Outlook Help Desk Service Provider Edition

• Do customer support requests get resolved as rapidly as they should?
• Are requests hard to track, and do some get "lost in the shuffle"?
• Are your customers fully satisfied with your support?

With Outlook Help Desk Service Provider edition, every customer  request is properly assigned, tracked and seen through to resolution. Customer satisfaction improves tremendously as issues and requests are responded to promptly and handled efficiently.

Important information -- status, priority, due date, who it was from, who it is assigned to, how it was fixed, how long it took, whether the customer was updated or not,  -- is recorded on each ticket, and is used for tracking, management and quick resolution of tickets.

Outlook Help Desk improves help desk performance and streamlines responses — so your team can provide the best customer support possible!

Try it out -- Get a FREE 30-day trial!  

Outlook Help Desk Service Provider Edition

• Easy to install, simple to use, low cost
• Uses infrastructure that you already have in place — Exchange Server, Active Directory, Outlook, Contacts, Web
• Includes reporting and knowledge base
• Includes email integration and web interface
• Compatible with Exchange Server 5.5, 2000, 2003, 2007
• Works with all versions of Outlook, including 2007
• Now integrates with CCS Network Inventory for asset tracking

 

Outlook Help Desk leverages the power of Microsoft Exchange Server, Microsoft Outlook, and the Web to bring you a simple, efficient and effective help desk, customer support and ticket tracking system. It is ideal for companies and organizations that are overwhelmed by user or customer requests and issues.

Outlook Help Desk Service Provider edition helps you manage support requests from customers or clients. Every request becomes a ticket that is then assigned, tracked and seen through to resolution.

Support requests are entered through Outlook, the Web or email, and then are assigned and tracked. The resolved tickets are kept in an Exchange public folder and can be reviewed if a similar issue arises again.

How many times have you said, “I know we fixed that last month, but don’t remember exactly what we did….” Now, you can just refer back to the completed ticket, which contains a record of who fixed it, when and how.

This can all be done without the high expense and overhead of a full-blown Help Desk solution. Those programs are often overkill for many companies. If you don't need and aren't going to use the features, why pay for them?

“I just wanted to tell you that this is by far the best help desk software that I have seen. You have done a great job. I was going to pay a web developer five grand to do the same thing!”

- Mike Thornburg, Network Manager, Titan Plastics Group, Inc

Outlook, Web and Email interfaces!

New tickets can be created using Outlook forms, a Web browser or email.

• Outlook: Your staff  can submit and view tickets directly in Outlook.
• Web: Your staff can submit and view tickets with a browser.
• Web: Customers can submit tickets with a browser.
• Email: Customers can simply send an email to the Help Desk. A script will convert the email to a ticket.

Easy and convenient to use

Customers can enter new tickets using email or a web interface. The Tickets are automatically sent to the Help Desk, a public folder residing on the Exchange server. Tickets can also be created directly in the system by staff members or call center representatives.

From the Help Desk folder, your staff reviews and assigns the tickets to someone on your team. Once assigned, the team member is sent an email with a link to the ticket. He or she reads the ticket and enters status reports and time spent on the ticket log as work progresses.  The customer can be sent regular updates and is informed by e-mail when the issue is resolved.

Fully integrated with Exchange Server and Active Directory

Outlook Help Desk is fully integrated with Microsoft Exchange Server:

• Data resides in the Exchange public folders
• Uses Exchange web server to connect with tickets via browser
• Exchange event sinks are used to convert emails to tickets

And with Active Directory in Exchange Server 2000, 2003, and 2007 (Exchange Directory in Exchange 5.5):

• Ticket assignments are made from Active Directory list

Automatically Resolves Customer Names and Details

Outlook Help Desk offers several ways to automatically link to your customer records to pull in contact details:

• Connect to a public Contacts folder on the Exchange server.
• Connect to Contact records in Active Directory.
• With custom programming, connect to an external customer or contact database.

The program can also be set to not resolve customer names, as in some cases, there is no need to keep customer or contact information beyond what is entered manually on the ticket.

"Crow Canyon Systems has proven with its Outlook Help Desk suite that it understands the fundamental business needs of an IT organization by developing software that can easily be deployed, quickly adopted and shows immediate return on investment.

We looked at other solutions which cost many times more for both the product and implementation costs and takes months to deploy. We were able to deploy the Outlook Help Desk suite in a matter of days. Within a week, our entire IT organization was managing cases entirely via this application."

- Eugene Alfaro, IT Director, iManage, San Mateo, CA

Connect with CCS Network Inventory or other asset tracking or auditing databases

Outlook Help Desk now links with CCS Network Inventory, an asset tracking and network auditing tool that is part of our support productivity tools. When you are working on a ticket, this will allow you to bring up information about the computer or asset involved. Our tickets can connect with the CCS Network Inventory audit database, providing information that is invaluable in solving problems quickly.

Already have an asset tracking package? Outlook Help Desk can integrate with other ODBC-compliant Asset tracking database or LAN audit software programs.We can work with you to integrate Outlook Help Desk with a system you already use. Contact us for information and customization costs for these packages.

Generate Reports with Report Builder

With our included utility "Report Builder", tickets can easily be exported to an Excel spreadsheet or a Text file. With the click of a button, the tickets are copied to a file that can be used as is or imported into a database -- great for running reports and tracking the performance of the Help Desk.

Reports can also be generated by Crystal Reports and other third-party reporting tools that can connect to Exchange folders. See example (requires Adobe Acrobat to view).

Knowledge Base

The Knowledge Base provides a valuable and easily accessible repository of information on Help Desk issues. It is built from completed tickets and from articles the Help Desk staff enters directly. By having a readily available list of articles categorized and sorted, the Help Desk staff and users have an important resource to draw from when issues arise.

Utilities to Manage the Help Desk

• List Manager gives you the ability to control the contents of all drop-down boxes on the Help Desk Ticket form.
• Automatic Notification allows you to set email addresses that receive notice of a new tickets. You can set a special address to receive notices of critical tickets.
• Popup Message lets you configure a message to display to the users whenever they fill out a new Ticket. The message is easily changed or turned on and off.
• Ticket Mode sets tickets to open in end user mode (end users create tickets) or help desk mode (help desk creates all tickets -- great for call centers!)
• Ticket Numbering sets up sequential numbering of tickets with prefixes and suffixes, if needed.
• Ticket Colors allows you to change the ticket colors on the fly.
• Upgrade Utility makes it simple to do upgrades.

For a fuller description of the utilities, click here.

Customizable!

We can customize Outlook Help Desk to match your corporate colors and add in your logo. to see examples. We can also change the titles, remove boxes and add features such as an auto-responder. This provides flexibility in making the Help Desk Tickets attractive and useful to your users.

For a fuller description of customizations, click here.

Works with Exchange 5.5, 2000, 2003, 2007, and all versions of Outlook, including Outlook 2007

Outlook Help Desk will work with Exchange Server 5.5, 2000, 2003, 2007, and any version of Outlook, including Outlook 2000, 2002, XP, 2003, and 2007. Outlook Help Desk will also run in hosted Exchange server environments.

Outlook Help Desk includes other great features:

• Fully compatible with Outlook 97, 98, 2000, 2002, XP, 2003, and 2007, no security warning boxes appear
• User contact info (name, phone, department, office, email address) is pulled from the Exchange or Active Directory and auto-populates the ticket.
• Time Tracking and History Log on the Assigned tickets. Technicians enter status information and time spent as they work on the ticket.
• Update and Completion emails sent to user from the Assigned ticket.
• Copy to Tasks allows techs to copy tickets to their personal Tasks for synching with a PDA or handheld.