Using Helpdesk Pro

Installation

When you purchase Helpdesk Pro extension, our order system will send you a zip file called helpdeskpro_unzip.zip. Unzip this file, you will see two zip files :

1. com_helpdeskpro.zip: This is the main package of the extension. You can go to Extensions-> Extensions Manager and install it as normal Joomla extension (component). When you install this package, the following items will be installed :
   • Helpdesk Pro component : This is the main component which provide all the features of the system.
   • Content Helpdesk Pro plugin : This plugin allows you to enter submit ticket form into a Joomla article.
   • Ticket From Contact Form : This plugin allows generating support ticket when users use Joomla contact form to send emails to you.
   • Ticket Attachments plugin : This plugin displays all attachments of a support ticket when admin/managers access to the ticket from backend of your site.

2. plug_cb_ticketshistory.zip: This is a Community Builder plugin which displays all support tickets submitted by a user in his profile. You only need to install it if you are using Community Builder extension(just install as as other community builder plugins). If you don't use Community Builder, don't need to install it.

Configuration

When you first install the extension, Helpdesk Pro will create default Configuration data. Please go to Heldpesk Pro -> Configuration to review available config parameters and change them to meet your requirement if needed. All config options are very easy to understand and have explanation next to it, so I will only mention about some of important parameters:

Allow Public Users submit ticket: If set to Yes, users will be able to submit  support tickets without having to login. If set to No, users will have to login before they can submit support ticket.

Notification emails: When users submit support tickets to a category which doesn't have manager, Helpdesk Pro will send notification to the emails you entered in this config option. If you are the only one manager of the system, you should enter your email into this config option so that you will receive notification when someone submit support tickets. If each category has it's own manager, you can leave this config option empty.

Emails messages: Look at at Messages tab on Configuration page, you will see the email messages which will be sent when a new ticket is submitted, when admin/manager reply to a ticket, when customer add comment to ticket.... Please review all of these email messages and change it to meet your need (if needed).

Creating and Managing Categories

After change necessary config options, the next step will be creating ticket categories. Usually in a support tickets system, there will be different ticket categories and each category can has it own managers (who will receive notification when customers submit ticket, reply to ticket...). To create a category, go to Helpdesk Pro -> Categories, click on new button on the toolbar. Below are important fields which you need to enter when create  a category:

Title : The title of category.

Parent: Helpdesk Pro allows you to create nested categories. So if this category is a child category, simply choose it's parent category from the dropdown.

Access: Choose access level for this category and then only users has this access level can see this category while submitting tickets from front-end.

Managers : Enter username of the managers of this category. By adding a manager for this category, when customers submit ticket to this category, these managers will receive notification about new ticket submission. Please note that a manager can only see/reply  tickets from categories which he is assigned as manager, he cannot see/reply to tickets from other categories. If a category has multiple managers, simply enter their username into this field (comma separatd, for example admin,tuanpn).

Descrition: This field is for managing purpose only. It won't be displayed anywhere in the front-end.

Creating custom fields

By default, when your customers submit a support ticket, they will need to enter Subject and Message (which explain the problem he is having) of the ticket. If you want customers to provide more information when submitting support tickets, you need to create custom fields. Go to Helpdesk Pro=> Custom Fields and you will be able to  create, edit, delete, update, publish, unpublish, change ordering of custom fields. Please note that when you create a new custom field, you can assign it to All Categories or just some specific categories, therefore, each support category can has it's own set of custom fields.

The following custom fields are supported in Helpdesk Pro at the moment:

1. Textbox
2. TextArea
3. Drodpown
4. Checkbox List
5. Radio List
6. Datetime
7. Heading
8. Message
9. Multilple Select

Submit support tickets

After setting up ticket categories (and custom fields if needed), the next step will be provide a way for your customers to submit and manage their tickets from front-end by creating a menu item. When you create a menu item to link to Helpdesk Pro, you will see two options :

1. Submit Ticket: If you create menu item to link to this view, when customer access to this menu item, they will see a form which allow them to enter necessary information to submit support ticket.
2. Ticket List/ Manage Tickets: If you create menu item to link to this view, when customers access to this menu item, they will see list of support tickets which he submitted. He will also see a link which allows submitting new ticket.

