PF HelpDesk – latest revision history and current file versions

Latest revision history

• The Due Date field is now added in the tblTickets table of the PF HelpDesk database.
• The 'Open Ticket' button in the standard Outlook toolbar (just adjacent to the double-headed button) now works with the 'E-mail to Responsible' also.
• TimeStamp - Full date and time in locale format of the system is added in the new e-mail thread in the ticket body.
• A new email template 'Automatic e-mail to Responsible on reply received' is available. This e-mail notification will be sent to the responsible staff of the ticket when an e-mail reply from the caller is added to the ticket, or when a new e-mail is added to the ticket. Works for both ticket history alternatives, ticket body and subfolders.
• In Outlook 2007, when a new e-mail reply is added to the ticket, the ticket is red-flagged and appears unread.
• For a new Access database, the data type of the field 'intTicketID' of the table tblTicketMsgs is now modified to have Long Integer data type (previously, it was just Integer type, allowing upto 65332 records).
• In the PF HelpDesk Clean Subfolder utility, we have added a new column 'Status' in the list view. This column will show "Failed! No adequate permission!" in case the subfolder to be deleted cannot be deleted.

• A button to fix corrupt Outlook tickets ‒ that opens in normal note form and as a yellow-pinned icon.
• A button to fix tickets in the database which are set to opened although their corresponding Outlook tickets are missing. All such tickets can be closed by a single click of a button.

• The option to enable/disable automatic e-mail confirmation sent to caller when a ticket is created is added in the Callers list tab of PF HelpDesk admin tool. A checkbox option is used to either enable or disable automatic confirmation e-mails to each caller.
• In the PF HelpDesk Settings, Callers tab, it is now possible to specify default responsible field for each caller by simply clicking the corresponding field (which is greyed out, with a caption of "..."). When clicked, a new dialog form allows the admin to select a responsible person from the drop down, which would get inserted automatically to the corresponding cell. To edit an existing value, just click in the default responsible field again to select a different person.
• If any of the caller or responsible name includes an apostrophe ('), it may lead to error when opening a ticket, or when trying to add a reply from the caller to the ticket. As this character (') is an integral part of SQL language, we have now handled it in a better way, by encoding that character when making a SQL query.
• Bug fix: the ticket is now saved (if it was modified) before sending the closed ticket automatic email to the caller, such that that the email has the current ticket body and other ticket information in the email.
• "E-mail to caller" does not work without the [DESCRIPTION] placeholder variable, so now this variable is made mandatory when 'email to caller' template is edited and saved.

• Addition of an option button, 'Auto-add new caller', in the tab Ticket form settings in the PF HelpDesk Settings dialog. Checking this option, will enable PF HelpDesk to automatically add a caller to the database if he or she is not already entered there, when a new ticket is created.
   
• Updated the background graphic in PF HelpDesk Settings dialog to showing kalmstrom.com Business Solutions instead of kalmstrom.com Outlook Solutions.

• Add new caller to PF Helpdesk database automatically - When a new caller sends an e-mail to the helpdesk and this e-mail is automatically or manually converted to a ticket, the caller’s name and e-mail address will be automatically added to the table tblCaller in the database (if it does not exists).
  
  
• Auto-assign of Responsible. For each caller in tblCallers it will be possible to assign a default Responsible person. A new column in tblCallers 'strResponsible' is added. With the PF Helpdesk settings > Callers tab, the admin can link a particular caller with a responsible staff such that it is automatically assigned to the ticket when that particular caller sends an e-mail. If the field is not filled out, the Responsible field in the ticket is left blank, and the Responsible person has to be selected manually as in the earlier versions.
  
  
• The PF HelpDesk admin can now select a caller category to send a common e-mail to all callers within a category. A new button in the right hand panel of the PF HelpDesk homepage opens up a dialog where the receiver category can be selected, and a blank e-mail is addressed to all callers in the selected category in the bcc field.
  
  
• PF Helpdesk admins can now use the new PFHD subfolders removal utility 'PFHDCleanSubfolders.exe' to remove ticket subfolders (sent/received) for closed tickets, to increase the efficiency of the public folder in particular, and your Exchange server in general.
  
  
• Confirmation e-mail to caller is now enabled also when creating a new ticket using the 'new' button.
  
  
• Now, responsible persons can create tickets out of Outlook task and appointment items using the double-headed button.
  
  
• All known references of company name updated to 'kalmstrom.com Business Solutions".
   
