What will SimpleDesk 1.0 feature?

[Gruffen]

Even at this early stage, we've been asked what SimpleDesk will feature, and the manner in which we will be releasing it.

Our style is very much being geared to an incremental style - we aren't planning to do mammoth releases every 6-12 months with many new features, that seems far too long for us.

While the exact release cycle we're planning on is not entirely certain, we are planning for shorter than that, and for each release to be a few new features on the previous one. So, as a result 1.0 won't have all the bells and whistles you might expect from a fully featured helpdesk, but in fairness, we'd rather give you something very fundamental and core to work with, while we work on adding the really neat stuff in 1.1 and beyond.

Without further ado, I present what we'll be issuing in 1.0.

Ability to post, edit, reply, close tickets as well as displaying tickets and seeing a list of all the tickets available

In all honesty, this is pretty much what the helpdesk is - couldn't really have a 1.0 without the basic fundamentals

Ticket <-> Topic management

One of the most hotly requested features when we first asked what people would want is the ability to move tickets into topics and vice versa. All too often a ticket will be posted when it would be better being put in the public board for discussion, or a public topic has been posted with sensitive details that really should be handled in a ticket that the staff can resolve.

This would be a one-click operation that would simply move an entire thread to the helpdesk, or repost the entire ticket to a thread of your choice.

Shut down forum component

One thing we're keen to provide is what can look like, and function like, a standalone help desk - you would be able to close down the entire forum-specific code and simply have access to a functional, viable helpdesk, albeit one that states it is powered by SMF.

Urgency levels

Tickets can have 6 levels of urgency: Low, Medium, High, Very High, Severe, Critical. The ability to raise a ticket's urgency is permission controlled, as is the ability to use the higher levels of urgency - meaning that regular staff could be allowed only up to High, with supervisors or team leaders being able to raise it higher.

Assignments

The ability to be able to assign a ticket to a given user, such that they could be given ownership of a ticket and it would be prioritised on their display as that it was assigned to them.

File attachments

The ability to attach one or more files to a ticket so staff can utilise that information. Permission driven so can be disabled upon request.

Permissions

Not all users are going to be helpdesk agents, nor are all users going to be allowed to access the helpdesk. Access to the helpdesk is permission controlled by usergroup, as is the staff view of the helpdesk.

Mod Management Page/Back-end Administration

As ever, with the level of data that will be applicable, there will be additional areas added to the Admin panel in SMF, for managing the Helpdesk:

• One click disable/enable for the Helpdesk (in Core Features)
• Maintenance tasks to ensure the data is kept in order
• Some admin configuration options, too

[Sabre]

Mate this is awesome!
I'll probably be here everyday just to experience/witness its development, and be a little part of something big
Great work team, and what a good collection of people it is

[KiLLuMiNaTi-7-]

This sounds awesome cannot wait to make use of this mod. This will defaintly come in handy for one of my sites

Keep up the good work

[Spoogs]

Spoogs official 2 thumbs up to the project (lol like that means anything)

Seriously tho i like all that i have read so far and look forward to its release. This mod seems to address quite a few features that i would love to have.

Arantor, from what i see this will solve my view own topic issue in a much better way.

[Trekkie101]

Welcome to you all

Glad our idea is working for you all, we're a little away from a release just yet, but we will be taking more feature requests soon

[Gruffen]

I should add that while the above is what 1.0 will feature, we've already discussed what is very likely to be in the next version or two, and as we draw closer to 1.0, I'll also be revealing what we'll be putting in 1.1 - our goal is very much an iterative evolution rather than big jumps

[Kill Em All]

Can't wait for the final release. This looks like its going to be good.

[Gruffen]

1.0 is gonna be awesome. Though I know that later versions will be just as awesome too

[Costa]

Woot! Good luck mates!
When it's out I'll translate into portuguese.

Farewell

[BiggBoss35]

I'm exciting to try it. I'm also exciting to translate it to Turkish, unless someone does it before me. Good luck!

[iKorp]

Thats alot of great features for the first release! I wish the development well and will definitely use it on my website when this is released!

[Trekkie101]

Good to hear and we will be opening for translation soon, it looks like we will be using a custom translation tool too.

[iKorp]

While we're on the subject of languages, in a later version why not add multi-lingual ticket support (obviously won't be useful for all forums, as most are only single-language, but could be useful).

[Gruffen]

In what respect? Internally it's no different to how SMF handles it right now - just as a single forum can be multi-lingual, so too can tickets.

[Sayaka Maizono]

In what respect? Internally it's no different to how SMF handles it right now - just as a single forum can be multi-lingual, so too can tickets.

I understand the question somewhat, but I believe that they mean having a specific area in one language (eg all the controls are that language).

However, as stated by Arantor, it's how SMF handles it. When you change the language on the forum, it most likely also changes on the Helpdesk.