About usergroups, permissions and temporary ban function

Started by Zillo, September 14, 2012, 10:01:54 PM

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Zillo

Can this software be used in a way that users must be approved to be able to send tickets? Otherwise is there any way to add a specific type of user to a usergroup such as for example "VIP usergroup" so when you see their tickets you know that you must give them priority support?
Is there any way to temporarily ban a user? (This is very common in many forum software, not sure about SMF)

Are SMF and simpledesk on different databases or you can for example manage usergroups of the simpledesk through the SMF admin panel?

Thank you!

BTW: Is there any live demo of Simpledesk?

venguard223

Well, you can set permissions for any group configuration you care to name, such that you can happily limit who can set a ticket - the main simplemachines.org forum does that, only Charter members can even see the helpdesk.

SMF can temporarily ban users, sure, and that ban can be on posting or full ban (and for limited time or permanently). The way SD handles SMF bans is that full bans are stopped at the SMF level (i.e. it stops before SD gets called) while post bans are not counted from what I remember of the code - at least, I don't remember writing any provision in SD anywhere to care about post bans.

They're all in the same database and all SD user groups are configured to be attached to SMF ones - it's all tied into SMF.

There used to be a live demo but I don't know if it is up to date. But given that both are free software, you can just give it a try on a test server.

Zillo

Is it possible to handle the following situation in this way?:

We have for example the following 2 staff groups: technicians and admin. A technician check a ticket but he finds that he can not resolve the ticket by his own and he wants the admin to check the ticket instead. Is there anyway that the technician can reassign the ticket to the admin or to just scale the ticket to a superior support level? If so is it possible for the admin to see only a list of those tickets that the technicians wanted the admin to check them instead of displaying to the admin a list with all the tickets?

Thank you for your help!

venguard223

There's not really any good way to do that. The whole structure is just not designed for the whole escalation thing. It was, after all, designed and built mostly for simplemachines.org who have a much flatter structure.

Firstly, the simplest route, just have the technician send a message to the admin.

Secondly, you can give technicians the privilege to assign tickets. You will need to configure things so that admins are considered as staff (forum admins are usually ignored, there's an option in the options area for this)

Lastly, and probably most drastically, create another department. As long as the technician has the ability to access that other department, he can move tickets to it.


Though quite honestly, it would help if instead of coming up with a simplified fabricated example, you actually told me what you were trying to do and how this is in any way related to your original question regarding banning.

Zillo

Quote from: venguard223 on September 17, 2012, 02:12:43 PMSecondly, you can give technicians the privilege to assign tickets. You will need to configure things so that admins are considered as staff (forum admins are usually ignored, there's an option in the options area for this)

Lastly, and probably most drastically, create another department. As long as the technician has the ability to access that other department, he can move tickets to it.
Fortunately since we will be just 3-4 persons using the simpledesk, these two ways to proceed can work for the purpose.

Quote from: venguard223 on September 17, 2012, 02:12:43 PM
how this is in any way related to your original question regarding banning.
You are right, it has nothing to do. Any mod or admin feel free to split the topic if you want

venguard223

And now you understand why I want to know the details. The suggestions I proposed are for much larger setups. If it's 3 or 4 people, why bother at all with anything and just have the admin go through the helpdesk periodically. No need for change or odd configuration, just a little pro-activity.