  
• Includes a new OLAPReporting.exe
  

• Confirmation email to caller are sent in twice in later update of unofficial PFHelpdesk.exe
  
• Confirmation email to caller does not keep the HTML formatting of the original email body
  
• When a ticket is closed, PF HelpDesk failed to mark the corresponding ticket in database as closed, thereby, creating the problem of not able to re-open closed tickets
  
• When a caller replies to a closed ticket, the existing ticket is not opened automatically, instead, it creates a new ticket.
  
• PF HelpDesk throws a runtime error when converting email to ticket, if the subject of the email has any curly brackets {}, which is not embedded by PF HelpDesk.

• To avoid unbound ticket forms (arising out of opening ticket inspectors before PFHelpdesk.exe can be loaded), once, PFhelpdesk.exe is loaded, it also checks if any of the active inspectors (opened ticket forms) are being bound to PFHelpdesk.exe. Any form that is unbound would be processed to enable drop downs, vertical toolbar etc.
• New button in PF HelpDesk add-in (Outlook), which functions as a shortcut to the PF Helpdesk public folder.
• Change of the way a new ticket ID is generated. Instead of saving an empty ticket in Outlook first to get a ticket ID from the database, now it is generated when the user saves the ticket. This arrangement serves two purposes:

1) removes the risk of 'freezing' of the ticket body
2) removes the risk that an empty ticket (after clicking no to save ticket confirmation) is saved to the public folder.
• 'Print Multiple tickets' dialog is redesigned to fit a 800X600 screen
• "Printed Ticket" caption is replaced with "Print"
• The mismatch Problem category and problem type labels in the advanced filter dialog is corrected.
• The 'open tickets' and 'closed tickets' checkbox options in 'Print multiple tickets' dialog are removed. Instead, it searches open tickets only by default.
• Added "..." at the end of the 'Export to file' button to signify opening of a new dialog.
• The 'Problem category' drop down filter field is removed from the 'Search closed tickets'. Instead, 'Problem Type' drop down is used. as problem type is the mostly used in PF HelpDesk.
• In the Advanced filter dialog, OK button is now the default button, that is, it is clicked when typing Enter.
• Re-opening the ticket now sets the date due ticket to today
• When a user clicks 'No' to client install, PFhelpdesk.exe is shutdown.
• On a new installation, 'Save email in ticket body' is enable by default.
• In the PF HelpDesk Settings form - a link to the KBase website is placed where the user can set the path to the KBase Outlook folder

• Double tickets when auto-conversion with "saved e-mails to subfolder enabled'
• Date of the original body of the ticket defaulting to 1899 when 'Save e-mails to ticket body' is enabled
• Auto-conversion can sometime get stuck, that is, no folders are monitored by PF HelpDesk for incoming emails due to an invalid Post Item flag (with the subject 'Folder is monitored by PF HelpDesk'). This post item is inserted into the monitored folder (if it is not already there) by PF HelpDesk signifying that a particular user is monitoring the folder and that no other users should monitor it (so as to minimize the risk of conflict and multiple tickets creations from a single e-mail). But automatic conversion will not work thereafter for a particular monitored folder for any user, if the Outlook or PFHelpdesk.exe of the user monitoring that folder crashes. Now this is fixed by implementing the following checks when the user access the PF HelpDesk public folder:
  a) Checks if the post item flag is created by the same user. If it is, it is obvious that the folder monitoring flag was not removed last time when user navigated out of PF HelpDesk public folder in the last session. In this case, PF HelpDesk simply removes the invalid flag and inserts a new flag and monitors the folder for incoming emails.
  b) If the flag post item was created by some other user, PF HelpDesk will check when it was created. If the creation time was well before 24 hours, then PF HelpDesk assumes that it is probably an invalid flag and that the current user should be allowed to monitor that folder. So, PF HelpDesk removes the flag and updates it with the latest user and folder monitoring continues.

• In Outlook 2000 and 2002, if you tried to create a new ticket or open an existing one, you might get a crash windows error message. This is now fixed!
• The e-mail notification to admin specified e-mail addresses (users) when new tickets are generated, did not work in in auto-conversion mode. This is now fixed!
• Some users got an Outlook Security prompt asking if they wanted to allow an application (PF Helpdesk) to access a particular restricted fields such as e-mail address, body etc. This is now fixed!
• The KBase path (as specified in PF HelpDesk Settings) did not work for some users when the organization used multiple MS Office languages among the users. This is now fixed!
• Dutch phrases  updated.

