ReadyDesk version 9.4 has been released and is available for download today. This latest version has some great new features. Be sure and check out the new online demos and download the updated user manual.
Below is a quick list of some of the enhancements in this release:
- Internet Explorer Updates: Typically Internet Explorer runs in "compatibility Mode" when accessing intranet sites, which basically runs IE as version 7 or lower, which causes problems in ReadyDesk. This latest update forces IE to run as the version that is actually installed.
- Field Sorting: It is now easier to sort customizable field values using arrows rather than having to remove and re-add them to achieve the desired order.
- Social Media Logins: You can now optionally allow users to log into any of the interfaces using their social media accounts. Logging in using Facebook, Google and Microsoft are supported. If the email address in ReadyDesk is not the same as a user's social media email address you can simple add the social media email address as an alternate email address to their account in ReadyDesk. Once a user consents to allowing their social media account to be linked to ReadyDesk they can log in by simply clicking on an icon to be logged in automatically.
- Call Management (Asterisk PBX): Significant improvements have been made to the call management feature for better and easier integrations with the newer versions of Asterisk, FreePBX and even Google Voice.
- Dashboard Updates: There have been a few updates
to the technician dashboard. The first is the ability to optionally allow technicians to see a list of the newest customer accounts. This may be helpful if you want to keep your technicians up to date on recently added accounts. You can also optionally allow technicians to see the status of your email account(s). This is basically just a list of the email accounts you have your installation of ReadyDesk checking for incoming emails and the number of unprocessed emails in each. This is helpful if you ever encounter emails getting stuck in your inbox and them not getting processed by ReadyDesk (this can result from malformed email headers created by noon-compliant email clients). Technicians can also click to view the list of emails and delete them directly from their interface, if you allow it in the dashboard settings. Finally, we have also updated the dashboard with drag and drop functionality. This means that technicians can re-arrange all of the items on their dashboard however they would like. Each items position will be remembered for each subsequent login. There is a location reset button to reset all of the items to their original locations.
- Email Tracking: It can often be useful to know if/when a customer has viewed an email you have sent them. It is now possible to do this directly through ReadyDesk. You can set ReadyDesk to request a read receipt when it sends out email notifications to the customer. When the customer views the email it will send a read receipt back to your installation of ReadyDesk, which is then appended to the matching ticket as a private history entry that is only visible to the technicians. Please note, however, that not all email clients support read receipts, and for the email clients that do support them, the customer can completely disable them or change the settings to prompt them when a read receipt is requested. This feature would be most useful when your customers are your end users within the same organization where read receipts are enabled by default and controlled by a group policy.
Since read receipts are not foolproof, we added a second tracking option called "Tracking Beacons". When this option is enabled a link to a small 1x1 pixel image will be embedded in all outgoing emails to customers. When a customer views an email from your ReadyDesk installation and the image loads, an entry is appended to the matching ticket as a private history entry. Please note, however, that some email clients are set to not load images from the internet by default, and the customer may need to click on a button or link to load the image.
If you enable both email tracking options you could potentially get history entries for both.
As mentioned above, these two options are not foolproof, so you should not depend on them for proof an email was read unless your customers are in a controlled environment where they cannot disable settings in their email clients.
- Various bug fixes/enhancements: There have been various other small bug fixes and enhancements made throughout ReadyDesk.
This release contains all previous security updates. If you are running version 9.2 or lower please upgrade immediately to ensure that your installation is running with the latest security features.
Please note that a database upgrade IS required with this release.
This list only contains updates that apply to version 9.4. Please refer to previous news releases on our website for past updates or the release notes in our customer portal for a full list of new features and bug fixes.
New versions should be installed as soon as they are released to ensure that you have the most up to date features and fixes for past issues, especially when there is a security update. |