Yesterday we've released TargetProcess v.2.13. The release is fully dedicated to Help Desk improvements.

In short, we've improved Help Desk user experience and made some actions easier. Some usage patterns:

Action	Old way	New way
Check for unprocessed requests	Navigate to requests list, sort by date. Then sort by last comment date. Filter out ideas to see just issues and questions.	Navigate to Issues Queue
Reply to typical request	Find similar request using search, navigate to it, find appropriate comment, copy this comment and add to the new request.	Click Attach Solution, select required solution.
Maintain conversation	Open request, try to find latest comment in the messy comments thread, edit comments to remove bad formatting and redundant information	Open request and read clean comments thread.

First thing we are going to change in v.3.0 is navigation. First discussion was quite general and first solution most likely is not ideal. We rightly identified two major different areas: inside and outside of a project. Initially we wanted to separate navigation outside of a project and inside of a project, thus having two completely different menus. But what if we can unite these areas?

Indeed, there are lot of similarities. We may just create global filter by project. If you select a specific project, you will be inside the project and, for example, Help Desk will show requests from this project. But if you select All Projects value then Help Desk will contain all requests from all your projects. This approach has several nice advantages:

1. Main menu does not change, only sub-menu is different inside and outside of a project. It gives better perception and better learning curve.
2. Global project filter is an easy-to-adopt concept. You always know where you are.
3. When you switch project, you will remain in the same area. For example, now you are in the backlog of project Alpha. You change project and appeared in the backlog of project Beta.

It may look like this:

Option 1. Tabs

We've received several requests to add left panel with a tree navigation. I never thought it was a good idea, but you never know till try.

Option 2. Tree

The question is do you like tabs or tree? It seems both approaches has own advantages and it is really hard to select the best one. We are looking for your opinion!

Let's finalize new Help Desk Portal concept. We are starting development next week, so you have a little time to provide valuable feedback :)

Issues List

Contains all issues with filtering option. State of the each issue is highly visible. It shows whether bug created from the issue and when it will be fixed. Also if someone knows solution, he may attach solution to the issue right away.

Post Issue

When someone post an issue, Help Desk Portal checks on the fly whether similar issues already exist and display the list on the right. Moreover, it displays possible solutions (nothing special, just keyword search with results ranking). It will help to avoid issues duplication and in some cases will save people time.

Continue posting mock-ups of the upcoming Help Desk Portal. Definitely there should be a place where people may see all posted ideas, issues and questions. In this list user should focus on what is going on and get quick answers to the questions like:

• "Should I reply to something to help with problem resolution?"
• "When will the bug for the request XXX be fixed?"
• "Are there any interesting discussions around my ideas?"

The My Requests list has nice right column that shows exact state of the each idea and issue. Think support forgot about you and your problem? Just click nudge link :)

We are thinking about Issues and Ideas separation. They are quite different and needs separate lists, views, etc. based on our analysis. People have different goals when working with ideas and issues, and this should be reflected in the dHelp Desk Portal design.

What is important for person who looks at idea? And what is important for person who looks at issue?

Idea	Issue
Discuss idea Add attachments When it will be implemented? Is this idea important? How can I vote for it? Tag the idea	Discuss issue Add attachments to the issue When it will be resolved? Do I need to provide more info? Are there any ready solutions to my issue?

Here is what we have so far.

Issue View

Idea View

Finally, I may share ideas/stories/requests that will be implemented in the new release of Help Desk Portal.

We have selected about 20 customers' requests and improvements (all are reasonable and most of them improve usability). Here is the list that includes the most interesting requests.

• Search by ID
• View Help Desk Request Number (#) in Requests Lists
• Add a "Vote" mechanism to the request detail in the help desk.
• Filter by Project/Product
• Better Notifications (new comment added)
• Improve Help Desk User experience (Tag Cloud)
• Disable state change
• Filter by Request state (open/closed)
• Attach file when posting a request
• User profile management
• Customer should see all related user stories, features and bugs created from requests in one place
• Sorts: by last-updated, by last-comment, by votes
• Easy customization (promoted in the latest blog post)

As you may expect, we have own ideas as well:

• Separate ideas and issues
• Dashboard with recent requests, top requests, etc.
• Solutions (a part of self-service)

Some mockups should help you to get the new Help Desk portal look and feel.

Help Desk Portal Dashboard

Dashboard is a first page for the new users and it should be crystal clear what can be done in Help Desk Portal. Also it includes latest ideas and request as well as top ideas.

Ideas List

Ideas list obviously shows ideas. It is possible to filter ideas by state ad by tags, sort ideas.

This is a work and progress and your comments are welcome!

Help Desk Portal is quite important application. It allows our customers to interact with us. Also it allows customers of our customers to interact with our customers (weird assertion, but it's true :). We've collected quite many requests for Help Desk Portal improvements and finally decided to push it forward.

Here is the first mockup of the home page. It is still a work in progress, so comments/changes/advices are welcome.

There are some ideas behind the Help Desk Portal re-design:

• When someone has a problem, he should be able to find existing solution easily (if any). If there is no solution, it should be straightforward how to post a request
• Ideas and Issues should be separated. They have quite different flows and expectation. If someone post an issue it should be resolved quickly. Idea can live in the backlog for years.
• People may use search or tags to find relevant ideas and requests.

The next step may be to add more social networking into Help Desk Portal (self-service is a great thing if you can encourage other customers to provide solutions and answer the questions). However this is just an idea so far.