• bug fix, automatic conversion, closed ticket re-opening when caller replies to it.
• Added ticket date created variable for inserting to e-mail templates [DATECREATED]
• Enable the ability to view work descriptions when previewing closed ticket in 'Search Closed tickets' dialog form.
• when user customize the subject of the 'E-mail confirmation to caller when ticket is created' template, PF HelpDesk checks if TicketID variable [TICKETID] is inserted. If not, PF HelpDesk automatically appends the subject with {[TICKETID]}.
• Updated language phrases
• Updated statistics tool, OLAP Reporting Tool
• Client tool installer now includes the Windows common controls 6.0 (mscomctl.ocx)

• When a ticket is closed, a notification e-mail is sent to the caller automatically confirming the resolution of the ticket.
• Confirmation e-mails informing callers about a new ticket allotment are sent also on manually created ticket (the one using the double-headed button).
• All e-mail templates are now consolidated under a single tab in the PF HelpDesk settings.
• When clicking the button to manually convert an e-mail to a ticket (the double-headed button), the selected email without the ticked ID (that is, without the curly bracket ID {1}) in the subject, can be either created as a new ticket, or can be added to an existing ticket. For this feature, a dialog box is displayed when clicking this button, presenting the user two options: a) create a new ticket b) add it to an existing ticket.
• When a caller replies to a ticket e-mail which is already closed, PF HelpDesk will automatically re-open the closed ticket.
• There are now two ways of saving associated e-mails to a ticket:
  1) Through subfolders
  2) Through the ticket body field.
  Either one of these or both these features can be enabled.
  For saving e-mails to the ticket body, the e-mails are ordered in chronological form. Redundant forward chunks of the e-mails are removed through an intelligent algorithm and only the required and latest replies are added to the body portion along with the HTML formatting, with a header portion that includes when the e-mail was received, from whom etc. Attachments from each e-mail are attached to the ticket itself and each attachment name is embedded to the relevant part of the e-mail.  
• Possibility to search closed tickets by more fields such as a range of dates, caller name, problem or email address.
• Possibility to print multiple selected tickets by date range (due date or created date) or category and to print each with all of its history (in descending chronological order). Additionally, it supports exporting to TEXT and HTML files.
• New FAQ feature, whereby the helpdesk admin can define answers to FAQ related to their problem areas. These answers can then be used when replying to caller with recurring issues in a single click from the ticket form. Supports HTML formatting, and a WYSIWYG editor is integrated in the admin tool to compose new answers.
• A dedicated helpdesk signature HTML template is available for inserting into e-mail templates using the constant [SIGNATURE].
• Support for saving user-defined fields (introduced by users in the ticket form) dynamically to the database.
• Default minutes can be specified so that when a ticket is closed with no work item description, (eg. empty minutes), PF HelpDesk automatically assigns default minutes to the work done portion of that ticket and closes the ticket.
• Tickets can be forwarded to a third person. A new button is available in the ticket form.
• Option for setting/resetting the addition of non-existent values (typed in the users instead of selecting one from the drop down list) to the database.
• 'Open Ticket' now works on source e-mails from which tickets were created, that is, it will open the relevant ticket that was created from that e-mail directly. (The source e-mails should have the PF HelpDesk ticket created tag and ticket ID in the flag field.)
• All low-risk errors such as unavailability of SQL server or network error, or read-only permission etc. are handled with friendlier messages that are self explanatory by nature.
  
• A new delete button is available in the vertical toolbar on the PF Helpdesk homepage. When a user remove a ticket with this button, the corresponding ticket in the database is also removed. (Removing Outlook items using the inbuilt Outlook remove button will not remove corresponding tickets from the database.)
• A new [DUEDATE] tag is added for inserting into e-mail templates.
• User defined fields in the ticket form can be optional selected to be saved to the database (tblTickets table) on the fly. For each selected custom field, PF Helpdesk adds a new field in the tblTicket table, in the format 'CustomUserField'. For example, if a user had introduced 'CallerAge' in the form, PF Helpdesk will create a new table field with the name 'CustomCallerAge' with string as datatype.

See also

• We want to adapt to and take advantage of changes in the Microsoft software we build on.



• When we receive reports about bugs we fix them as soon as possible.



• Of course we also try to add new features that our customers ask for.