forums just seem to contain a lot of posts about it not working. My question is:

How is this achieved?

My understanding is that it uses groups but the group has to be added in the URL and that automated responses do not include the correct group in the URL meaning that users will start hitting the wrong page pretty quickly.

Is there a way around this?

My requirement?

Client A goes to helpdesk and gets Client A knoweldgebase, FAQ and tickets

Client B goes to helpdesk and gets Client B knowledgebase, FAQ and tickets

etc etc etc

I don't care how this is achieved as long as it was foolproof and didn't mean clients kept looking at the wrong page all the time.

Thanks

Graham

[Jamie Edwards]

Hi Graham,

Although satellite desks cannot be used explicitly (i.e. you cannot install multiple frontends on different web servers for the same backend), you can use template groups to show Client A one set of knowledgebases and ticket departments and Client B another, whilst maintaining the same backend.

Once you have created the two template groups, you can then assign your departments and knowledgebase categories to the particular template groups.

You will need to make use of different URLs: i.e. index.php?group=.. in order to direct each to the correct frontend.

My understanding is that it uses groups but the group has to be added in the URL and that automated responses do not include the correct group in the URL meaning that users will start hitting the wrong page pretty quickly.

I will have to research this; I have not heard to of the problem being reported before.

[gbrown100]

OK so I set up a template group. I then allowed the dept General to be used by the new template group and I browsed to the new URL:

*** http:://www.mydomain.com/index.php?group=newgroup ***

I submitted a ticked and once completed hit the back button (supplied by eSupport not the browser) as is normal. I am returned to:

*** http:://mydomain.com/index.php

So, whilst initially they have browsed to the correct group, following the ticket being raised I am placed straight back to the default page NOT the group index page.

<inserted rubbish in domain name as it got replaced with some weird link>

Thanks

Graham

[Jamie Edwards]

Hi Graham,

It looks that way because the "group=newgroup" has disappeared from the URL, but I believe that you are still actually inside of the correct template group (stored in your session).

[gbrown100]

Nope - I am not, I know this because I created a knowledgebase article that only appeared on "newgroup" template. After submitting the ticket I am returned to the main page which does not show the knowledgbase article and of course as you mention the url is changed.

Not only that but I passworded my "newgroup" site. When I get the ticket emailed through as the user I follow the link it shows and use the email and password supplied in the email to check the status and I get:

ERROR: You do not have enough permissions to access this page. Please log in by entering your Email Address and Password.

[gbrown100]

Update to this - once I took the password off of the site it all worked a lot better. The next trouble I have is that once an action has been taken such as viewing an old ticket or creating a new one, the next attempt to create a ticket fails as I cannot pick a Priority, the choices have all gone... I'll look that up now.

[jonathanbloom]

I'm getting the issue you described of where it won't show group=groupname in emails.

[rossm]

hi all,

sorry to be a pain but i wish to do this and cant figure out how to do it - any chance of an idiots quick guide on what to do?

[supportskins]

What have you done so far and where are you currently stuck?

[rossm]

well - currently nothing,

I have a support site up and running but now wish to add support for a seperate product i have read and read this post as well as teh KB article but i am unsure what to do first.
sorry for being useless!