19. Other Features

Articles can be created with just a name (display title), text (details) and page-title tag (for search engines). It is also suggested to use keywords; as well as populating the meta-keywords tag on the page, these keywords are also searched as part of the knowledgebase search on the front end. It is useful to add alternative spellings or names for certain things, or common misspellings, to ensure that articles have the best chance of being found with the knowledgebase search.

The Kartris support ticket system provides a web-based alternative for dealing with technical and sales support that has a number of advantages.

• Tickets go into a pool, with any member of staff being able to take them from the back end. Even staff in multiple offices can provide support.
  
  
• If a customer is in discussion with a member of staff who is absent or unavailable, another staff member can easily take over the ticket and ensure that support continues to be provided, unlike email where it may be problematic to access an absent staff member's email.
  
  
• The ticket system keeps the original support request and subsequent replies from staff and the customer in a chronological thread.
  
  
• The support ticket system is based around the same customer records that order history and other account-related features are linked to. It allows you to access further customer information easily from the support ticket. It also means that the customer's ability to post tickets can be linked to their account status. The system effectively controls access to support, so only those entitled to it are given it.
  
  
• Having support issues all contained within the database creates scope to monitor performance, as well as search for similar issues. Kartris keeps track of the time taken in responding each time, so a total time for each ticket and customer can be calculated.

Support tickets opened by customers will show up in yellow in the back end support tickets view when they are still unassigned to a staff member. Once a site admin views the ticket and assigns it to themselves (the simplest way is using the 'Me' link next to the 'Assigned to' menu), they can reply to it.

The customer will receive an email when the ticket is updated. They should enter any follow up comments through the web site rather than by responding to the email, to ensure all comments are linked to the thread. The ticket will show as light grey in the listing.

Once a customer has replied, the admin responsible for the ticket will receive an email notification. The ticket will show again as yellow, meaning that action is required.

Once an issue has been resolved, the ticket can be closed. At this point it will change colour to dark grey.

The status can also be set as 'not sure' or 'unresolved'. Tickets will generally be set to this when you wish to highlight them for future attention rather than immediate attention.

Kartris shows a number of statistics on each ticket, including the number of tickets raised by this customer, the total number of messages and the total time taken on tickets for this customer (in addition to the time taken for this ticket, which is under the ticket details on the left hand side).