So in this case, if you want your customers to go directly to support ticket form, choose option #1. If you want your users to see their tickets and then click on Submit ticket link to submit new ticket, choose option #2.

Managing/Reply support tickets

Go to Helpdesk Pro -> Tickets, you will see list of support tickets submitted by your customers. By default, the system will only only show NEW and PENDING tickets. If you want to see all tickets, please choose All from ticket status filter dropdown. Also :

1. If you are administrator and super administrator, the system will display tickets from all categories.
2. If you are just a manager (admin specify managers of a ticket category when create category), you will only see support tickets from categories which you are assigned as managers.

From Tickets list screen, you can click on a support ticket to view detail information of the ticket (support ticket). You can then :

1. Change category of the ticket (move it to the correct category if it was submitted to a wrong category)
2. Change Ticket Status
3. Change ticket Priority
4. Reply/add comment to the ticket by click on Add Comment link.

Please note that in Helpdesk Pro, you can manage support tickets from both front-end and back-end of your site. If you want managers to be able to access/manage support tickets from front-end, simply create a menu item to link to Ticket List/ Manage Tickets view of Helpdesk Pro.  When managers access to this menu item, he will see support tickets from categories which he manages and reply to these support tickets.

Embed submit ticket form into an article

If for some reasons, you want to have submit support ticket form displayed in a Joomla article, you can use Helpdesk Pro content plugin. The setup is simple, just contain two steps :

1. Go to Extensions -> Plugins manager, find and publish Helpdesk Pro content plugin .
2. Edit the Joomla article you want to embed submit support ticket form, enter the syntax {helpdeskpro}. After that, when users access to this article, they will see a form which allow them to submit support ticket

Generate ticket from Joomla Contact Form

Joomla has a feature which allows site visitors to use contact form to send emails to website administrator. Normally, they will use this contact form to send support request to you. If you want to store these contact emails as support ticket, you can use Helpdesk Pro Generate Tickets From Contact Form. Each time users send email to you use Joomla contact form, a support ticket will be created : the subject of the email will become the subject of the ticket, the email body will become the message/description of the ticket. To use this feature, there are two steps :

1. Create a menu item to link to Contact component of Joomla allows site users to access to this menu item to contact you.
2. Go to Extensions -> Plugins manager, find the System - Helpdesk Pro Ticket From Contact Form, publish it.

Using Ticket Attachments plugin

Helpdesk Pro allows customers to add attachments when they submit/reply to a support ticket. By default, Helpdesk Pro will display these attachments right after the description/comments of the ticket. However, it also provide a plugin which allows list all attachments belong to a support ticket on ticket detail page so that you can access to these attachments easier.

To use this plugin, you can go to Extensions -> Plugins manager, find Helpdesk Pro - Ticket Attachments plugin. After that, when you access to a ticket from back-end, you will see all attachments of this support ticket listed at the right of the page.

Translation

Helpdesk Pro has a built-in translation feature to allows you to change any language string from back-end of your site( you don't have to edit language file manually). It also allows you to translate all language strings to a different language. Access to Helpdesk Pro -> Translation and you will be able to use this feature.

