A few days ago, it was announced that there is a major vulnerability in OpenSSL, known as Heartbleed. eStreamDesk customers will not be affected by this vulnerability as our servers do not use OpenSSL for SSL/TLS.

We are happy to announce the latest eStreamDesk update! The new features include:

• Bootstrap based responsive layout that automatically adjusts to any device and screen size
• Better CC handling
• Hourly rules that run only during business hours
• Easy helpdesk switching for clients with multiple helpdesk accounts
  
• Facebook & Twitter ticket importing updates
• Performance updates

We've added live chat support to eStreamDesk! With the live chat option enabled your users will be able to communicate in real-time with support agents. When chat is completed it is automatically converted to ticket for easy tracking and following up.

The chat functionality is available both on the helpdesk page and on the support button that you can place on your site.

We're pleased to announce that eStreamDesk now integrates with Zapier. For those not familiar with Zapier already - it is a service that allows you to connect different systems so you can push data between them without having to write any code or work with APIs.

For example you can connect your eStreamDesk account with your Google Talk one so whenever you receive a ticket it will send you an IM message. You can also have it create a new Google Task for you or add it to your Google Drive, Dropbox or post something on Twitter. Zapier supports 196 services to date so there are plenty of possibilities.

https://zapier.com/zapbook/estreamdesk/

Not long ago we announced that in our next update you will have the option to connect your eStreamDesk to your Facebook and/or Twitter accounts and make the customer support far more effective. It is very simple, but in this article we would like to shed a little light on this option and give you an idea why this is important and why you need it so much.

We wanted to give you a heads up about the next eStreamDesk update that will bring newly designed themes, integration with Facebook and Twitter, and new pricing model. 

How does the social networks integration work?

You will be able to add all your Facebook pages and Twitter users to your eStreamDesk account. Whenever someone posts on your Facebook page wall, sends you a Facebook message or mentions you in a Tweet the service will automatically create a ticket. When an agent replies to that ticket the helpdesk system will automatically post it back to the proper social network. Simple and effective!

What is the new pricing like and how will it affect me?

Details will be made available as we near the update date. The new pricing however will be more flexible than the existing one. For example if you want to add just one more agent or one more feature to your 5 agent Basic plan, you will no longer need to upgrade to the 10 agent Standard plan.

While we are revisiting pricing for new customers, we have gone through great lengths to ensure that our existing loyal customers are not affected negatively at all. Existing customers can keep their current subscriptions if it is more cost efficient for them.

The e-mail pass through feature allows you to use multiple incoming and outgoing e-mail addresses to provide better user experience and branding. When the pass through is enabled the helpdesk system will send replies from the e-mail address used to receive the ticket in the first place.

The feature is available with the Premium billing plan and allows you to easily consolidate multiple helpdesk accounts into one. Here are some cases where this is useful:

• A product could have different brandings and could be offered on different sites with different domain names. In this case the replies will be sent from the proper domain that will match the domain where the ticket was originally received.
   
• A company could have different products offered on different sites with different domains. Sending replies from the proper domain would offer better customer experience and the company doesn't need to have separate helpdesk for each of their products or brands.
   
• A support team could provide support services on behalf of several companies. Normally a helpdesk would have to be created for each company but with the e-mail pass through the team can use a single helpdesk.

At eStreamDesk we understand that not all support agents are equal and some need to have more permissions than other. That is why we are introducing 5 different agent access levels:

• Tickets assigned to agent only - This is the most restricted level. It allows access only to tickets specifically assigned to the agent.
• Tickets assigned to agent or agent departments - This level allows access to the tickets specifically assigned to the agent as well as to tickets assigned to the agent department.
• Tickets assigned to agent or agent departments and unassigned tickets - Like the previous access level but also allows access to tickets that are not assigned neither to agent nor to department.
• All tickets in agent departments - Allows access to all tickets in the agent department even if they are currently assigned to someone else.
• All tickets in agent departments and unassigned - Like the previous access level but also allows access to tickets that are not assigned to any department. This is the highest level of access and if the agent is added to all departments then they will have access to all tickets just like the administrator.

Thank you for your great feedback during the development and beta testing of the agent  access levels feature!

eStreamDesk now supports custom reports! You can easily generate report for number of tickets, comments and response time. The custom reports can filter columns by numerous fields and properties - such as status, type, priority, assignee, requester, groups, departments, labels and subject.