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.

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.

TargetProcess has Help Desk on board. I think it is important to have close relation with customers, to collect their feedback and react on issues and ideas. We've designed Help Desk Portal for that purpose. It is a separate simple application integrated with TargetProcess via API. Customers may post ideas, requests and questions via Help Desk Portal, vote for requests, post comments.

Over the last year, Help Desk Portal has become quite a popular bit of TargetProcess. People use it a lot. But it suffers from many problems:

• Search is not there (so far, scheduled for the next release :).
• When someone posts a request, it is impossible to check for duplicates (what if we have the solution already?)
• Lack of filters.
• It is not exciting to use.

The last issue is a tough one. It is quite hard to make people happy when they are using a tool like Help Desk portal. It is a matter of usability and design, but I believe it can be solved.

Curiously, there are several fresh examples of startups that focus on company-customer interaction. I personally like UserVoice and GetSatisfaction. The idea behind is similar to Help Desk Portal, but implementation is a way better. Currently we are evaluating options, but it seems we will move to the same direction.

We've completed second iteration of TargetProcess v.2.5 release. It includes basic email integration and internal Help Desk module. Preview is generally available at http://preview.targetprocess.com (admin / admin).

In current iteration you may already use Help Desk with the following scenario:

1. Customer sends request via email (problem or idea)
2. TargetProcess user receives all emails and convert them to requests
3. TargetProcess user creates bugs and user stories from requests if required
4. Customer receives notification when request changes its state

Inbox in TargetProcess

List of Help Desk Requests

Lookup List of Requesters

We are going to add automatic conversion rules in the next iteration as well as Help Desk Portal.

Help desk module implementation going well. We are finalizing email integration part now and will start develop of the small application (Help Desk Portal) that allow people to submit requests and track requests' statuses. Help Desk Portal will be integrated with TargetProcess via Web Services API. Here are some screenshots

Requests list

Add request form

We've started Help Desk implementation this week. It will spread two iterations. In the first iteration we will implement core Help Desk functionality like Add Request, View Requests List, Manage Requestors and Email Integration (TargetProcess will automatically retrieve email and convert some emails to requests). The second iteration will include advanced functionality like Help Desk Portal and Solutions.

Some very agile artifacts below :)