Features

This page provides information about the SupportWizard features. Please see the Specifications page for a detailed description of the ASP services and an overview of the product architecture.

Features

While Workflow automates the flow of control from department to department, the Business Rules engine automates backend processes and interaction with other enterprise systems. For example, it might send an alert if an urgent issue has been left standing for too long, or distribute reports and notifications necessary for regulatory compliance.

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Creating a business rule is easy with the wizard driven interface.



Rules can be triggered by real-time events, time intervals or a combination of conditions.



Integration with the GUI, API and Email systems provides power and flexibility.



The system understands that different rules and assignments need to apply at different times for organizations that operate across multiple time zones with distributed suppliers, sales and support organizations.



Business rules can interact directly with other business processes or third party databases, trigger emails and update system data.

It is like having a dedicated staff that works 24/7 to keep your business running smoothly. Each of your business goals are implemented precisely, without the possibility for "human" error and at almost zero cost.

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Now your staff and users no longer have to supply a login name and password, they can login instantly using single sign-on / NT authentication.

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To prevent against the loss of data though disk failures, a fully automatic backup utility is built into the product.

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Charts, reports and dashboards provide a wealth of graphical feedback. There are too many charts to list here, but they include charts showing lead conversion rates, sales projection, the number of outstanding requests, the rate at which issues and requests are submitted on an hourly, daily, weekly or monthly basis, the severity of tickets, the average time taken by staff members to resolve problems.



An unlimited number of additional custom charts may be defined and the default charts modified in a couple of minutes each using the wizard driven browser interface.

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Trend charts and reports show how your company is progressing and provide the business intelligence you need to judge the impact of strategic decisions.

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The drag and drop customization allows custom charts from multiple tables to be combined to form dashboards in a few seconds.





The data behind the charts is available with the click of a button.

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With a few mouse clicks, managers can define custom reports, view them immediately and save them for re-use later.

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Automatic asset discovery is supported through WMI integration, allowing automatic capture of whatever hardware, OS and softare information you need from the user's PC.

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Supervisors and/or staff can be notified by e-mail of newly submitted tickets or particular situations, such as response times exceeding specified limits or new tickets assigned to them. Escalation rules are unlimited and easily customized.

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SupportWizard supports self-registration to eliminate the burden of manually creating new users.

The ability of users to self-register can be enabled or disabled with a couple of mouse-clicks.

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You may embed user names and passwords in HTML strings to allows users to login to SupportWizard with a single mouse-click.

The same HTML string may contain the page to which the user is returned on exiting SupportWizard. It may also specify which screen should appear first, such as the New User Form, the Search screen, the Novice Welcome screen etc.

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The integrated chat facility allows your staff to communicate with multiple customers concurrently, reducing support costs and telephone charges.

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Incoming e-mail can be popped from multiple email accounts to automatically generate different kinds of records and send confirmation to the sender in regular text or full HTML format.




For example, the sender might receive the above confirmation message.

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SupportWizard provides for both automatic and manual generation of outgoing e-mail messages in plain text or HTML format. These messages can contain variables such as the users name ($Name in the example above) that are automatically substituted into the text.

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To avoid the problems of email communications and ensure that all transactions are fully logged, the Workflow and Business Rules engine can generate automatic hotlinks as part of outgoing emails (see sample email above) that can log the user back into the individual record:



These hotlinks may also be configured to set specific fields and take the user to your choice of URL when he has finished.

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Any kind of user activity can be tracked with the desired level of granularity and the results displayed as graphical charts, HTML reports or Excel spreadsheets.

The instant messaging feature can be used to send messages to specific individuals or teams in real time.

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Auditability is critical for government compliance and it is fully supported in EnterprpriseWizard through automated tracking of all record changes.

Not only is the full history available, but a snap-shot of the record as it existed at any point in the past can be obtained with a single mouse click.

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The integrated HTML editor enables the creation of rich online content.



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Text containing URL information, such as http://www.enterprisewizard.com is automatically converted into working hotlinks.

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Multiple files of any kind may be attached to a record either though the Web interface or through incoming e-mail.

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Each issue or request is tracked by a user-defined set of criteria and an automatically assigned ID.

This ID is available as soon as the record is created, so your staff can provide the ID to customers as soon as they call. (By comparison, many systems do not provide an ID until the record is saved, so customers are forced to wait until all the fields have been entered before they can get a reference number).

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The integrated Full Text Search (FTS) engine provides a fast natural language search capability with synonym support, to assist staff and end users in finding the information they need, in the database and in attached files.

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Advanced searches with complex logic are easily defined or customized using a Saved Search GUI that supports parentheses, variables and global values. For example, the above search took less than 1 minute to define

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During a search of the database, any field or combination of fields can be used to specify the order in which results are displayed to the user.

The results can also be sorted interactively by simply clicking on the column heading.

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Custom searches can be saved with your choice of name.


Saved searches are immediately available from the pull down menu bar.

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Tickets for similar problems can be linked so solutions need to be specified only once.

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Multi-language support allows your sales, support and marketing organizations to provide 24/7 support and services worldwide.

You do not have to choose between languages, the product can be accessed in multiple languages simultaneously, with all messages, wizards, status reports and field labels automatically provided in the language of the user's browser, or chosen manually.



