Welcome to the third in a series of Version 4 development updates and previews.

Following from preview #2 (where we looked at live chat logic and automations), this preview takes a first look at the new, redesigned desktop operators’ application. Because there is a lot to cover, we will spread out the preview of the desktop application over a few postings.

Today we’ll take a look at:

• The interface in general
• Multiple account support
• Panes

The main view of the new operators' desktop application. The icons which are blurred out represent secret V4 features which will be announced at a later date.

The new interface to the operators’ desktop application is stunning – in terms of usability and style. As with all Kayako products, we have not overlooked usability in favor of cosmetic sugar. We are sure you will agree that V4’s operators’ application blends both pleasant style with accessibility perfectly – making use of bold content, large icons and the popular ribbon which replaces the aged toolbar.

Existing users will still feel comfortably at home with the new application. Essentially all of the existing functionality of the operators’ application remains and works in roughly the same way. Of course, we have made hundreds of enhancements to workflow and accessibility of the functionality, including a raft of new features.

Ribbon – the new toolbar

The new ribbon replaces the tool bar

The beauty of the new ribbon is that it needs no explanation. Every feature and function it gives access too is immediately obvious and self-explanatory. Common functions such as switching views, changing your status and accepting or refusing chats are now fewer clicks away. You can globally control your status (for all accounts) using the status button on the far left of the ribbon.

The ribbon menu (the area has been greyed out for illustration purposes)

The screenshot above illustrates the replacement “File” menu introduced by the new ribbon. This menu gives you access to account settings, application settings and tools, and operator status control over specific accounts.

Stacked alerts

System tray alerts have been given a makeover with icons, formatted text and transitions.

Refreshed system tray alerts

Multiple account support

The new operators’ desktop application will support multiple accounts. You can sign into multiple Kayako support desks with just one instance of the application. When you sign into an account, a new tab is created which displays the visitor monitoring grid for that support.

Multiple account tabs, with a custom tab color for one of the accounts

Custom colors can be specified for these tabs, and subsequent chat tabs that open under that account. Switching account tabs also refreshes the operator list.

Tabs and panes

Visitor grids, map views, chats and web views are all tabbed in the new desktop application.

A screenshot showing tabbed chats

You can finely customize the layout of each pane in the application. Panes can be rearranged by clicking, holding and dragging. Guiding widgets (shown in the screenshot below) appear to make placing your panes easier. The guiding widgets solve a common problem with customizable paned interfaces, which is the guesswork involved in where the panes will dock once you release the mouse button.

Rearranging panes by holding and dragging

Panes can be pulled out into separate windows (however, you cannot pull individual chats into separate windows).

A pane has been docked out of the main application into a separate window

Visitor grid

The visitor grid

The visitor grid displays the following information in sortable columns:

• Visitor IP address or name (if they are logged in, or have previously been engaged)
• Status – browsing, chatting, in a chat queue
• Department – if in a chat, in which department
• Operator – if in a chat, with which operator
• Total time – total time spent on the website
• Wait time – total time spent waiting in a chat queue
• Search engine – icon displayed if referred by a search engine
• Browser – icon displayed representing the visitor’s browser
• Current page – the URL to the page the visitor is currently viewing
• Referrer – the URL to the page that referred the visitor, if any
• Country – if detectable (through GeoIP translation,) the visitor’s country

As in the example to the right, visitors can be sorted into groups according to visitor rules (discussed in V4 preview #2). These groups can be colored, allowing you to quickly spot and prioritize potential leads and better proactively engage your visitors.

As with the current application, you can switch to view navigation footprints, extended information, chat history and notes about the visitors in the information area underneath the visitor grid.

Feedback from the last preview

Our last update previewed new live chat features, logic and automations. We received some fantastic feedback. In this section, we summarise some of the questions and feedback received, as well as the subsequent actions and decisions we have taken:

[We want] Options for chat routing, including notifying all logged in staff users simultaneously. This gets compounded for reason #1, a customer gets disconnected, re-joins chat, and only one staff member is notified that they are re-joining. Frequently it ends up going to a different staff member than was previously talking to them, leading to confusion all around.

(from Chris Buechler) Version 4 will have an option that, when enabled, will try to route a disconnected user back to the same operator they were with before the disconnection. With regards to the notification for all staff users simultaneous, at present we have no plans to implement this because there will be a number of problems associated with chat accept collisions. Perhaps you could reduce the round-robin time and increase the number of ‘chat retry times’ to work around this?

Options for staff to take chats using something other than Windows. We have Mac, FreeBSD, and Linux users who should be able to staff chat without having Windows available.

(from Chris Buechler) We will be launching V4 with just a Microsoft Windows client, but as soon as we have launched we will be looking to build fully functional clients for other platforms.

Will Kayako develop a webservices for Client Aerea ? GetDept, GetStatus, SubmitTicket, GetTickets, etc…

(from Guilherme) If you mean an API for those functions (and more), then yes – there will be a full RESTful API that supports the services you have specified.

It would be very handy if an entire group could be assigned to a skill and not just users.

(from Chris Boulton) Suggestion noted and filed. No implementation decision has been made yet, but there is a high possibility of this going in.

Would be great that with the criteria, there’s a rule for cookie exists/cookie contains value. Kind of a mediocre method of checking things, but would make this really flexible on our end.

(from Chris Boulton) Great suggestion. Same as above.

Will there be a billing module added?

(from Edwin) There will be a lot more support for tracking billable work and time tracking in general, but we have no plans to ship with a pay-per-ticket type module (if that is what you are asking after).

Will be interesting to see what new reporting there is and or reporting tools.

(from Garry Hamilton-Smith) V4 will ship with a robust and broad reporting module, which will allow you to define your own custom reports based on data used throughout the product. A preview dedicated to reporting will be posted later on in the year.

Will CSS be moved out of Database and into external stylesheets with some kind of override system?

(from vinny) CSS for the end-user support center will still be stored in the database. Vast improvements to the templating system (including versioning and a diff tool) will ship with V4.

View PostStaff knowledgebase would be amazing. I think there’s been discussion about it being improved but I’m still waiting to see if it’s confirmed that there will be an internal staff KB, hopefully with the ability to easily add images and files as well.

(from ZsystemK) The staff control panel will house a purpose-built interface to the knowledgebase for your staff users.

@kayako Is it possible to get Instant Alert to monitor multiple installations? It would help us quite a bit if at all possible.

(from @SolarCurve) InstaAlert will support multiple accounts.

Feature requests

We are processing hundreds of them a month, and it is never too late to make yours. Pick the appropiate forum section for your feature request, post it and keep subscribed to the thread to receive updates from staff.