Table Of Contents INTRODUCTION... 6 Getting Started (Login Home Page)... 8 Views...9 License Expiry Alert...12 Tracking My Tasks...13 Publishing Announcements...16 Reminders...18 System Requirements... 21 Installation and Getting Started... 22 Uninstalling SupportCenter Plus... 27 Registering SupportCenter Plus... 28 Contacting AdventNet... 29 REQUEST... 30 Request List View Page [Customize, Auto Refresh, Search and more..]... 31 Customizing Request List View...33 Searching Requests...34 Creating a New Request... 35 Different modes of Creating a New Request... 37 Viewing Request Details... 39 Editing a Request... 41 Deleting Requests... 42 Picking up Requests... 43 Closing Requests... 44 Merging a Request... 45 Assigning/Unassigning Support Rep to a Request... 46 Start/Stop Request Timer... 48 Adding Notes... 50 Adding Tasks... 51 Adding Reminders... 53 Duplicate Request... 54 Print Preview... 55 AdventNet, Inc. 1
Adding Resolution... 56 Searching Solutions... 58 Submit For Approval... 59 Viewing Contact Details... 61 View Requests by Contacts... 62 Replying the Contact... 63 Forward the Request... 65 E-mail the Support Rep... 67 SMS the Support Rep... 69 Request Conversations... 71 Viewing Requests Based on Filters... 72 SOLUTIONS... 74 Adding a New Solution... 75 Editing & Deleting a Solution... 76 Search in Solutions... 77 Browsing Solutions by Topic... 78 Topics Template... 79 Managing Topics... 80 To Add a New Topic...80 To Rename a Topic...80 To Change a Parent topic...80 To Delete a Topic...81 CONTRACTS... 82 About Contracts... 84 Creating a New Contract... 85 Editing/Deleting Contracts... 86 Renew Contract... 87 Print Preview of Contract... 88 Search Contracts... 89 ACCOUNTS... 90 Adding a New Account... 91 Editing and Deleting Account... 92 Customizing Accounts List View... 93 Convert as Sub-Account... 95 Accounts Requests... 97 AdventNet, Inc. 2
Associate Contact... 98 Associate Product... 99 Add Contracts... 100 Add Advisory... 101 Assign Template... 102 Importing Sales details from CSV File... 103 Importing Accounts and Contacts from CSV File... 104 Customizing Accounts List View... 105 Searching Accounts... 106 CONTACTS... 107 Adding a New Contact... 108 Editing and Deleting a Contact... 109 Reconcile Contacts... 110 Associate Accounts with Contacts... 111 Contacts Requests... 112 Importing Contacts from CSV File... 113 Unapproved Contacts... 114 Searching Contacts... 115 CONFIGURATIONS... 116 Helpdesk Configurations... 118 Helpdesk Customizer...119 Configuring Category...120 Editing & Deleting Category...122 Configuring Status...124 Configuring Level...126 Configuring Mode...127 Configuring Priority...128 Configuring Request Default Values...129 Request Additional Fields...130 Request Form Customizer...131 Request Preview...133 Request Closing Rules...134 Configuring Mail Server Settings...135 Configuring Notification Rules...138 Configuring Groups...140 AdventNet, Inc. 3
Configuring Business Rules...142 Scheduled Requests...145 Request Template...147 Time Entry Type...148 Time Entry Additional Fields...149 Account Settings... 150 Configuring Industry...151 Configuring Product Types...152 Configuring Product...153 Product Additional Fields...155 Account Additional Fields...156 Sales Additional Fields...157 Schedule CSV Import...158 Web Portal Configurations...160 Contract Settings... 162 Configuring Support Plan...163 Support Services...165 Configuring Service Level Agreements...166 Configuring Operational Hours...169 Configuring Holidays...170 User and Related Settings... 171 Configuring Roles...172 Configuring Contact - Additional Fields...174 Configuring Support Reps...175 Configuring Support Rep - Additional Fields...179 Account Manager...180 User Survey Settings... 181 Configuring Survey Settings...182 Defining a Survey...184 Sending Survey...186 Survey Preview...188 Viewing Survey Results...189 General Settings... 190 Configuring Organization Details...191 Configuring General Settings...192 AdventNet, Inc. 4
REPORTS... 195 Creating New Custom Reports... 197 New Query Reports... 200 New Scheduled Reports... 201 Custom Settings... 202 Exporting Report as PDF... 203 GENERAL FEATURES... 204 System Log Viewer... 205 Personalize... 206 Feedback... 207 Back up and Restore... 208 Changing Web Server Port... 210 Support Team Availability... 211 AdventNet, Inc. 5