Using Documents Seller Extension

Configuration

Before using the extension, you need to access to Configuration function of the extension to change configuration data to meet your purpose.  When you first install the extension, the system auto generate default configuration data. To change these configuration parameters, please login to back-end, access to Documents Seller => Configuration . There are many configuration parameters, the meaning of each parameter is explained next to them, and they are easy to understand. I will just explains the meaning of important parameters in the below section :

Read more: Using Documents Seller Extension

Using EDocman extension

Configuration

When you first install EDocman, the extension auto populate default configuration data. Before start using the extension, please go to EDocman -> Configuration to review and change config parameters if needed. Next to each config option, there are explanation of it's meaning at the right, so I won't list all config options here. Below are list of important config parameters :

Read more: Using EDocman extension

Using Events Booking

Configuration

Before using the extension, you need to access to Configuration function of the extension to change configuration data to meet your purpose.  When you first install the extension, the system auto generate default configuration data. To change these configuration parameters, please login to back-end, access to Events Booking => Configuration. There are many configuration parameters, the meaning of each parameter is explained next to them, and they are easy to understand. I will just explains the meaning of important parameters in the below section:

Read more: Using Events Booking

Using Joom Donation

Coming soon..........

Using Membership Pro extension

Installation

When you purchase Membership Pro extension, our order system will send you a zip file called com_osmembership.zip.  You just need to go to Extensions -> Extensions Manager to install the zip file as normal Joomla extension. When you install the zip file, the component and following plugins will be installed (some of them will be published automatically, some of them will need to be published manually if you want to use it):

1. OS Membership component
2. OS Membership - Joomla Groups plugin: This plugin allow you to assign subscribers of a subscription plan to a Joomla Group (or Joomla Groups) automatically when they subscribe to that subscription plan.
3. OS Membership - Urls plugin: This plugin allow you to setup the system to allow subscribers of a subscription plan to be able to access to certain urls (pages on your site).
4. OS Membership - CB plugin : If you enable this plugin, it will create a CB profile for subscriber automatically when they subscribe to a subscription plan.
5. OS Membership - Joomsocial plugin: If you enable this plugin, it will create a Jomsocial profile for subscriber automatically when they subscribe to a subscription plan.
6. OS Membership - Docman plugin: This plugin allow you to assign subscribers of a subscription plan to certain Docman Groups so that they can download Docman documents.
7. OS Membership - Menu plugin: This plugin allow you to give subscribers of a subscription plan to access to certain menu items (which public users and subscribers of other subscription plan cannot access).
8. OS Membership - Module plugin: This plugin allow you to give subscribers of a subscription plan to access to certain Joomla modules (which public users and subscribers of other subscription plan cannot access).
9. OS Membership - User plugin: This plugin is used to active a user account automatically when his subscription is activated (he completed payment for his subscription or administrator activate his subscription manually from back-end). If you want, you can change a parameter in this plugin so that his Joomla account will be blocked automatically when his subscription expired.
10. System - OS Membership Reminder: This plugin allows the system to send reminder emails to subscribers automatically before their subscription expired X days and Y days so that they can renew their subscription if needed. (X days and Y days will be setup when you create/edit subscription plan) .
11. System - OS Membership Update Subscribers status: This plugin will update status of subscribers from Active to Expired automatically when their subscription expired.
12. System - OS Membership URLs: You will need to publish this plugin if you use OS Membership - Urls plugin on your site.
13. System - OS Membership Overrides: You will need to publish this plugin if you use OS Membership - Menu plugin or OS Membership - Module plugin.

Configuration

When you first install the extension, Membership Pro will create default Configuration data. Please go to Membership Pro -> Configuration to review available config parameters and change them to meet your requirement if needed. All config options are very easy to understand and have explanation next to it, so I will only mention about some of important parameters:

1. Registratoion integration: If set to Yes, the system will allow subscriber to enter username and password on subscribe page to register for an account on your Joomla site.
2. Show login box on subscription page: If set to Yes, the system will display a Login box on subscribe page so that existing users can login before continuing the subscription. Users who don't have account on your site can still enter username and password to register for an account.
3. Enable Coupon : If you create coupon codes and want your susbcribers to use these coupons to get discount for their subscription set it to Yes. If set to No, the system won't display coupon inputbox, thefore your subscribers cannot enter coupon code even if they have valid coupons.
4. Notification emails: This config option allow you to specify the emails you want to receive notification when someone subscribe to a subscription plan. Multiple emails are possible, just separate them by comma character. If you leave this option empty, the notification email will be sent to the email entered in Global Configuration of Joomla.
5. Emails Messages: This tab contains config options which allows you to change the messages displayed on the subscription form, email messages sent to subscribers and administrator when someone subscribe for a subscription plan.
6. Subscription renew Messages:  This tab contains config options which allows you to change messages displayed on the subscription form, emails messages sent to subscribers and administrator when someone renew their subscriptipn.
7. Subscription Upgrade Messages: This tab contains config options which allows you to change the messages displayed on subscription form, email messages sent to subscribers and administratir when someone upgrade his subscription from a subscription plan to a new plan.
8. Subscription Expire Reminder Messages: This tab contains config option allows you to change the reminder email messages sent to subscribers before their subscriptions expired so that they will know and remind his subscription.

