First Published: 6th February 2017

Latest Minor Updates: 27th Feb 2017 (Refer below)

What's new in 8.0?

New revamped 'Cases Search' tool. A variety of search parameters are predefined to help you find your cases easily and quickly. You can also limit the search to your assigned cases only by choosing 'My Cases' scope. You can directly reply to existing case, or send a KB, or re-open, close (mark complete) or print or export cases to files.



Time Period: Choose a time period from the followings under which the search will be confined:
Any
Today
Yesterday
Tomorrow
This week
Last Week
Next Week
This Month
Last Month
Next Month
This Year
Last Year
Date Range...
On


Report Type
: Choose a report type from the predefined ones below:
Any
Cases Created
Cases Resolved
Cases Ongoing
Cases Worked
Cases Due
Cases Response Date
Cases unassigned
Cases lapsed - Due Time
Cases lapsed - Response Time
Cases with SLA Breach - Due Date
Cases with SLA Breach - Response Date
Cases with no Due Date
Cases with no Response Date
Cases with no Service Level
Cases with no Caller


Search By: Further refine the search by filtering through keywords or using one of the following helpdesk fields - Technicians, Status, Problem, Service level, Caller, Department, Company, Priority, Origin, Assets or Author.

Group By: You can choose to group the cases either with: Technicians, Status, Problem Category, Problem Type, Service level, Caller, Department, Company, Priority, Origin, Assets or Author.

Each case in the search result is color coded to reflect the current state of the case such as if it ongoing, completed, over due or has breached SLA. Now, you can easily recognize which cases require the utmost attention, and plan actions and allocate resources accordingly.

With this version, you are free to choose which particular helpdesk fields/columns show up in the search result and report. Just click the 'Fields' button, and choose the wanted columns to include.



You can re-arrange the columns by drag-and-drop to get the kind of view you want. And the display order of the columns will be retained in subsequent sessions.

You can export cases to files in the following document types:
Adobe PDF, XPS, Word 97-2003 DOC, Word 2007-2016, DOCX, RTF, ODT or HTML.




Multiple cases can be batch exported. Just select multiple cases from the list and choose one of the document type to export to, and the batch wizard will perform the rest.
 


You can control what case data are included in the files by customizing the 'Print' template under Team Helpdesk Manager > Templates Manager. For example, place the variable 'SCO_CASEDESCRIPTION' in the Print template such that the exported file (eg. pdf) contains all the consolidated conversations (body) from the case item including inline images.

 
New Summary Reports tool allows for Four modes of views or editing. List, HTML, HTML Editable and Grid. It uses the same sets of search filters discussed above.



Some useful calculated fields that you can enabled in the report:
1) Raise Duration - interval between when the support request (email or phone call) was received and when the case was raised.

2) Response Duration - interval between when the support request was received (email or phone call) and when the first response was made to the caller (by a technician)

3) Open Duration - interval between when the case was raised and the current time.

4) Resolution Duration - interval between when the case was raised and when it was closed/completed.

5) Breach Duration - interval between when the case was due and when it was actually closed/completed.

For finer control over the output of report, you can choose which fields (including custom fields and calculated fields) are to be included in the report. You can sort the items by clicking at the column headers, as well as also re-arrange the columns in the list view according to certain sequence of your choice, and even set the width of the columns. These formatting from the List view panel will be inherited on other tabs - HTML, editable HTML and Grids.



Once you get the look and feel of your report, you can then export the report to one of the many popular document formats supported such as Microsoft Excel sheets, Word documents, Adobe PDF, Rich Text or web page etc.


 

Re-design case form, toolbars and icons - for better utilization of space and to give more sense to the UI and workflow.


 

Custom fields section now moved to the main tab page for quick accessibility.



 

Added a new button 'Reset link to Case' in the toolbar. This button will be visible when you select any email that has a case ID (with or without Prefix code) in the subject. Clicking it will remove the references of the case from that email. You can then raise a new case from that email.


 

'Add to Existing case' is now available in two variants:



Through Search - The selected emails will be added to the chosen case in the search panel. If you don't know the case ID to which you want to update the emails to, use this method to search for cases that meet certain criteria and from which you can choose one quickly.



Through ID - If you already know the Case ID to add the selected emails, you can enter it to update quickly.


 

Added 'Don't process emails with invalid/non-existence prefix code' under Team Helpdesk Manager > Case Options > Case ID and Prefix Code tab. If this option is enabled, it will force the add-in to not process those emails that contains ID tag from another helpdesk (by comparing the prefix code). i.e., if the prefix code does not exist (from the subject line) in the current helpdesk settings, that email will not be processed. And such email can then be added to an existing case through the 'Add to existing case' menu option in the toolbar.
 

Memory allocation/de-allocation process tweaked for increased performance and responsive Outlook.

 

 

Fixes/Enhancements:

Update of 27th February 2017 (v8.0.2.183):
 

ADDED: Added 'Default Time' option under Personal Settings > General tab, so that each technician can choose the default time (in minutes or hours) that would be pre-chosen when adding new time spent entries in the case form.



When you add new time spent entry in the case form, the duration value will default to the chosen time in your Personal Settings.


 

ADDED: Added 'Show helpdesk context menu on top' option under Personal Settings > User Interface tab, so that each technician can set their preference for the placement of the helpdesk context menu in topmost or bottom position.



For instance, when this option is enabled, the helpdesk menu items appear at higher position in the context menu (right-click menu)



If the option is unchecked, the helpdesk menu items appear at the lowest position in the context menu.


 

FIXED: When an existing case which is in conflict state is previewed or opened, or auto-updated by the add-in, the following error message might be displayed, along with the KB article that explains for a possible fix to the conflict.



However, if you had configured Team Helpdesk to auto process incoming email replies to existing cases that are in conflict state, the dialog box above will prevent the manager add-in from further monitoring or processing new emails unless you exit the dialog box manually. This is now fixed by bypassing the error dialogs when the conflicted cases are updated in automation mode, so that at least, the manager add-in (that is responsible for automation) can ignore the error on those conflicted cases, and continue raising new cases or updating emails to other normal cases.

To fix conflicted cases, refer to this KB article:
How to fix the error 'One or more items in the folder you synchronized do not match.'


Update of 23rd February 2017 (v8.0.2.182):

ADDED: Added two buttons to place the case form left or right side.


 

FIXED: "You are not authorized to use this object. Set AuthKey property first".

Update of 6th February 2017 (v8.0.2.176):

FIXED: Case form disappeared while opening cases. If Outlook is restarted, the form re-appears, but after sometime, the form disappear when opening some cases.

FIXED:  Caller name or email address in the case is shown in Exchange format (x400 string) instead of display or SMTP address.