Saved replies, due dates, rules and reports
Answer faster with saved replies, see what is due, let rules sort new requests, read the figures, export the list, and handle personal-data requests.
Saved replies
Settings → Saved replies. Write answers you give often once: a title (only your team sees it) and the text. Up to 100.
The text can hold placeholders, filled in for the request you use it on: {customer_name}, {customer_email}, {reference}, {request_type}, {site_name}, {staff_name}.
In a request, above Email the customer, Reply in live chat and Private staff note, choose a Saved reply and select Insert saved reply. The text goes where your cursor is and keeps what you already typed. You can still change it; nothing is sent or saved until you press that box's own button.
Due dates
Settings → Due dates. Give each form a target for the first reply and for resolving a request.
- Tick Give new requests due dates.
- For each form enter First reply within (hours) and Resolve within (hours): 0 means no target, at most 720.
- Choose how the hours are counted: Around the clock, every day, or Only in your working hours (the days and the times, in your site's time zone from Settings → General).
When a request arrives it gets its due dates; changing the targets later does not move them. The Requests list then shows under the status how long is left ("First reply due in 3 hours") or how late it is ("First reply overdue by 2 hours", in red). The filter Overdue shows only open requests past a due date they have not met; Due within 24 hours shows what is coming. The request page shows both dates and whether each was met.
What counts: the first reply is the first email reply your site's mail system accepted or the first live chat reply, whichever comes first (your email replies are also what the customer sees in their portal). An automatic rule's email does not count. Resolved is the change to Resolved or Closed; setting the request back to an open status makes it unresolved again, against the same due date.
Automatic rules
Settings → Automatic rules. Let Support Desk sort new requests.
A rule has conditions and actions:
| When a new request… | …then |
|---|---|
| comes from a form (or any form) | assign it to a member of your team |
| has a Contact topic | set its status (In progress or Waiting on customer) |
| contains one of your words (any letter case, anywhere in what the customer typed) | file it in a folder |
| comes from an email domain (such as example.com) | email one of your saved replies |
An empty condition matches every request. When a request arrives through a form, Support Desk applies the first switched-on rule whose conditions all match, so put the most specific rules at the top (Move up, Move down). A rule's email uses the General staff reply design. Live chats are not changed by rules.
Closing requests automatically: close requests that have been Resolved for a number of days, and requests Waiting on customer without an answer for a number of days (0 means off). Support Desk checks once an hour with WordPress's scheduler.
Every change a rule makes is in the request's history, with the rule's name ("Automatic rule: Warranty to Sam").
Reports
Requests → Reports (anyone who may view requests). Choose the last 7, 30 or 90 days, or the last 12 months:
- Requests received, by form, and by day, week or month.
- First reply and Resolved: the median and the average time from arrival.
- Still waiting for a first reply: received in the period, not resolved or closed.
- Due dates: first replies and resolutions in time and late.
- Satisfaction: Good, OK and Poor answers.
- Now, by status and Open now, by person.
Requests in Spam or Trash are not counted.
Export CSV
On Requests, under the filters, Export CSV downloads every request of the current view and filters (all pages, not just the one on screen) as a spreadsheet file: reference, form, date, view, status, assigned person, folder, the customer's name, email and phone, the page it was sent from, the due dates, the attached files, the rating, and each form field in its own column.
It shows to people with the permission export_afsd_support (administrators and shop managers at the start). A cell that would start a spreadsheet formula (=, +, - or @) is kept as text.
Personal data requests
Support Desk takes part in WordPress's Tools → Export Personal Data and Tools → Erase Personal Data. A person's requests are those sent with their email address (any letter case) and those sent while signed in to their account.
- Export adds each request: reference, form, date, status, what they typed, the conversation they could see, the names of attached files and their rating. Private staff notes are not part of it.
- Erase keeps each request as an empty record (reference, form, dates, status) so your counts and reports still add up, and removes the name, email address, phone, everything typed, every message and note, the saved emails, the attached files, the rating's comment and the link to their account. The request's private link and survey link stop working, and no survey email goes out for it afterwards. If the address is on your list of blocked senders it stays there, so the block keeps working, and WordPress reports that item as kept.
Both work also while the Support Desk license is not active.