Introduction ManageEngine SupportCenter Plus is a comprehensive help desk management software that provides help desk agents an integrated console to monitor and maintain requests generated from the users of various products obtained from an organization and resolve them at the earliest. The customer support desk plays an important part in the services industry. It is very often the first contact the users have in their use of products when something does not work as expected. The customer support desk is a single point of contact for end-users who need help. Without this, an organization could certainly face losses due to inefficiencies in after sales services. The two main focuses of the ManageEngine SupportCenter Plus are Request tracking and Customer Account Management. Using the following modules of SupportCenter, support reps and system administrators can resolve issues of complex nature in no time and thus reduce the end-user frustration arising due to time consuming issue resolving process. They can also keep track of the changing needs of the consumers and hence modify their services to suit the customer requirements and thus delight them. Requests Solutions Contracts Accounts Contacts Reports The request module functions as the customer support desk where requests are fetched and necessary solutions are provided by assigning support reps to resolve issues reported. When you log in to ManageEngine SupportCenter Plus, the application displays the SupportCenter Plus home page that contains information on pending requests, overdue requests, requests assigned to the user who has logged in, individual user's task list, and depending on the user login, the other dash board views. Requests: Clicking the Requests tab on the header pane takes you to the request module. This serves as the customer support desk module where the support requests from individual users are fetched, tracked, support reps are assigned, and a solution is provided. Solutions: This module serves as a knowledge base for your customer support team as well as your customers. Customers can search this for solutions for issues and solve it themselves. Also, when support reps resolve issues, they can directly convert these resolutions as knowledge base articles. To view the solutions, click the Solutions tab in the header pane. Contracts: Contract management helps you to track all the available contract vendors and their contract details, to maintain all support contract details in one place. It helps you to know accounts support plan and support type covered under the contracts. Also it helps to set up email notifications to renew contracts before the expiry date. Accounts: The main objective of the customer support team would be to keep track of the various customer related information and keep it up-to-date. SupportCenter Plus allows you to add your customer accounts and their contact information, update and track them periodically. The account information gives you details on the customer's organization and purchase details. This will give you details about the purchases that the company has made and the kind of support that needs to be provided to them. To view the Account details, click the Accounts tab in the header pane. Contacts: The contact information tracking enables you to have a tab on what is the latest progress on the status of the customer, the type of customer and other such related information. To view the various contacts and their details, click the Contacts tab in the header pane. AdventNet, Inc. 6
In addition to these, SupportCenter Plus has GUI-rich reports for requests and user survey. There are predefined sets of reports that help you evaluate the efficiency and productivity of your customer support team, the load of requests handled by the team, the customer database and their history and much more. Also, the SupportCenter administrator can configure various helpdesk, customer, and enterprise-related settings, such as the working hours of the organization, service-level agreements, user roles, customer details, accounts, contacts, and many more. Based on the permissions provided by the SupportCenter Plus administrator to each of the users of the application, you will be able to access the above modules. If you do not have the access permission, contact your SupportCenter Plus administrator. Reports: Reports gives you a group of preset support desk reports generated from the data available in the application. The report types are, Survey Reports, Account Reports, Time Spent Reports, Overdue Reports, Completed Reports and so on. Apart from the preset reports you can also customize your reports using Custom Reports option. AdventNet, Inc. 7
Getting Started (Login Home Page) Login Index Page The login page of all users of SupportCenter Plus has various useful information displayed that enables an administrator, a support rep, or a contact to take necessary action. The following are available in login home page, based on the login credentials of the user: 1. My View, Global View, Support Team. Click the link for more information. 2. License Expiry alert and prompt for registering SupportCenter Plus. Click the link for more information. 3. Reminders. Click the link for more information 4. My Tasks. Helps you to track all your tasks. Click the link for more information. 5. Announcements. Click the link for more information. 6. Quick Create/ Search Items/ Recent Items. Quick Create You can create a request quickly using the Quick Create - New Request form. This form is available in the SupportCenter Plus home page and in requests list page. For more information refer Creating a New Request Search Items You can search items by selecting the Search in name from the combo box and by specifying the relevant Keyword in the given text field. Click Go to search for the specified details. Recent Items When you are using the ManageEngine SupportCenter Plus application, the application tracks your last viewed items and lists them in the Recent Items block on the left side. This has a list of the last 10 items that you viewed in the application, with the latest viewed item appearing on the top of the list. Clicking the hyperlinked item takes you directly to the item's details. Other than this you have Feedback, Personalize on the top right hand side of the page. Click the link for more information. AdventNet, Inc. 8
