POPHelp™ is a trouble ticketing system developed as an active Help Desk for Extranet or Corporate Intranet users and/or services on the Internet.

POPHelp™ is a system based on a web like interface that allows you to manage every functions of the HelpDesk using a browse capable of interpreting JavaScript and HTML 4.x.

The HelpDesk is a structured database with different views and ways of accessing them depending on the involved actors.

POPHelp™ suits every environment that requires systematization of the help desk, technical support and problem solution.

POPHelp™ runs under the following operating systems:

• Solaris 2.x (x86/SPARC)
• SunOS 5.x
• FreeBSD
• Linux
• HP/UX
• AIX

Implementation over other UNIX operating systems will be on demand within 30 (thirty) days of ordered.

Beside the platform, the product requires a web server running on the same server.

• On-line tickets base

  It is possible to determine which problems are not yet solved, since when, and who is responsible for their solution.

• Lower dependency on knowledge

  As POPHelp™ keeps a solved problem base, it reduces the dependency companies have with people having the expertise to find a way out of difficulties. Thus, personnel or staff renewals, critical operators' absence/illness, in that area almost do not affect business.

• Statistics base

  With POPHelp™, the company has a powerful tool to evaluate the frequency of certain problems, their origin, and the impact produced on other areas or customers. Average time of resolution, particular skills of operators in some problems. All of this gives a global comprehension of the Help Desk area.

• Internal/External use

  POPHelp™ can be used internally (by any systems department) or externally (receiving customers claims).

• On-line access of customers

  In case of external use (reached from the Extranet), customers can enter their problems or even search within the solved problems base for a particular solution.

• Solution levels

  POPHelp™ allows derivation of problems to other areas (technical support staff, engineering, etc) when a problem is beyond operator's knowledge, so reflecting the manual circuits this kind of problem follows, keeping track of them.

• Assistance event scheduler and organizer

  Date/time assignation system for assignation, delivery, and notification to customers for home or any other assistance to guarantee customers satisfaction and/or problem solution.

   

Users who signed up by means of the system database (customers, employees, franchisers, and distributor nets, remote sales stores, etc) will access the help desk system, for their attention. Another kind of involved users, on the Extranet/Intranet/Internet administration side, are the operators and systems analysts.

Operators are those who handle the transacting from the beginning to its final solution. Systems analysts are only required on some steps to ask for feedback from users or operators, or to give solutions. In this case, there is a level handler system (of up to 6 different levels in its standard version, expansible up to 255 levels), in which operators areas and levels are declared.

POPHelp™ will manage automatically the occurrence and its state, depending on the level, on which it is placed, offering different views according to such level and to the operator who is viewing it at a given moment.

POPHelp™ provides an open, distributed, relational interface for the users base, based on Informix Dynamic Server®, which allows clients to develop additional software modules to consult and modify data.

Final users can report their problem through the POPHelp™ web interface, mail, fax, or telephone, to the head of the help desk.

POPHelp™ interface is a structured form to be filled with details to distinguish the problem and its urgency as best as possible, establishing incident categories and subcategories.

POPHelp™ has its own knowledge base. It is an indexed collection of 'base documents'. Searches on this base can be made and solutions to new problems enlarge the base.

Every 'base document' is structured this way:

• Unique key,
• Problem description,
• Operator in charge,
• Key words,
• Solution description,
• Links to other base documents.

There are searches on regular expressions on free text over:

• Key words,
• Problem description,
• Solution description.

There is also a key words dictionary extendable through POPHelp™. The knowledge base is dynamic, grows through time and it becomes one of the best strategic tools to find appropriate services policies.

The knowledge base gets better and standardizes the quality of attention given by the help desk. It also permits to free and frame the system operation, regarding the workflow definition and the help desk required method and organization.

POPHelp™ has an open interface so that the client can develop modules to manage the knowledge base, through standard freeware tools.

This, obviously, grants independence from the database motor modules used and the equipment where the database is installed.

The knowledge base is the final repository of gathered experience, so is the active problems base, that keep changing the problems conditions through different transitions. The conditions are pre-defined by the system (new conditions cannot be created).

Usually a user will search for a solution on the knowledge base, and if there is none, he will enter the problem.

Whenever a new problem is entered to the system, a 'ticket' number is automatically assigned to it. It is a unique string of characters used as a key so that users, operators, and engineers can check or modify its condition.

A recently entered problem, sent by a user to the operators' pool, is known as 'unassigned ticket' (the user gets the ticket number for later consultation).

A ticket is made up of:

• Initial description of the problem (key words + free text);
• Actual condition,
• Operator in charge (that who is responsible for the full tracking and gathering of data until finding a solution),
• Other attributes collection, e.g.:
  • Involved items: one or more item list. Items are definable, e.g.: dial-up access, modem, PC, Netscape browser, etc.
  • Service: which is the affected service (it is also definable, like ISP service, Intranet dial-up access, Internet access in general, FTP service, corporate Extranet, etc)
• Events list: every event is related to the date of generated and people involved in the process.

The responsible operator is who took the ticket when the problem originated. Every operator gets an 'unassigned tickets' alarm, and contends to take it.

At this point distinct criteria of attention can be established, like operators specialized in particular events that can be observed in the initial description or operators that can take any problem.

Tickets change their condition depending on the action operators take, and the level assigned to them.

The system also supplies 'on-the-fly' lists of not-yet-assigned, already assigned and closed tickets, as well as tickets linked to problems that are more general.

The events that take one ticket from one condition to another are registered by time, thus the resolution time for problems can be settled.

Since users are not always on-line, as operators and analysts are, it is possible to send notifications or requests of feedback by e-mail.

As POPHelp™ provides tracking machinery, it is also useful within the Intranet/Extranet, or even Internet structure, since an operator can report his/her own problem submitting it to higher levels of resolution.

Hence, the workflow base forms a solved problem historical base, with internal as well as user-reported problems.

It is possible for a POPHelp™ operator to gather more than one ticket on the screen and change its condition. She/he can also see all her/his open tickets, or just see only those meeting a certain pattern of search. For instance, if an operator has tenths of tickets with various errors related to a determined problem, software for example, a new version release of that software could lead her/him to close all those tickets. Note: there is a difference with the grouping based on the dependence of another link of higher order.

POPHelp™, the way to service quality in customer attention