OUTLOOK HELP DESK v 2.4

User Manual

Web-based Forms Supplement &

Screen Shots of Web forms

Crow Canyon Systems, Inc.

San Ramon, CA, USA

http://www.crowcanyon.com

Note: The Web files are provided upon purchase of the program. If you have the demo, you can review this document, plus view the screen shots to get a good idea of what the Web-based Help Desk forms are like. Thank you.

Overview

Outlook Help Desk 2.4 includes Web-based forms for users to submit and view Help Desk Tickets. The forms are set up as a virtual directory under Internet Information Server (IIS) on an Exchange server running Outlook Web Access (OWA). Users type “http://yourOWAservername/helpdesk” in their browser to access the Web-based forms. Users are first presented with a login screen and will need a valid Windows account (just like OWA). Once logged in, they can submit new tickets or view unassigned tickets in the "Help Desk" folder and assigned tickets in the "Assigned Help Desk Tickets" folder. (See screen shots at end of this document.)

Users can submit tickets and view them. Help Desk technicians can also submit and view tickets. When viewed in the browser after being submitted, the tickets are read only and changes cannot be made to the tickets through the Web interface.

Setting Up Web-based Outlook Help Desk 2.4

You will need Exchange Server 5.5 SP1 and above or Exchange 2000 with Outlook Web Access. Also, you need to have Outlook Help Desk 2.4 set up in the Exchange Public Folders before using the Web-based forms. Clients just need a Web browser.

I. SERVER SETUP

Create a “helpdesk” directory under the Inetpub/wwwroot directory on your OWA server. Unzip WebFiles243.Zip, then copy the files, except the User Manual, into this new Inetpub/wwwroot/helpdesk directory. The WebFiles243.Zip file is provided upon purchase of Outlook Help Desk. If you do not have it, and have purchased the Outlook Help Desk, please contact us.

In Internet Services Manager, create a virtual directory that points to the new Helpdesk directory you created in Step 1. Name the virtual directory "helpdesk". Right-click the directory and go to Properties. Set the Directory permissions and Directory Security as follows.

Exchange 5.5:

On the Directory tab:

Go to the Directory Security tab and then under “Anonymous Access and Authentication Control”, press the Edit button. Check Basic and Windows NT Challenge/Response.

Exchange 2000:

On the Virtual Directory tab:

Go to the Directory Security tab and then under “Anonymous Access and Authentication Control”, press the Edit button. Check Basic only.

If you are using Exchange 2000, you need the Exchange 2000 logon.inc file. In the helpdesk directory, rename logon.inc to “Ex55logon.inc” and rename “Ex2000logon.inc” to “logon.inc”. This makes sure you are using the correct logon.inc. You DO NOT need to do anything if you are using Exchange 5.5.

In the Exchange 2000 logon.inc, find the lines that say:

bstrServer = ""

bstrServer = Application("ServerName")

'REPLACE THE BELOW LINE WITH YOUR SERVERNAME

bstrServer = "YOUR SERVER NAME"

Replace the “YOUR SERVER NAME” with the name of your OWA server and then save and close the logon.inc file.

Users who will access the Web forms need only be Domain Users, but they also need the “Log on Locally” right to the OWA server. This is set in User Manager in Windows NT Server (Policies/User Rights) and in the Local Policy Settings in Windows 2000 (Local Policies/User Rights Assignment). If the OWA server is a Domain Controller in Windows 2000, the right also needs to be granted in Domain Controller Policy Settings. Our recommendation is to create a group – “OWA Users” or “HelpDesk Users” – and grant the right to this group, then add users to the Group.

Users also need the Write permission on the system <%winnt%> directory, usually C:\WINNT. This is for writing temporary MAPI profiles. If you do not want to grant the Write right to the system directory, a registry setting allows you to change the location that the temporary MAPI profiles are written to. This is explained in Microsoft Q articles Q254567 and Q166599.

In NTFS security on the Help Desk directory in the file system, users need Read & Execute and List permissions.