Views My View SupportCenter Plus login home displays My View page with information on the request summary of the requests assigned to the user who has logged in. In the case of contacts, My View displays information regarding the requests that have been raised by them. My View page also displays My Tasks and Announcements. Click the link for more information. In the support rep/administrator login of SupportCenter Plus, My View tab displays the following information: 1. Number of Overdue Requests that are assigned to the support rep. 2. Number of requests that are Due for that day. 3. Number of Pending Requests that are assigned to him/her. Clicking the links to open the corresponding list view. Global View Global view is available depending on the login authorization permissions provided to the various supervisors. If you have permissions for the same, you will be able to see the Global View tab just beside the home page My View as soon as you login to the application. The global view displays the following information: Requests by block displays the Open, OnHold and OverDue status of the Requests by Support Rep, Category, Level, Priority, Mode & Accounts. These options should be selected from the drop down combo box. AdventNet, Inc. 9
Example: On Selecting Support Rep option from the combo box, you can see all the available support reps name getting listed one after the other in the block. Against each the support reps name you can see the number of Open, On Hold, and Over Due requests they have. Also it gives the total of all the open, on hold and overdue requests finally. To view all the open requests on your name, click the number specified under the open request title. This will open the list of all the open requests on your name. Requests Inbound block, shows the graph of requests count that have come in during a specific time period such as, This week, Last Week, This Month and Last Month requests. You can select these options from the combo box provided at the corner of the block. AdventNet, Inc. 10
Support Team This tab lists, all the available support reps. If the support rep is logged in to the application, then the login status would be IN if the support rep is not logged in to the application, then the login status would be OUT. log in status of the support rep is also shown based on the Default Online Status settings in Admin module. For the contact to view the support teams availability information, People option in general settings of the Admin module should be enabled. Else the online status of the support team would be OUT. AdventNet, Inc. 11
License Expiry Alert Just below the header tabs the license expiry alert will be displayed. This provides details, such as the number of days the existing license is valid, the date by which the license has to be renewed, sales contact email ID, link to apply the upgraded license, and a combo box where you can set the number of days after which you want this reminder to be displayed. Once you choose the number of days from the combo box and click OK, the reminder will disappear and will again be displayed after the specified time frame. If you do not want to choose the number of days and want the reminder to be available every time you login, then clicking Hide link at the top left corner of the license expiry alert box will temporarily hide the alert box. To register SupportCenter Plus, you can just click the link click here to apply in the license alert box. This opens the license upgrade window. To apply the license, refer to the topic Registering SupportCenter Plus. AdventNet, Inc. 12
Tracking My Tasks My Tasks on the right hand side of the home page --> next to the my requests summary block, shows all the Tasks assigned to you. These tasks could be added by you as a personal reminder of the due by tasks. Or it can be the tasks assigned to you by other supervisors. You can also assign tasks to other supervisors using this option. On adding the tasks to other supervisors, the added tasks will be listed in their home page under the My Tasks block and the supervisors will be able to view the tasks immediately on logging in to SupportCenter Plus application. All your tasks including the requests assigned on your name can be added to this list as My Tasks, but you cannot maintain the log for the requests entered under my tasks list. To add new tasks to your task list, 1. Log in to the SupportCenter Plus application using your user name and password. 