SupportWizard V6 Technical Specifications

Platforms

NT/Windows 2000/XP,     

End User Interface: Mozilla 1.0+, Netscape 6.2+, IE 4.0+, Opera 8.5+. Most other browsers are also supported.
Staff Interface:
On Windows: IE 5.0+ Mozilla 1.0+ Netscape6.2+
On Mac/Linux/Unix: Mozilla 1.0+ Netscape 6.2+

SupportWizard is 100% Internet based. The only client software is the browser.

Installation Package and Upgrades

Installing SupportWizard takes less than 5 minutes and the average time to move from initial software installation to full production use is two days. Some companies have installed the software, trained their staff and gone into production use with full Website access in less than 8 hours.

The purchase price includes 30 days of Web and telephone support and upgrades. Continued support and upgrades are priced at 20% of the current purchase price.

   or        or     SQL Server 2000

SupportWizard ships with a fully licensed copy of MySQL at no additional charge. MySQL is an extremely fast, easily maintained SQL database with a capacity for over 50,000,000 records.
SupportWizard also supports Oracle 8.1.5+ and SQL Server 2000+

The database is automatically installed and configured with the installation of SupportWizard.

Customization

Custom tables, each with the full power of SupportWizard reports, charts, escalation rules, custom fields and workflows can be created with the click of a button

The look and feel of SupportWizard can be modified by changing the template files, allowing the easy insertion and modification of HTML or graphic images.

Ticket and User fields can be added, removed, modified or rearranged, without interrupting production use.

Field Types for user defined fields include Character, Date, Integer, Floating Point, Attached File, Date, Time, User, User Group, system defined and user defined choice fields.

Custom choice tables can be created, modified or deleted using the point and click interface, and the system default choice tables can be modified in exactly the same fashion.

The graphic images can be replaced with your own images as needed.

The fonts and colors can be replaced with the fonts and colors needed to match your Web site and corporate image.

SupportWizard can be customized through the modification of fields, templates, scripts etc while it is on-line. So your 24/7 service is never interrupted.

Custom business logic and intelligence can be added to SupportWizard through custom scripts that are invoked when problem tickets or users are created or modified. Data is transferred to these scripts as environment variables and the scripts themselves may be written in Perl, C++, Basic, or the language of your choice.

For advanced server side scripting and custom batch processing, Perl 5, with a full SupportWizard API is included with the standard product.

The database schema used by SupportWizard is fully documented. However it may evolve in the future to support functionality enhancements. By using the API you insulate yourselves against having to change your scripts to adjust to such changes.

Our customization tools provide everything you need to integrate SupportWizard with your in-house systems, and if your staff is too busy we provide a full range of consulting and custom development services.

Hardware Requirements

Please see System Requirements

Features

To provide 24/7 help and reduce your support costs, SupportWizard includes an interactive FAQ that is fully integrated with the knowledgebase. Simply insert some HTML into one of your webpages to provide your visitors with a seamless experience - they need never know they are using SupportWizard - even if it is hosted at our site.

For an example of how seamlessly the FAQ interface integrates with an existing Web site, click on the SupportWizard Interactive FAQ hotlink - it feels like a standard part of this website, but actually you are logged into SupportWizard.



The graphic images, text font, size and color are easily customized to match the look and feel of your site.

To streamline your customer support process, SupportWizard lets you designate the answers to common issues as "Standard Solutions". Your technicians can find the best standard solution using a keyword search while they are responding to a customer inquiry.



The ticket summaries are immediately displayed and the appropriate fields can be appended to the fields in the current ticket or can replace the existing field.

To keep your business running smoothly, SupportWizard provides full Workflow functionality.

Based on the rules you define with the point and click interface, tickets are routed directly to the correct individuals or groups. With support for automatic e-mail notification, re-assignment and scripting, Workflow reduces administrative load and helps ensure quality support.

SupportWizard can import and export data in standard, tab-delimited ASCII, or proprietary formats. Data can easily be imported or exported to other database, spreadsheet, contact management or word-processing applications.

To prevent against the loss of data though disk failures, a fully automatic backup utility is built into the product.

Predefined, Java based charts provide a wealth of graphical feedback. There are too many charts to list here, but they include charts showing the number of outstanding problem tickets, the rate at which problems are submitted on an hourly, daily, weekly or monthly basis, the severity of tickets, the average time taken by staff members to resolve problems and the number of tickets generated by each customer.





An unlimited number of additional custom charts may be defined and the default charts modified in a few seconds using the point-and-click browser interface.





The raw data behind the charts is available with the click of a button.

With a few mouse clicks supervisors can define reports and view them immediately. Report formats can be saved and reused when needed

SupportWizard will generate reports at specified times each week or month and email them to you automatically.

Supervisors and/or staff can be notified by e-mail of newly submitted tickets or particular situations, such as response times exceeding specified limits or new tickets assigned to them. Escalation rules are unlimited and easily customized.

SupportWizard allows self-registration, if you do not want to import or create logins for your users or support staff.

The ability of users to self-register can be enabled or disabled with a couple of mouse-clicks.

Access is protected through password security.

You may embed user names and passwords in HTML strings to allows users to login to SupportWizard with a single mouse-click. The same HTML string may contain the page to which the user is returned on exiting SupportWizard. It may also specify which screen should appear first, such as the New User Form, the Search screen, the Novice Welcome screen etc.

Incoming e-mail is automatically converted into a problem ticket and stored in the database and an e-mail response is automatically sent to the person who submitted the e-mail.




For example, the above configuration resulted in this e-mail message.

SupportWizard provides for both automatic and manual generation of outgoing e-mail messages. In the example shown above, the user's ticket, along with two linked tickets containing existing answers to his problem, are being e-mailed to him, along with a personal note from the staff engineer.

The History field tracks all changes to a problem ticket automatically, so a full record of each transaction is available.

Ticket text containing URL information, such as is automatically converted into working hotlinks.

Files of any kind may be attached to a problem record either though the Web interface or by attaching them to incoming e-mail.

Each problem is tracked by a user-defined set of criteria and an automatically assigned ID. The problems and solutions can be made accessible to end users at any time, or you may elect to keep them visible only to internal staff members.

To assist staff and end users in finding the solution to problems or managing the database both simple text searches




and advanced boolean searches are provided.

During a search of the database, any field or combination of fields can be used to specify the order in which results are displayed to the user.





the results can also be sorted interactively by simply clicking on the title button.

Custom searches can be saved with your choice of name.


Saved searches are immediately available from the pull down menu bar.

Each response to a problem ticket is automatically linked to it in a thread, and the responses are indented in the ticket table.

Tickets for similar problems can be linked so solutions need to be specified only once.

Access Control

The admin can define precise access to menu items, records and specific fields within records for each User Group.





Standard groups include admin, staff, registered users and unregistered users. An unlimited number of additional groups may be added as needed, and the permissions for the default groups may be easily modified.

The admin can define access permissions on a record level.

Permissions can also be defined for access to fields within a record.

It all comes together with a simple Web interface for users that makes it easy to submit problem tickets and upload or download patches, updates, or other files.

A powerful Web interface for staff and administrators makes it easy to respond to problem tickets and perform administrative tasks.