Exchange 5.5 (Windows NT Server):

Exchange 2000 (Windows 2000 Server):

If your Help Desk public folder is not right under All Public Folders in Exchange, you need to modify Default.asp in the “helpdesk” directory to indicate the “Help Desk” public folder location. Otherwise, you will get a “recurse folder” error when you run the Web pages. Open Default.asp in Notepad, find these lines and make the changes below.

****Default.asp now says this****

Set myrootfolder = objOMSession.GetFolder(bstrPublicRootID, objInfoStore.ID)

'Now get the folders collection below the root
Set myfoldercollect = myrootfolder.Folders
Set recursefolder = myfoldercollect.GetFirst()

'Recurse it until we get the folder we are looking for
While recursefolder.Name <> "Help Desk"
Set recursefolder = myfoldercollect.GetNext()
Wend
****************************************

****Replace the above lines with these ****

Set myrootfolder = objOMSession.GetFolder(bstrPublicRootID, objInfoStore.ID)

Set recursefolder = myrootfolder.Folders("xxxxx").Folders("xxxx").Folders("Help Desk")

***************************************************

Notes:

A. Set the folder path in the line below by replacing the xxx with the folder names. The first Folders("xxx") must be the folder right under "All Public Folders". The next Folders("xxx") is a sub-folder under the first one, etc. Use only as many Folders("xxx") as you need to get to the Help Desk location. Make sure the folder names are spelled exactly as they are in the Public Folder tree.

Set recursefolder = myrootfolder.Folders("xxx").Folders("xxx").Folders("Help Desk")

B. The line below is not needed and must be removed or remmed out:

Set myfoldercollect = myrootfolder.Folders

C. The lines below are not needed and must be removed or remmed out:

' Recurse it until we get the folder we are looking for
While recursefolder.Name <> "Help Desk"
Set recursefolder = myfoldercollect.GetNext()
Wend

II. SETUP OF VIEWS IN OUTLOOK

In Outlook, use the Define Views dialog box and the information below to create the “Help Desk” view for the "Help Desk" public folder. Go to View/Current View/Define Views. If a view named “Help Desk” is not there, press New. If it is there, highlight it and press Modify.

Create a Help Desk view with these settings:

View Name	Type	Fields	Group By	Sort
Help Desk	Table	From User (from Help Desk Ticket fields)	None	Received (descending)
		Received (from All Mail Fields)
		Subject (from All Mail Fields)

To set the fields, choose Fields in the View Summary. This brings up the Show Fields box. To change which fields you can select in “Available fields”, go to the “Select available fields from:” drop-down box in the lower left.

Using the Define Views dialog box and the information in table below, create four views on the Assigned Help Desk Tickets folder: Help Desk, From, Priority and Ticket ID.

View Name	Type	Fields	Group By	Sort
Help Desk	Table	From User (Assigned Help Desk Ticket fields)	None	Received (descending)
		Received (All Mail Fields)
		Subject (All Mail Fields)
		Ticket ID (Assigned Help Desk Ticket fields)
		Task Priority (Assigned Help Desk Ticket fields)
From	Table	From User (Assigned Help Desk Ticket fields)	None	From User (ascending)
		Received (All Mail Fields)
		Subject (All Mail Fields)
		Ticket ID (Assigned Help Desk Ticket fields)
		Task Priority (Assigned Help Desk Ticket fields)
Priority	Table	From User (Assigned Help Desk Ticket fields)	None	Task Priority (ascending)
		Received (All Mail Fields)
		Subject (All Mail Fields)
		Ticket ID (Assigned Help Desk Ticket fields)
		Task Priority (Assigned Help Desk Ticket fields)
Ticket ID	Table	From User (Assigned Help Desk Ticket fields)	None	Ticket ID (ascending)
		Received (All Mail Fields)
		Subject (All Mail Fields)
		Ticket ID (Assigned Help Desk Ticket fields)
		Task Priority (Assigned Help Desk Ticket fields)