Knowing the Way

Creating and Authorizing Users

FreeScout administration is just as easy as handling the help desk system's standard functions. The place to start is Manage | Settings , where you make global changes to the environment, such as changing the company name, user permissions, and location (Figure 2). To add additional mailboxes to the system, navigate to Settings | Mail Settings . New Mailbox lets you create a mailbox to which you can assign a name and authorized users.

Figure 2: The administration center is ready for use after the install.

User administration is a central task handled in the menu of the same name. Here, you can add users following the same pattern as for creating mailboxes. If you installed the Teams module, you can also create user groups. In principle, FreeScout also supports user management via an LDAP server, which means using the matching extension.

People who contact the FreeScout help desk in the consumer portal or by email automatically become customers, which involves creating a separate entry in customer management, which you can access from Manage | Customers . Besides this automatic setup, you can create new customers manually or load existing customers with the import function in Customers | Import Customers . FreeScout can import CSV files. You need to make sure that each customer has at least a first name and an email address. During import, the email address is matched between new and existing entries. In case of differences, a new entry is always created.

FreeScout Enhancements

FreeScout's basic system is limited to typical support functions. However, if the help desk is a key component of your corporate strategy, you need professional functions – including functions to optimize internal handling procedures. For this to happen, the FreeScout team offers just under 70 practical extensions [5]. Table 1 lists some of the most important of these along with their prices. Of special interest is that license fees are for a "lifetime" for a single FreeScout instance, with no recurring fees. Moreover, the modules are open sourced under the GNU Affero General Public License (AGPL) 3.0 [6].

Installing new modules is simple: The help desk environment manages extensions under Manage | Modules . Besides the official extensions, you can install community modules, which are scarce at the moment; in fact, only six were available for download on GitHub [7] when this issue went to press. The two most interesting community modules are the Calendar module, which provides a typical calendar that allows automatic import of external calendar data, and the Knowledge Base API extension, which lets you set up an interface between the internal knowledgebase and any external knowledgebases you use.

All of the official modules can be installed in the Modules folder. All you have to do is select the desired module and enter the license key. Then, press Install Module to install the extension (Figure 3). The add-ons installed previously are listed in Installed Module .

Figure 3: With just a few clicks of the mouse, the basic system can be extended to include valuable, but typically commercial, additional features.

New extensions integrate seamlessly into the functional areas. A few, like the Knowledge Base or the Reports module, also generate their own menus in which specific settings and functions are available. In the case of the Knowledge Base extension, you need to call Knowledge Base | Articles to create the desired content elements. The module settings help you find the knowledgebase URL for customers and configure the languages used and the available buttons. It is also possible to assign a user-specific URL. Category functions let you bundle articles by topic or project; nested structures are also supported.

The process of installing community modules is a little different from the official add-ons because these modules come as ZIP files. To begin, copy the archive file to the FreeScout module folder and unzip it. Next, delete the ZIP file and enable the module in the module manager. In the case of the calendar extension, you need to create an initial calendar at least in the module settings.

Migrating to FreeScout

If FreeScout has convinced you to switch, your first question is likely to be how you can migrate your existing help desk environment to the open source tool. The answer to this is the Help Desk Migration Service [8]. This easy-to-use web service handles the migration process without having to write a single line of code. The service lets you transfer the following systems to FreeScout: Assembla, Autotask PSA, Awesome Support, BOSSDesk, Cayzu, Cherwell Software, ConnectWise, Deskpro, Dixa, Dynamics 365, eDesk, Faveo Helpdesk, and Zendesk.

You will also find functions for importing CSV files and using databases. However, it is not clear which database types you can migrate with this service. In principle, it should be possible to convert any MySQL and PostgreSQL database without any problems.

To migrate, you need the commercial API & Webhooks Module on the FreeScout environment side. Make sure you use the latest version. The Migration Service also expects two assigned field types: Assign Email as the Chat type and Active as the Open status.