2. From the login home page, you have My Tasks block on the right hand side of the home page. 3. Click the Add New button at the down left corner of the My Tasks block. This opens the Tasks page as shown below, 4. Specify the Title of the task in the given text field. This is a mandatory field. 5. Specify relevant information about the task in the Description text box. 6. Select the Scheduled Start Time & Scheduled End Time from the calender button. The scheduled start time and end time specified by the task owner is a tentative time schedule. 7. Select the Actual Start Time & Actual End Time from the calender button. The actual start time will be entered by the supervisor doing (owning) the task. The actual start time and end time is the real time schedule of the task. 8. Select the Owner of the task from the combo box. 9. Specify the Status of the task. By default the status of the task will be Open. 10. Specify any relevant comment or summary about the task in the Comments field. 11. If you wish to be reminded of the task previously then select the Remind me before option and select the number of days from the combo box. This option will be selected based on the scheduled start time. AdventNet, Inc. 13
12. Save the task. The new task is added and is listed along with the already existing tasks in the ascending order based on date and time. Striking out the completed Tasks, When you have completed the task, you can just strike out the task to indicate that it is completed. 1. From the login home page, you have My Tasks block on the right hand side of the page. 2. Click the radio button of the task to be striked off. You can see the task striked off with a tick on the radio button. [OR] 3. Click the task's hyperlink to be striked off. This opens the tasks page in editable format. 4. In the Task State field, select Completed option. 5. Click Save button. The task is struck through to indicate that it is completed. Viewing the Tasks 1. From the login home page, you have My Tasks block on the right hand side of the page. 2. Click the Show All button this opens the Show All Tasks page as shown below, To change the task state, 1. Select the check boxes beside the Tasks to, change the state. 2. Click Close button. You can see the Status of the task changed to Closed. To delete the task, 1. Select the check boxes beside the Tasks to be deleted. 2. Click Delete button. The task is deleted from the list. To view the changes in the SupportCenter Plus home page, refresh the page. AdventNet, Inc. 14
The advantage of moving the task to completed state instead of deleting it completely is that, you can revert the state of the task to Open again and edit its attributes. But once you delete the task, it is completely removed from the application and cannot be retrieved. Note: The My Tasks option is available for contacts accessing SupportCenter Plus through Self-Service Portal also and is dependent on the access privilages provided by the SupportCenter administrator. AdventNet, Inc. 15
Publishing Announcements SupportCenter Plus allows you to publish announcements company wide or just to the support reps group. The announcement board is available in the login home just below the My View tab. You can add, edit, and delete announcements. The recent announcements will be displayed in the box. To view all the announcements (even completed ones), click the Show All button. This will display the list of all announcements added till date. To view an announcement, click the Announcement Title to open the complete announcement details in a pop-up. If there are more than one announcements, then you will notice a Previous and Next button in the pop-up. Using this you can navigate through the announcements list and view all the announcements without closing the pop-up window. To Add New Announcement, 1. Login to SupportCenter Plus using the user name and password. 2. From the login home page, if you have permissions to add an announcement, you will notice the Add New button in the announcements box as shown above. Click the Add New button. This opens the Add New page. 3. Enter the Announcement Title. This can be a short statement that describes what the announcement. This is a mandatory field. 4. Type the Announcement Content in the text box provided for the same. 5. Select the From date and To date using the calender icon beside the respective fields. 6. If you wish to publish the announcement only to the support reps and do not wish to expose it to your contacts, then select the check box Show this announcement only to support reps. 7. If you would like to send the announcement as mail then select this option. 8. Click Save. At any point of time, you do not wish to add the announcement, click Cancel. The announcement will be added and the pop-up will display the announcement details as entered by you. The announcement title will be displayed in the login home in bold text in the announcement box with a new icon beside it. In the home page, If the announcement is shown only to the support reps then the announcement icon will be shown with a small attachment To Edit an Announcement at the end. 1. From the login home page, click the title of the announcement that you wish to edit. This opens the View Announcement pop-up. If you have permissions to edit / delete the announcements, you will see an Edit and Delete button. 2. Click Edit button. This opens the announcement in editable format. AdventNet, Inc. 16
