V4: It’s alliiiiiveeee!

After several eons of research and development, collecting feedback from customers and consuming half the coffee beans in Colombia, we have reached a culminating milestone in Kayako’s history.

We’re giddy with excitement

Version 4, built from the ground up, leveraging all of the knowledge and experience we’ve garnered over the ten years we’ve been in business is now live on our own support site.

As you may have already seen, we have been using the live chat portion of the product in the wild for over a month now to ensure performance and stability on a very busy help desk.

We’ve made the decision to use V4 live ourselves before releasing as beta for several reasons:

  1. We are selfish and want to be the first people to use it.
  2. We want to show the level of confidence we have in what we are releasing as beta by being the first to implement it in the real world.
  3. We  are intent on providing the highest quality product possible when we put the ‘beta’ stamp on it, to encourage you to set up and start testing.

Please take a moment to meander on over to our support desk and take a look at the current state of the product, tinker around and get ready for V4 beta, because it’s coming this week.

Third-party developers already have copies of V4 in their possession and the feedback is very positive.  We can’t disclose who is doing what, but development has already begun on several modules and addons.

V4, as you may already be aware, will be equipped with a fully documented REST API that will allow for infinite extensibility and customization opportunities.  More to come on this later.

Some of our add-on products are beta-ready and some are not.  The operators’ desktop application will be released this week with the core products.   The remaining add-on products are under development on an ongoing basis and we will keep you informed here when we have more announcements.

Born again

We’d like to take this opportunity to announce that we will be rebranding the entire product lineup.  We didn’t just do this on a whim; we know we have the strongest brand names in helpdesk software.

We have renamed the products because we feel that this is not just a product iteration, but a product evolution — the introduction of a brand new platform, written from scratch, on which we’ve built your favorite helpdesk suites.

  • SupportSuite is now Kayako Fusion.
  • LiveResponse is now Kayako Engage.
  • eSupport is now Kayako Resolve.
  • The staff operators’ PC application is now called Kayako Desktop.
    • The built-in remote assistance feature is called Kayako OnSite.
  • InstaAlert is now Kayako Notify.
    • KayakoMobile is now Kayako Mobile (with a space!).

We feel that these new names are succinct, more memorable and are only fitting considering the magnitude of product advancement.  It’s not just our product line that is evolving, but also our team, organization and the services we offer to you.  We’re really excited about our new products (and their names) and we hope you are too.

New SaaS infrastructure

Our SaaS (hosted) product capabilities have also been vastly improved for V4.

Having provided SaaS helpdesks to thousands of organizations for nearly ten years, we have built a superbly reliable support platform. We are now making it brilliant.

We’re taking advantage of cloud computing to provide immediate scalability to growing support desks, introducing more regular backups with better redundancy, a new distributed DNS service for faster name resolution, a Content Distribution Network for speedy delivery of  core media files, superior server hardware and virtual machines to ensure the highest security, performance and availability for your help desk.

We’ve also developed a robust product build and distribution platform that we’ll be rolling out soon, as well as a new customer site and ordering system.

We will post separately and in detail about these new enhancements soon.

Mobile app update

Development is under way and progressing well on Kayako Mobile for both the Apple iOS and RIM BlackBerry platforms.  We plan to provide screenshots and previews as we progress through the development cycle.

The Mobile applications for these platforms may not be available for the initial RTM release of V4 depending on how the beta phase goes, but we are doing all that is possible to release basic clients in a timely manner.

Mac OSX

Don’t worry, Macophiles, we haven’t forgotten you this time around.  We do have plans to develop both a Kayako Desktop for Mac as well as a Kayako OnSite one-click installer.

Almost home

We’d like to thank all of our customers for being so patient with us during this shift to V4.  It’s been a long road, but we’re almost home.  Please, if you have any questions, feel free to comment and one of us will get back to you.

V4 update recap

Summary

  • A public beta is coming towards the end of this week. It will be available to everyone with an active support and upgrades subscription.
  • Kayako partner developers already have copies of V4 and are already building on top of the new platform.
  • We’re renaming our products.
  • We’re introducing a new SaaS infrastructure.
  • Our own support desk, now to be found at https://my.kayako.com, is running V4.

Although the import of ten years worth of data (millions of records) went smoothly, we are running a pre-beta build and there will be teething problems. We welcome your feedback and design critique – please join us on the forums or leave a comment here.

← Older Comments
  • Neven

    Mhhh, its so big… V3 was done with taste and minimalism in mind… this giant area is really disgusting… I expected more from the frontend… A FIXED version for example

    • http://intensedebate.com/profiles/jmedwards87 Jamie Edwards

      It is still just beta – we put it up like this to solicit feedback. There will be plenty of opportunity to customize and tailor the look to your own needs, too.