Creating and Managing Subscription Plans

After change necessary config options, the next step will be creating subscription plans so that your site users can subscribe to these plans. Go to OS Membership -> Subscription Plans, click on new button on the toolbar to create new subscription plans. Below are important fields on a subscription plan:

1. Title : The subscription plan title
2. Price : The price subscribers will have to pay to subscribe for this subscription plan.
3. Subscription Length : The number of days the subscription of a subscriber will be active when he subscribes to this subscription plan. When a user subscribes to this subscription, his subscription start date will Today and the expired date will be calculated by Today Date plus Subscription Length. Please note if this is a recurring subscription, the subscription length must meets the following rules :

• If is is a weekly recurring subscription, the subscription length must be X multipled by 7. For example, if you want the subscription be renewed every one week, the subscription length must be 7. If you want it to be renewed every 2 weeks, the subscription length must be 14 and so on.....
• If it is a Monthly recurring subscription the subscription length must be X multipled by 30. For example, if you want the subscription be renewed every one month, the subscription length must be 30. If you want it to be renewed every 2 months, the subscription length must be 60 and so on...
• If it is a Yearly recurring subscription, the subscription must be X multipled by 365. For example, if you want the subscription be renewed every one year, the subscription length must be 365. If you want it to be renewed every 2 years, the subscription length must be 730 and so on...

1. Expired Date:  By default, the expired date of a subscription will be calculated by subscription start date and subscription length. If you want all subscriptions of all subscribers of this subscription plan to be expired on a Fixed date, enter that date into Expired Date field. At that date, all subscriptions of this plan will be expired.
2. Thumbs: Allows you to choose thumbnail image for this subscription plans. In order to choose a thumbnail image for this subcription plan, you will need to upload it manually via FTP to media/com_osmembership folder of your site.
3. Send First Reminder: If you enter X into this field (X is a valid integer value), the extension will send reminder to subscriber X days before this subscription expired so that he can go to your site to renew his subscription. If you don't want to send reminder, simply enter 0 into this field.
4. Send Second Reminder: The extension allows you to send a second reminder to subscribers before his subscription expired. If you enter Y into this field, the system will send reminder email to subscriber Y days before his subscription expired. If you don't want to send reminder, simply enter 0 into this field.
5. Short description: Short description of this subscription plan. The short description will be displayed on the subscription plans list page.
6. Description: The fill description of this subscription plan. The desscription will be displayed on subscription detail page. If you leave this field empty, short description will be displayed on subscription detail page.
7. Enable renewal: Should be set to Yes by default. If you set it to No, subscribers of this subscription plan will not be able to renew their subscriptions.
8. Renew options: Membership Pro allows you to setup different renew options for each subscription plan. This provide a very flexible way for subscribers to renew his subscription. If he want to renew the subscription in a short time, for example, he only wants to renew his subcription in 5 days, he will have to pay a small month than when he renew his subscription for 10 days...Each renew option contains number days parameter and it's corresponding price. For example, if you have a plan with subscription length 30 days and price is 30$, you can create the following renew options :
   1. 20 days =>  25$
   2. 15 days => 20$
   3. 10 days => 15$

When users access to subscription history, he can click on the subscription record, choose the renew option his want and process renewal. If you don't create any extra renew option, subscribers will have to pay full price (which you is the price you setup for the  subscription plan) to renew his subscription for Subscription Length days.