3. Modify the details and Save the changes. At any point of time, you do not wish to edit the announcement, click Cancel. To Delete an Announcement 1. From the login home page, click the title of the announcement to be deleted. This opens the View Announcement pop-up. If you have permissions to edit / delete the announcements, you will see an Edit and Delete button. 2. Click Delete button. A confirmation dialog pops up. 3. Click OK to delete, and Cancel to retain the announcement. Alternatively, 1. From the login home page, click Show All button in the Announcements box. This opens the Manage Announcements page. 2. Select the announcement to be deleted by enabling the check boxes. 3. Click Delete. A confirmation dialog pops up. 4. Click OK to delete, and Cancel to retain the announcements. Note: If the announcements are open for everyone to view and not restricted to the support reps alone, then in the contact login, the contacts will be able to view the announcements by clicking the title of the announcements. Only announcements that have a completion time beyond the current date will be visible for the contacts. AdventNet, Inc. 17
Reminders ManageEngine SupportCenter Plus provides you with the option of tracking your tasks everyday. The tasks that you add to the My Reminders list act as substitute for your sticky notes or post-it notes which you would use to remember your tasks for the day. To add new tasks to your reminders list 1. Log in to the SupportCenter Plus application using your user name and password. 2. Click Reminders link just below the header tabs on the right hand side of the page. This opens the My Reminder (s) form. 3. Click +Add New link at the bottom of the my reminders form. This opens the Reminders page as shown below, 4. Specify the task summary in the text field provided at the left side of the page. 5. Select the Date & Time for the reminder. The date field is set to the today's date and the time is set by default as 11:00 AM. Change the date and time settings. To change the date, click the calender icon beside the date field and choose the date of your choice. From the time combo box, choose the time at which the task is scheduled. The values in the combo box are available in a gap of 15 min time interval. 6. Select the reminder duration say before 1 hr or 2 hr from the Remind me before combo box. By default the message would be Never. 7. Click Add. The new task is added and is listed along with the already existing tasks in the ascending order based on date and time as shown below, AdventNet, Inc. 18
Striking out the Task When you have completed the task, you can just strike out the task to indicate that it is completed by selecting the radio button beside the task summary. Alternatively, 1. Click the Reminders link. This opens My Reminders form. 2. Click the task status radio button in the reminders form to change the task status from incomplete to Completed. The task is struck through to indicate that it is completed. View the Tasks 1. Click the reminders button on the top right hand side of the page. This opens the My Reminders page. 2. Click the Show All button this opens the Show All Reminders page as shown below, Changing the reminder status 1. Click Show all at the bottom right of the My Reminders note. This opens the Showing All Reminder page. 2. Select the check boxes beside the Reminder Summary for which you wish to change the state. 3. Select the state from the Change Reminder State To combo box, select the reminder state to Completed. 4. Click Change button to change the status of the task. To indicate the change the task would be striked of. To delete a task 1. Click the Reminders link. This opens My Reminders form. 2. Click the Delete radio button available beside the status radio button. You can see the reminder deleted from the list. AdventNet, Inc. 19
You can also delete the tasks by following these steps: 1. Click Show all at the bottom right of the My Reminders note. This opens Showing All Reminder page. 2. Select the check boxes beside the Reminder Summary of the tasks to be deleted. 3. Click Delete button. A pop up window pops up to get your confirmation on the delete operation. Click OK to proceed. The task is deleted from list. To view the changes in the home page, refresh the page. The advantage of moving the task to completed state instead of deleting it completely is that, you can revert the state of the task to Open again and edit its attributes. But once you delete the task, it is completely removed from the application and cannot be retrieved. Note: The My Tasks option is available for contacts accessing SupportCenter Plus through Self-Service Portal also. AdventNet, Inc. 20
