The new version of the Help Desk Ultimate extension offers you advanced multistore support! Now with a new possibility to create multiple email gateways you can add as many gateways as you need. Moreover, you can assign these gateways to departments what gives you an ability to perfectly tune your support workflow and considerably reduce time on tickets managing.

One more feature which makes work with tickets more flexible is ticket priority. This new option allows you to specify the level of ticket urgency when you for example, reassign ticket to other department. With status changes history feature you will be able to trace the history of all communications!

Tired of spam emails? The improved anti-spam system of Help Desk Ultimate 2.6 can secure help desk departments from losing on unwanted messages processing. Stop the flow of unsolicited emails and receive the help desk tickets only!

Check out other features we’ve prepared for this release

New features implemented in Help Desk Ultimate 2.6:

• Advanced multistore support
• Multiple email gateways support
• Advanced Product Questions extension integration
• Improved auto-submitters protection
• Incoming mail attachments support
• Tickets priority
• Offensive ticket ID filtering
• Variables parsing in departments templates
• Status changes history
• Tickets grid view speedup
• SQL queries optimization
• “Total” field in departments statistics
• Multistore support for departments statistics
• New log format – database instead of files, with ability to see the logs in admin grid
• Log auto-clearing
• New data storage algorithm
• External ticket view is now single-column
• Cron processes start control system, helps to avoid server overloads

The following bugs have been fixed:

• Memory limit bug
• 100% php load in some cases while receiving messages from gateway
• Bot protection sometimes treats human as a bot
• “Headers already sent” error
• Some template files are not compatible with disabled PHP short tags
• Tickets are not auto-assigned to departments in some cases
• seed.phtml is not IE8 compatible
• Wrong email for tickets parsed from Product Questions
• Wrong date appears if ticket status was changed from the list view
• Simple filters are very slow
• Minor security fix with attachments
• Creation of new tickets from email can’t be turned off

As you can see Help Desk Ultimate has become even more flexible and a bulk of new possibilities has been added. That’s why we’ve developed Help Desk Ultimate User Guide which will help you to set up this aheadWorks extension maximally efficiently for you online store. In the Guide you will find out how to manage departments and tickets, learn how to integrate the Product Questions extension and standard Magento Contact Form, get the illustrated description of gateways and cron configuration, and much more.

To download free User Guide in PDF and find more information about Help Desk Ultimate, please visit the extension page.

Stasia News, Updates Extensions, Help Desk Ultimate, User Guide

Some time ago we compared 4 help desk solutions – Kayako eSupport, eTicket, Cerberus Helpdesk and Help Desk Ultimate. Today we have renewed the guide taking into account all the updates which have taken place since the guide release.

To find out what new features are compared please visit the Help Desk Ultimate comparison guide page.

Stasia News Help Desk Ultimate

The Help Desk Ultimate feedback was thoroughly analyzed and the majority of asked-for features have been implemented in the new version. One of the main features concerns mail fetching improvements – IMAP and TLS support what means more protocols available for mail access.

Web bots and email spam is the sore point of all Internet users and the online store owner is not an exception. aheadWorks solved this problem having integrated the web bots and spam protection system in the Help Desk Ultimate extension. Now you can feel safe from the undesirable bulk of messages.

The process of working with tickets has been also enhanced. Among the major improvements is a possibility to link tickets with orders what easies the order access. Besides editing tickets has become much easier and faster with the predefined reply templates which will shorten the time support staff spends on tickets answering.

This is just a quick acquaintance with new functionality of the extension, to view the whole list of Help Desk Ultimate new features please visit the extension page.

Stasia News, Updates Extensions, Feed, Help Desk Ultimate

Due to a high number of requests for comparison of Help Desk Ultimate with other available help desk and support suites we decided to release this guide.

Good customer support is half the battle. That’s why online store owners are in demand of bug-free, easy to install & use extension with good support. We know that you spend lots of time searching the most suitable solution. aheadWorks eased this task for you. We have analyzed 4 helpdesk extensions:

• Kayako eSupport is a help desk software package, offering ticketed support and e-mail management;
• eTicket by eTicketSupport is a PHP-based electronic support ticket system that can receive tickets via email or a web form;
• Cerberus Helpdesk by WebGroup Media LLC is a fast and flexible CRM toolkit;
• Help Desk Ultimate by aheadWorks Co. is a perfect customer care and support solution for ecommerce sites based on Magento.

We have created a feature comparison table based on the derived results:

	Help Desk Ultimate	Kayako eSupport	eTicket	Cerberus Helpdesk
Two-way e-mail parsing
IMAP support
TLS support
Pre-defined reply template
Magento contact form spam protection
Default store view department
Order to ticket linking in Magento
Customer profile linking in Magento
Creating new tickets by e-mail
Ticket RSS feeds
Auto-assign to departments on e-mail reply
Ability to hide departments from customers
Magento Contact Form
Magento Product Question
Flags and labels
Ticket threads and statuses
File attachments
Quotation option
Customizable email notifications for administrator and customer
Full integration into Magento admin & customer areas
Prices for comparable offers	$199.00 No additional expenses required	Leased license* $199.95 per year	Free product, requires Magento interface extension “Ticketlink” for $40.00	Starter license*, 5 workers: $375.00

*The pricing plans correspond to Help Desk Ultimate level

Kayako eSupport is a well-known support solution with rich functionality. It gives a wide range of opportunities for tickets support activity (both user and administrator area) – pre-defined ticket responses, statuses and priorities, ticket locking, customizable ticket listing, etc. In spite of the large amount of advantages Kayako eSupport has one essential disadvantage – it is not Magento-integrated. The solution of this problem will definitely require additional expended time and money.

eTicket helps to solve a number of problems – it has filters to remove messages in replies, a number of predefined answer responses, email alerts compatible with pagers. Having your choice stopped at this free module, don’t forget to buy Magento interface extension – Ticketlink. Hence one more problem appears – support. Probably you can have some support on eTicket linking product, but you are face to face with eTicket itself since it’s an open source product and no support is included. Such features as customer profile integration, orders linking, guest tickets and many others that need higher level of integration with Magento are unlikely be achieved by 3rd party linking solutions.