9. Recurring subscription: Set to Yes if this is a recurring subscription. When you set a subscription plan to be rcurring,  all subscriptions will be renewed automatically when it is expired. If you use this feature, please make sure :

• You are having atleast one payment plugin support recurring subscription. At the moment, only Paypal and Authorize.net are supported. So you will have atleast one of the two payment plugins published in order to using this feature.
• The Subscription Length must meets the rules explained above.

Upgrade Rules

Membership Pro allows you to setup the system so that active subscribers of a subscription plan can upgrade his membership to a higher level subscription plan. For example, if you have two subscription plans : 6 Months Memberships and 9 Month Membership, you can setup the extension so that subscribers of 6 Months Membership plan can pay a fee to upgrade his subscription to 9 Months Membership plan. Of course, not all subscribers of 6 Months Membership plan can upgrade his subscription, only subscribers who has subscription meets some pre-defined rules can upgrade subscription.

To create a new upgrade rule, go to OS Membership->Upgrade Rules, press new button on the toolbar to create new rule. Below are some important fields on a rule and it's meaning:

1. From Plan: Choose the subscription plan which you wan to to be able to upgrade his subscription.
2. To Plan: Choose the target subscription plan. Users who has active subscription of the plan selected in From Plan will be able to upgrade his subscription to the plan selected in To Plan field.
3. Price:  The fee subscribers need to pay to upgrade his subscription.
4. Max Presence: If you enter X into this field, only subscribers who has his subscription active less than or equal X days can upgrade his subscription. Subsribers has subscription active greater than X days will not be able to upgrade his subscription. If you leave it empty, all active subscribers will be able to upgrade.
5. Min Presence: If you enter Y into this field, only subscribers who has his subscription active atleat Y days can upgrade his subscription. Subsribers has subscription active less than Y days will not be able to upgrade his subscription. If you leave it empty, all active subscribers will be able to upgrade.

Custom Fields

Membership Pro has Custom Fields feature which allows you to add custom fields to subscribe page to collect more information of subscribers (before basic information like First Name, Last Name....). Go to OS Membership => Custom Fields and you will be able to  create, edit, delete, update, publish, unpublish, change ordering custom fields. Please note that when you create a new custom field, you can assign it to All Plans or a specific Plan, therefore, each plan can has it's own set of custom fields.

The following custom fields are supported in Membership Pro at the moment:

1. Textbox
2. TextArea
3. Drodpown
4. Checkbox List
5. Radio List
6. Datetime
7. Heading
8. Message
9. Multilple Select
10. File upload

Coupons Management

Membership Pro  allows you to create coupon codes and send these coupons code to your subscribers so that he can enter the coupon code in subscribe page to get discount for his subscription. Go to OS Membership -> Coupons, you will see list of created coupons and can create new coupon. Below are list of fields which you need to enter when creating a new coupon code:

1. Code: The code for this new coupon.
2. Discount: Enter the discount for this coupon. Discount can be set to a fixed amount (for example 10$) ro by percent (for example 10% of subscription fee).
3. Plan: Choose the subscription plan which this coupon code can be used. Choose All plans if you want this coupon code can be used for all subscription plans.
4. Times: Enter number of times this coupon code can be used. If you leave it empty, the coupon code can be used on unlimited times.
5. Valid From Date: If you choose a date, the coupon code can only be used from the selected date.
6. Valid To Date: If you chose a date, the coupon code can only be used before the selected date. After that, date, the coupon code cannot be used anymore.

