![]() Networked Help Desk logo | |
Abbreviation | NHD |
---|---|
First published | June 2011 |
Latest version | 1.0 [1] |
Organization | Zendesk |
Base standards | HTTP, JSON, REST [1] |
Related standards | JSR 91: OSS Trouble Ticket API [2] |
Domain | Issue tracking, Bug tracking, Customer relationship management, Project management. [1] |
Website | networkedhelpdesk |
Networked Help Desk is an open standard initiative to provide a common API for sharing customer support tickets between separate instances of issue tracking, bug tracking, customer relationship management (CRM) and project management systems to improve customer service and reduce vendor lock-in. [3] [4] The initiative was created by Zendesk in June 2011 in collaboration with eight other founding member organizations including Atlassian, New Relic, OTRS, Pivotal Tracker, ServiceNow and SugarCRM. [5] [6] The first integration, between Zendesk and Atlassian's issue tracking product, Jira, [5] was announced at the 2011 Atlassian Summit. [7] By August 2011, 34 member companies had joined the initiative. [8] A year after launching, over 50 organizations had joined. [9] Within Zendesk instances this feature is branded as ticket sharing. [10] [11] [12]
Support tools are generally built around a common paradigm that begins with a customer making a request or an incident report, these create a ticket. Each ticket has a progress status and is updated with annotations and attachments. These annotations and attachments may be visible to the customer (public), or only visible to analysts (private). Customers are notified of progress made on their ticket until it is complete. If the people necessary to complete a ticket are using separate support tools, additional overhead is introduced in maintaining the relevant information in the ticket in each tool while notifying the customer of progress made by each group in completing their ticket. For example, if a customer support issue is caused by a software bug and reported to a help desk using one system, and then the fix is documented by the developers in another, and analyzed in a customer relationship management tool, keeping the records in each system up-to-date and notifying the customer manually using a swivel chair approach is unnecessarily time-consuming and error-prone. If information is not transferred correctly, a customer may have to re-explain their problem each time their ticket is transferred. [13] [14]
For systems with the Networked Help Desk API implemented, it is possible for several different applications related to a customer's support experience to synchronize data in one uniquely identified shared ticket. [15] While many applications in these domains have implemented APIs that allow data to be imported, exported and modified, Network Help Desk provide a common standard for customer support information to automatically synchronize between several systems. [13] Once implemented, two systems can quickly share tickets with just a configuration change as they both understand the same interface. [16]
Communication between two instances on a specific ticket occurs in three steps, an invitation agreement, sharing of ticket data and continued synchronization of tickets. [16] The standard allows for "full delegation" (analysts in both systems each make public and private comments and synchronize status) as well as "partial delegation" where the instance receiving the ticket can only make private comments and status changes are not synchronized. [10] [17] Tickets may be shared with multiple instances. [11]
System | Implementors | Language | Status | Launch date | Refs |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Request Tracker | Ruslan Zakirov of Best Practical | Perl | Complete | 2011-08-10 | [18] |
YouTrack | Java | Complete | 2013-01-31 | [19] | |
Zendesk | Darren Boyd, Pierre Schambacher and Josh Lubaway | Ruby | Complete | 2011-06-01 | [20] [21] |
HostBill | PHP | Complete | 2012-05-05 | [22] [23] [24] [25] | |
Jira (from Atlassian) | Java | Complete | 2011-06-01 | [26] | |
Node.js | JavaScript | Incomplete | [27] |
Programming languages can be grouped by the number and types of paradigms supported.
Request Tracker, commonly abbreviated to RT, is an open source tool for organizations of all sizes to track and manage workflows, customer requests, and internal project tasks of all sorts. With seamless email integration, custom ticket lifecycles, configurable automation, and detailed permissions and roles, Request Tracker began as ticket-tracking software written in Perl used to coordinate tasks and manage requests among an online community of users.
Notable issue tracking systems, including bug tracking systems, help desk and service desk issue tracking systems, as well as asset management systems, include the following. The comparison includes client-server application, distributed and hosted systems.
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Atlassian Corporation is an Australian-American software company that develops products for software developers, and project managers among other groups. The company is domiciled in Delaware, with global headquarters in Sydney, Australia, and US headquarters in San Francisco.
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HipChat was a web service for internal private online chat and instant messaging. As well as one-on-one and group/topic chat, it also featured cloud-based file storage, video calling, searchable message-history and inline-image viewing. The software was available to download onto computers running Windows, Mac or Linux, as well as Android and iOS smartphones and tablets. Since 2014, HipChat used a freemium model, as much of the service was free with some additional features requiring organizations to pay per month. HipChat was launched in 2010 and acquired by Atlassian in 2012. In September 2017, Atlassian replaced the cloud-based HipChat with a new cloud product called Stride, with HipChat continuing on as the client-hosted HipChat Data Center.
YouTrack is a proprietary, commercial browser-based bug tracker, issue tracking system, and project management software developed by JetBrains.
Zendesk, Inc. is a Danish-American company headquartered in San Francisco, California. It provides software-as-a-service products related to customer support, sales, and other customer communications. The company was founded in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 2007. Zendesk raised about $86 million in venture capital investments before going public in 2014.
Help Scout, legally Help Scout PBC, is a global remote company headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, specializing in help desk software. The company provides an email-based customer support platform, a knowledge base tool, and an embeddable search/contact widget for customer service professionals. Help Scout's primary product is a web-based SaaS help desk that complies with HIPAA regulations.
Q&A software is online software that attempts to answer questions asked by users. Q&A software is frequently integrated by large and specialist corporations and tends to be implemented as a community that allows users in similar fields to discuss questions and provide answers to common and specialist questions.
Aha! is a cloud-based software company that provides product development software for companies in the United States and internationally. Aha! offers Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) products for organizations to set strategy, ideate, plan, showcase, build, and launch new products and enhancements.
Tuleap is an application lifecycle management system which facilitates agile software development, design projects, V-model, Requirement Management, and IT Services Management. It is open source, released under the GNU General Public License, version 2.