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Users can be given easy access to standard answers via an FAQ interface that is fully integrated with the knowledgebase and the customizable look and feel provides a seamless experience with the rest of the web site.

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To streamline your customer support process, lets you designate the answers to common issues as "Standard Solutions". Your technicians can find the best standard solution using a keyword search while they are responding to customer inquiries.



The ticket summaries are immediately displayed and the appropriate fields can be appended to the fields in the current ticket or can replace the existing field.

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Full Workflow functionality allows you to control, automate and enforce how data is processed. Even complex processes can be modelled in a matter of minutes.



Based on the rules you define with the point and click interface, information is routed directly to the correct individuals or groups. With support for automatic e-mail notification, data updates, re-assignment and scripting, Workflow reduces administrative load, increases transparency and automates the flow of information throughout the business.

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Customization

Custom tables, each with the full power of SupportWizard reports, charts, escalation rules, custom fields and workflows can be created with the click of a button

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Custom relationships between tables can be created with equal ease to precisely model and automate business processes within and across departments.

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Custom forms and layout are easily created or modified using the drag and drop editor

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Multi-tab input forms provide a clean and intuitive interface. Naturally, you can create new tabs and move fields from one tab to another with the drag and drop editor.

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A completely custom interface can be created using tools such as DreamWeaver or Fusion. Simply insert XML tags for dynamic elements such as a tables, status messages, login block and let the wizard generate the content for you.

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The colors, fonts, graphic images and style of the default SupportWizard interface can be modified through the Look and Feel wizard without writing a line of code.

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The Look and Feel editor allows you to create multiple simultaneous custom brandings, so that each of your customers can be greeted with a look and feel that matches their corporate standard.



Creating a new look only takes a few minutes.

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Unlimited custom views allow you to zero in on the information that matters most.

You can choose a different view with a click of the mouse.

A few more clicks is all it takes to create a custom view with color coding to highlight the most important records.

Fields can be added, removed, modified or rearranged, without interrupting production use.

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A full range of field types are available to accurately capture and manage your data.

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Custom choice tables can be created, modified or deleted using the point and click interface, and the system default choice tables can be modified in exactly the same fashion.

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The graphic images can be replaced with your own images as needed.

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The fonts and colors can be replaced with the fonts and colors needed to match your corporate website.

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SupportWizard can be customized through the modification of fields, templates, scripts etc while it is on-line. So your 24/7 service is never interrupted.

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Unlike products that force your company into the 'tract house' of a fixed database schema, the SupportWizard schema adapts to meet the exact needs of your company with custom fields and custom tables and custom relationships between tables.

You can even create custom relationships to external databases and dynamically display those external fields within SupportWizard

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Our API's provide everything you need to integrate SupportWizard with your in-house systems, and if your staff is busy we provide a full range of consulting, integration and custom development services.

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Custom business logic and intelligence can be added to SupportWizard through custom scripts that are invoked when records are created or modified. Data is transferred to these scripts through the XML transport layer and the scripts themselves may be written in languages such as Perl or Java or the language of your choice.

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For advanced server side scripting and custom batch processing, SupportWizard supports a full Web Services API.

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The REST interface provides a clean and easy integration method when the full sophisication of WebServices is not required. The REST interface supports the essential CRUDS operations of Create, Read, Update, Delete, Select.

This allows automation of actions from external agents such as user forms, Javascript/AJAX and external programs.

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In addition exchanging data and integrating systems through the the Perl, Java, REST and Web Services API's, data files in ASCII, XML or Excel format can be scheduled for automated import/export at times of your choosing.

SupportWizard can import and export data in standard, tab-delimited ASCII, or proprietary formats for the exchange of information with database, spreadsheet, contact management and word-processing applications.

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Access Control

Full integration with LDAP and Microsoft Active directory is supported to eliminate the overhead of maintaining user accounts on multiple servers.

LDAP users are treated exactly like regular users with group access permissions and configurable mapping between user fields and LDAP attributes

Configurable Password Controls

Extensive options are provided to configure password security.

User groups

The admin can define precise access to menu items, records and specific fields within records for each User Group.





Standard groups include admin, staff, registered users and unregistered users. An unlimited number of additional groups may be added as needed, and the permissions for the default groups may be easily modified.

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Record Level Permissions

The admin can define precise record level access permissions.

SQL search based permission provide sophisticated permission structures such as "Allow resellers to view issues submitted by their customers, but not the customers of other resellers"

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Field Level Permissions

The admin can also define permissions for access to individual fields within a record.

In the above example, users in the selected group can View the Assign Date field in records that they own, but they cannot set (Create) this field value in new records or Edit it in their own records. They can View it in other people's records but cannnot Edit it in other people's records.

It takes just one mouse click by the administrator to change any one of these permissions.

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Web Interface for Users

It all comes together for your customers with a simple Web interface for users that makes it easy to submit requests and upload or download patches, updates, or other files. Further, this interface can be provided in a different look and feel to each of your customers- a look that matches their corporate web site.

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Web Interface for Staff

A powerful Web interface for staff and administrators makes it easy to respond to problem tickets and perform administrative tasks.

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