Payments Plugins

When users subscribe to a subscription plan, they will have to pay for his subscription via online Payment Gateway such as Paypal, Authorize.net, Eway, Paypal Pro....or offline payment plugin. In Membership Pro, each payment gateway is implemented as a payment plugin. Go to OS Membership -> Payment Plugins and you will be able to:

1. Publish/Unpublish the payment plugins you want/don't want to use.
2. Change title of the payment plugin and this title will be changed in the front-end.
3. Click on a payment plugin, edit it to enter your merchant account of the payment gateway you are using. For example, if you are using Paypal, you will need to click on os_paypal and enter your Paypal account into the plugin. If you are using Authorize.net, you will need to click on os_authnet payment plugin, enter API Login and Transaction Key of your authorize.net account into the plugin parameter.
4. To install a new payment plugin, go to OS Membership -> Payment Plugins, scroll to bottom of page and you will see a place to install the payment plugin.

Translation

Membership Pro has a built-in translation feature to allows you to change any language string from back-end of your site( you don't have to edit language file manually). It also allows you to translate all language strings to a different language. Access to OS Membership -> Translation and you will be able to use this feature.

Display Subscription Plans

After creating subscription plans, you will need to create a menu item to display list of subscription plans so that users can browse for these plans and subscribe to the plan they want. To do that, simply create a menu item to link to Plans List Default Layout or Plans List Column Layout of OS Membership (if you don't know how to create a menu item, please see the instruction below http://docs.joomla.org/Adding_a_new_menu_item).

Subscribe to a subscription plan

When users see a list of subscription plans, he can click on Sign up button to subscribe for the selected subscription plan. The next step will be enter information on subscription form, process payment...and he will be an active subscriber of the plan.

Subscription History

Administrator of the site should create a menu item so that subscribers can click on the menu item to see their subscription history. From the subscription history page, subscriber can renew or upgrade his subscription. To do that, you will need to create a menu item to link to  Subscription History view of OS Membership.

Renew a subscription

Subscribers can renew their subscription before their subscription is expired. There are two ways for doing that:

1. On Subscription History page, click on Renew link to renew the subscription.
2. If the system allows different renew options for the subscription plan, you can click on the subscription record to view it's detail. Then on this subscription detail page, you can choose a renew option to process subscription renewal.

Upgrade from a subscription to new subscription plan

If you setup upgrade rules, subscribers of a subscription plan can upgrade his subscription to a higher level subscription plan. To upgrade your subscription, follow the steps below :

1. Access to Subscription History page
2. Click on a subscription record to view detail information of the subscription
3. Scroll to bottom of the page, choose the upgrade option, press Upgrade button to process the upgrade.

Setup auto reminder

 As you can see, Membership Pro allows you to setup the system so that it will send reminder emails to subscribers X days and Y days before his subscription expired. Subscribers can then access to your site to renew his subscription.

To enable reminder feature, please login to back-end of your site, access to Extensions -> Plugins manager, find the OS Membership Reminder plugin and enable it. If you don't want to send reminder to subscribers, simply unpublish this plugin.

Using OS Membership Plugins

OS Membership Joomla Groups Plugin

The Joomla Groups plugin allows you to assign subscribers of a subscription plan to one or several Joomla groups when their subscriptions are activated and remove them from these Joomla Groups when their subscription expired. Based on the groups setting and Joomla 2.5 ACL, you can provide access to restricted resouces on your site for subscribers only (Public or Normal registered users can access to these resources). In order to use this feature :

1. Go to Extensions -> Plugins manager, find the plugin OS Membership - Joomla Groups plugin, publish it.
2. Edit a subscription plan, you will see a new tab called Joomla Group Settings
3. Choose the groups you want to assign users to when they subscribe to this subscription plan in the Assign to Joomla Groups column.
4. Choose the groups you want to remove users from when their subscription for this plan expired in the Remove from Joomla Groups column. Usually, it should be the same with the groups you selecte in Assign to Joomla Groups column.

OS Membership Urls plugin

OS Membership Modules plugin

OS Membership Menus plugin

OS Memebership Urls plugin

Using Payment Form extension

Configuration

When you first install Payment Form, the extension auto populate default configuration data. Please go to Payment Form -> Configuration to review and change config parameters if needed . Here are some important config parameters :

Read more: Using Payment Form extension