System Requirements Hardware CPU RAM Disk Space Display Pentium III 800 MHz or above 512 MB or above 200 MB High Color Operating System Windows 2000 + SP4 Windows 2000 / 2003 Server Windows XP Professional Windows Vista Red Hat Linux 7.2 and above Linux Debian 3.0 AdventNet, Inc. 21
Installation and Getting Started In Windows In Linux In Windows Follow the steps given below to install and set up the ManageEngine SupportCenter Plus application: 1. Download the ManageEngine_SupportCenter_Plus.exe file. 2. Click the exe file to start the installation. The SupportCenter Plus installation wizard appears. Choose between One Click Install and Advanced Install (custom settings). In One Click Install, SupportCenter will be installed in a single step with default specifications such as, Installation Directory : C:\AdventNet\ME\SupportCenter WebServer Port : 8080 Database : MYSQL Advanced Install Follow the instructions given in the wizard to successfully set up SupportCenter Plus 1. On accepting the license agreement, the installation wizard provides you with an option to choose between Trial Edition and Free Edition of the SupportCenter Plus application. Free Edition never expires but is restricted to a single support rep login. AdventNet, Inc. 22
The Trial Edition is valid only for 30 days and provides two support rep login. There are no other restrictions. Choose the appropriate edition for your need and click Next. 2. Choose the installation directory by clicking the Browse button beside the directory path. From the file chooser window, choose the directory of your choice and click Next. Warning: The installation directory or its parent directories must not have any space character in its name. 3. Enter the port number that has to be used to run the web server. If you already have any application running in the default port (8080), then enter the number of the port that is free and can be used by the web server to run the SupportCenter Plus application server. Click Next. 4. Choose the Database between MY SQL and MS SQL. By default SupportCenterPlus supports My SQL database, to switch over to SQL database you need to configure SQL server to establish connection and start the server. Enter the details as given below, Host Name: Enter the IP Address/host name in which the database is available. The default host name is 'localhost'. Port: Specify the port in the given text field. The default value is 1433. Database : By default the database name will be supportcenter in non-editable format. User Name: Specify the user name to login to the server in the given text field. Password: Specify the password for the username in the given text field. Click Next. Note: Need to enable sql authentication as Windows authentication will not work. 5. Provide a name that needs to appear in the Programs folder. By default, it is AdventNet ManageEngine SupportCenter. 6. Click Next. The application is installed. AdventNet, Inc. 23
3. On successful installation, the Registration for Technical Support form is displayed. This is an optional form and this enables you to register for technical assistance. By registering, it helps the technical support team to be better informed about your organization and its specific needs and hence provide a more focused support. Enter the details such as Name, contact E-mail ID, Phone Number (helps in making calls for immediate support), Company Name, and Country. 4. Click Next. The following screen is displayed. When you choose to start the SupportCenter Service, the SupportCenter Server is started automatically and the client window opens. If you do not wish to view the readme file or start SupportCenter as a windows service,de-select the options provided. 5. Click Finish to complete the installation. If you installed the application with One click Install, the ManageEngine SupportCenter Plus program group is created in the Start menu. Also, the SupportCenter server will be started and the client window opens with the login page. Enter the user name and password to log in to the application. To manually start the SupportCenter Plus application 1. Click Start -> Programs -> AdventNet ManageEngine SupportCenter -> SupportCenter Server to start the web server. This takes approximately 2 minutes in a Windows XP, 512 MB RAM, and 1.0 GHZ processor. Generally, the server is started and the web client is also launched in the default browser. 2. If the web client is not launched automatically, then click Start -> Programs -> AdventNet ManageEngine SupportCenter -> SupportCenter Web Client to start the web client. The application opens the login page in your default web browser. 3. Enter your user name "administrator" and password "administrator" to log in to SupportCenter Plus. As soon as you log in the configuration wizard home page is displayed. Follow the instructions provided in the wizard and click the Next button. To configure your application settings, refer to the Configurations section. AdventNet, Inc. 24