Cerberus Helpdesk – a browser-based helpdesk – allows you to create as many personalized workspaces as you want, to capture feedback as it happens, to share tickets by groups, to preview the content of the ticket and many other useful things. At the same time you won’t be able to create new tickets by e-mail or quote in customer and admin areas. This extension has the same disadvantage as Kayako eSupport and eTicket – it is not Magento-integrated as well.

Help Desk Ultimate by aheadWorks Co. is a turnkey solution for Magento which you can run in several minutes – it requires no additional software. With Help Desk Ultimate you’ll get copy-and-run installation with full integration into your Magento-based online shop. Easy to use administration and customer interfaces save working time of your support dept and money on staff learning. We encourage feedback from our customers and we have implemented all the most demanded features since the first release.

aheadWorks Co. guarantees:

• qualified customer support – one-business-day answer to any your question;
• 30-day money back – aheadWorks will surely return your money in the case of dissatisfaction with the product;
• bug-free solution – with Help Desk Ultimate you get stability warranted by a great number of installations.

The important constituent of all extensions is their update. Let’s observe the average periodicity of above-listed modules upgrade in 2009:

• Kayako eSupport – once in 3-4 months;
• eTicket – oops! Recent release was in October 2008;
• Cerberus Helpdesk – once in 3-4 months;
• Help Desk Ultimate – once a month.

Upgrade frequency illustrates the degree of company’s responsibility and the level of product’s development. The facts speak for themselves – you are free to compare, decide and choose.

Please visit Help Desk Ultimate page to observe the whole list of features.

Stasia News Help Desk Ultimate

We have a special offer for you — Power Pack for Magento!

Buy 5 most demanded products and get 20% discount!

1. Help Desk Ultimate

   Help Desk Ultimate is a perfect customer care and support solution for ecommerce sites based on Magento.

2. AJAX Cart Pro

   AJAX Cart Pro extension removes annoying page reloads on add to cart and delete from cart user actions. Items added instantly with animation effects.

3. Z-Blocks

   Z-Blocks a perfect tool for controlling static blocks in your store.

4. Product Questions

   Stay in touch with your visitors and customers with the help of Product Questions module. It adds a questions page to each product.

5. Follow Up Email

   Follow Up Email gives a comfortable and flexible way to automatically reach your customers on day X after an order had been placed.

Power Pack cost: $428 (Original price: $535, you save $107)

Find more information at SPECIAL OFFERS page

Stasia News AJAX Cart Pro, Extensions, Follow Up Email, Help Desk Ultimate, Product Questions, Z-Blocks

We are happy to present you a remarkable opportunity to look at the work of our three extensions — Booking & Reservations , Follow Up Email and Help Desk Ultimate — from the inside. The extensions in this Admin Panel Demo can be used practically without any restrictions as if they have been installed on your store.

Within the demo you will be able to log in to the Admin Control Panel and examine for yourself all the options that are available to administrators. Demo allows to work with different data including products, users and their orders. That’s why we strongly recommend to input only fictitious titles, names, addresses, dates and any other information.

Take a test-drive of Admin Panel!

Stasia News Booking and reservations, Follow Up Email, Help Desk Ultimate

This new release introduces a number of new features that make the solution even better!

Find in the package:

• Departments stats on a separate page, displying total number of tickets, and number of tickets per status. A timeframe for the stats can be defined.
• Link tickets to orders – you can allow your customers to select an order they’d wish to have support on
• Tickets tab at customer edit for easier data access and management
• Included name and email of customer in ticket reply email template
• Added number of ticket messages so you see at a glance the length of communications
• “Assign to customer” with search autosuggest so that you don’t have to wait for long select box with all your customers to render – just start typing and use the autosuggest

More information on the product page – http://ecommerce.aheadworks.com/extensions/help-desk-ultimate.html

Artyom News, Updates Extensions, Help Desk Ultimate

Minor versions released, it’s recommended to upgrade. A major version of Folow Up Email must come out the next week .

Artyom News, Updates Extensions, Follow Up Email, Help Desk Ultimate

Today we release a new version of Help Desk Ultimate. It includes the following updates:

• Auto-assign to departments on e-mail reply
• Ability to hide departmnents selector from customers
• One-click Contact Form integration
• One-click Product Questions integration
• Improved parsing mechanism for html emails
• Per-store default department
• Ticket lock
• Ability to hide departments selector from customers

Plus some minor bugfixes. If you own a previous version you would definitely wish to upgrade – the upgrade is free! If you don’t have one – get it and make your customers much more happy.

Artyom News, Updates Extensions, Help Desk Ultimate

Release summary:

• E-mail Headers storage
• SSL support for POP3 service added
• UTF-8 characters support added
• E-mail binary attachments fixed
• Non-text attachments now are sent
• HTML tags in customer’s area bug fixed
• Minor security bugs fixed

Eugene Updates Extensions, Help Desk Ultimate