The help desk portal is where your employees open tickets, follow them and reply, without a TekStacks account. They sign in with a link emailed to their work address.

Overview

Where it is

The portal is at /support on your company's address, such as yourcompany.tekstacks.com/support. If you added a custom domain, it works there too, such as assets.yourcompany.com/support. Administration, then Help desk, shows the address under Knowledge base.

The front page has a Help desk box: Sign in for someone who is not signed in, or Open a ticket and My tickets for someone who is. If your company has Documentation, the knowledge base is on the same page.

The top of every portal page shows your company's name and logo.

Signing in

Employees sign in with a link, never a password:

1. On Sign in with your work email, they enter their Work email and click Send me a link.
2. The portal shows Check your email. The page reads the same whether or not the address belongs to an employee, so nobody can use it to find out who works for you.
3. The email comes from your help desk's sending address, with a Sign in button. The link works once, for 15 minutes.
4. Opening the link shows a Sign in button rather than signing in straight away, because some mail scanners open links. Clicking it signs that browser in for 30 days.

An address can ask for 5 links an hour. A link that is used or older than 15 minutes shows "This link has expired or was already used." with a way to ask for another.

Sign out at the top of the page ends the session on that browser.

Who can sign in

An employee can sign in when they:

• have an email address on their employee record, and
• have not left: Still here is on.

With clients turned on, only your own company's employees can sign in, not a client's.

Marking someone as left ends their portal sessions and any sign in link they have not used. Changing an employee's email address does the same. Your users do not sign in to the portal: it is for employees.

Opening a ticket

Open a ticket asks for:

• Subject: a short line saying what they need. Once it has three letters, up to five knowledge base pages that match it are listed under it as These may help, so the answer may be found before the ticket is sent.
• Description: what happened, what they expected and what they tried.
• Category: one of your active categories, or none. Not shown while you have no categories.
• Equipment: the equipment they hold now, as many pieces as the ticket is about, or none. Not shown when they hold no equipment.
• Attachments: files up to 10 MB each, 25 MB in all.

Open ticket opens it. The ticket is from them and about them, with your default status and priority, and nobody assigned, so it shows in Pending. They get an email that it was received, and your team is told as for any new ticket (see Notifications).

My tickets

My tickets lists the tickets they asked for and the tickets their address is a subscriber on, newest updated first. Open and Closed tabs split them. Each row shows the ticket's number, subject, status and when it was last updated.

Opening a ticket shows its description and every reply, oldest first, with their files. Your private notes never show in the portal. While the ticket is open, they answer in Your reply, add files, and click Send reply. Their reply joins the conversation as if they had emailed it.

A closed ticket takes no replies. It reads "This ticket is closed." with a link to open a new ticket. A merged ticket says it was merged, with a link to the ticket it went into when that ticket is theirs too.

Requirements

• The help desk turned on for your company. See Getting the help desk.
• For employees: an email address on their employee record, and Still here on.
• For the knowledge base suggestions: Documentation, and pages published to the knowledge base.

Send employees to the portal

1. Open Administration, then Help desk.
2. Under Knowledge base, copy the address of your help desk portal and knowledge base.
3. Share it with your employees, for example on your intranet or in your email signature.

Sign in to the portal (as an employee)

1. Go to your company's /support address and click Sign in.
2. Enter your Work email and click Send me a link.
3. Open the email and click Sign in within 15 minutes.
4. On the page that opens, click Sign in.

Open a ticket (as an employee)

1. Click Open a ticket.
2. Enter a subject. If a page under These may help answers it, read that instead.
3. Describe the problem, and pick a category and equipment if they are offered.
4. Add any screenshots or files.
5. Click Open ticket.

Reply to a ticket (as an employee)

1. Click My tickets and open the ticket.
2. Write in Your reply and add any files.
3. Click Send reply.

Notes

Note: Everything an employee does in the portal is recorded in the activity log under their name: signing in and out, opening tickets and replying.

Note: Signing in on your TekStacks address does not sign the browser in on your custom domain, or the other way round. Each address has its own sign in.

Note: Employees also get every reply by email, and can answer by email instead of in the portal.

Troubleshooting

The employee never gets the sign in email. Check that their employee record has that exact address and that Still here is on. With clients turned on, they must be one of your own company's employees. An address can ask for 5 links an hour.

"This link has expired or was already used." Each link works once, for 15 minutes. Ask for another from the sign in page.

A former employee is still signed in. Mark them as left. That ends their portal sessions at once.

"This ticket is closed. Open a new ticket instead." A closed ticket takes no replies. Open a new ticket.

There is no Category or Equipment box. Category shows only once you have categories. Equipment lists only what the employee holds now.

FAQ

Do employees need a TekStacks account? No. Employees sign in with an emailed link and only see the portal. They are never users.

Can an employee sign in with Microsoft? No. The portal signs in by email link only.

Can an employee see someone else's tickets? Only a ticket their address is a subscriber on. Otherwise they see only the tickets they asked for.