  • Neven

    Mhhh, its so big… V3 was done with taste and minimalism in mind… this giant area is really disgusting… I expected more from the frontend… A FIXED version for example

    • http://intensedebate.com/profiles/jmedwards87 Jamie Edwards

      It is still just beta – we put it up like this to solicit feedback. There will be plenty of opportunity to customize and tailor the look to your own needs, too.

  • Steven

    Any chance of native integration with Active Directory for end-users?

  • Steven

    Any chance of native integration with Active Directory for end-users?

  • Luke

    Why would you expect a fixed version? In my mind, a fluid layout is a much more challenging and possibly progressive than a fixed one.

    As for the rest of the design, I can't completely decide what I think about it. It's certainly not ugly, but there's something about those big rectangular buttons that bother me–not so much the size, but i think the shape, maybe…

    • Jason

      I agree i love the design my self but the buttons needs improvement – maybe the size of the border is too big.

      • Jamie Edwards

        Thanks, feedabck noted

  • Luke

    Why would you expect a fixed version? In my mind, a fluid layout is a much more challenging and possibly progressive than a fixed one.

    As for the rest of the design, I can't completely decide what I think about it. It's certainly not ugly, but there's something about those big rectangular buttons that bother me–not so much the size, but i think the shape, maybe…

    • Jason

      I agree i love the design my self but the buttons needs improvement – maybe the size of the border is too big.

      • Jamie Edwards

        Thanks, feedabck noted

  • lon

    I want to use it now

  • lon

    I want to use it now

  • Daniel

    Regarding the knowledgebase part of eSupport (Kayako Fusion), is it possible to display a tree of categories yet? Rather than having to click on one category, click on the next category, click on the next category, then get to some articles.

  • Daniel

    Regarding the knowledgebase part of eSupport (Kayako Fusion), is it possible to display a tree of categories yet? Rather than having to click on one category, click on the next category, click on the next category, then get to some articles.

  • bbrink

    Looking good, I logged in and cannot seem to get any knowledgbase suggestions to be presented during ticket submission. Can you shed some light on this? This is an area of particluar interest to us and it is one of the main features that sets Kayako apart from everyone else. I have tried throwing the systenm some softballs that almost exactly match KB article titles.

    • Jamie Edwards

      We will look into that

  • bbrink

    Looking good, I logged in and cannot seem to get any knowledgbase suggestions to be presented during ticket submission. Can you shed some light on this? This is an area of particluar interest to us and it is one of the main features that sets Kayako apart from everyone else. I have tried throwing the systenm some softballs that almost exactly match KB article titles.

    • Jamie Edwards

      We will look into that

  • Jason

    < 24 hours :)

    I have a question – Does Kayako now integrates with MS SQL to get customer data ?

  • Jason

    < 24 hours :)

    I have a question – Does Kayako now integrates with MS SQL to get customer data ?

  • Paul

    When will be available the beta version?

  • Paul

    When will be available the beta version?

  • http://twitter.com/hostservicenet @hostservicenet

    When will be available the beta version?

  • http://twitter.com/hostservicenet @hostservicenet

    When will be available the beta version?

  • Darin

    Will Beta be released today? Will it be in my customer login when available?

    • Jamie Edwards

      Hopefully yes, and we'll let you know how to enrol.

  • Darin

    Will Beta be released today? Will it be in my customer login when available?

    • Jamie Edwards

      Hopefully yes, and we'll let you know how to enrol.

  • Joshua

    When i spoke to them earlier they said it will be another couple of days due to some issues. I am far from happy as the goal posts seems to keep moving.

    • Jamie Edwards

      That is odd – I am not sure who you spoke to, but we're due to release beta tonight. The goal posts aren't being moved here; we said beta would be coming this week.

  • Joshua

    When i spoke to them earlier they said it will be another couple of days due to some issues. I am far from happy as the goal posts seems to keep moving.

    • Jamie Edwards

      That is odd – I am not sure who you spoke to, but we're due to release beta tonight. The goal posts aren't being moved here; we said beta would be coming this week.

  • Joshua

    My apologies then, but this was information given to me by the sales desk on live support. Thanks Jamie.

    • Jamie Edwards

      As it happens, we've just announced that beta will be dropping tomorrow instead of tonight (well, depending on your timezone).

      I saw the chat in question – it looks as your Amandeep was trying to explain that any current issues we have right now will be fixed over the next few days. Beta will still be here before the end of the week.

      Sorry for the confusion!

  • Joshua

    My apologies then, but this was information given to me by the sales desk on live support. Thanks Jamie.

    • Jamie Edwards

      As it happens, we've just announced that beta will be dropping tomorrow instead of tonight (well, depending on your timezone).

      I saw the chat in question – it looks as your Amandeep was trying to explain that any current issues we have right now will be fixed over the next few days. Beta will still be here before the end of the week.

      Sorry for the confusion!

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