124 lines
5.8 KiB
Markdown
124 lines
5.8 KiB
Markdown
# Service Desk **[PREMIUM]**
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> [Introduced](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ee/issues/149) in [GitLab Premium 9.1](https://about.gitlab.com/2017/04/22/gitlab-9-1-released/#service-desk-eep).
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## Overview
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Service Desk is a module that allows your team to connect directly
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with any external party through email right inside of GitLab; no external tools required.
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An ongoing conversation right where your software is built ensures that user feedback ends
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up directly where it's needed, helping you build the right features to solve your users'
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real problems.
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With Service Desk, you can provide efficient email support to your customers, who can now
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email you bug reports, feature requests, or general feedback that will all end up in your
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GitLab project as new issues. In turn, your team can respond straight from the project.
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As Service Desk is built right into GitLab itself, the complexity and inefficiencies
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of multiple tools and external integrations are eliminated, significantly shortening
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the cycle time from feedback to software update.
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For an overview, check the video demonstration on [GitLab Service Desk](https://about.gitlab.com/2017/05/09/demo-service-desk/).
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## Use cases
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For instance, let's assume you develop a game for iOS or Android.
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The codebase is hosted in your GitLab instance, built and deployed
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with GitLab CI.
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Here's how Service Desk will work for you:
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1. You'll provide a project-specific email address to your paying customers, who can email you directly from within the app
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1. Each email they send creates an issue in the appropriate project
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1. Your team members navigate to the Service Desk issue tracker, where they can see new support requests and respond inside associated issues
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1. Your team communicates back and forth with the customer to understand the request
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1. Your team starts working on implementing code to solve your customer's problem
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1. When your team finishes the implementation, whereupon the merge request is merged and the issue is closed automatically
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1. The customer will have been attended successfully via email, without having real access to your GitLab instance
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1. Your team saved time by not having to leave GitLab (or setup any integrations) to follow up with your customer
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## How it works
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GitLab Service Desk is a simple way to allow people to create issues in your
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GitLab instance without needing their own user account.
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It provides a unique email address for end users to create issues in a project,
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and replies can be sent either through the GitLab interface or by email. End
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users will only see the thread through email.
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## Configuring Service Desk
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> **Note:**
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Service Desk is enabled on GitLab.com. If you're a
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[Silver subscriber](https://about.gitlab.com/gitlab-com/),
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you can skip the step 1 below; you only need to enable it per project.
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1. [Set up incoming email](../../administration/incoming_email.md#set-it-up) for the GitLab instance. This must
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support [email sub-addressing](../../administration/incoming_email.md#email-sub-addressing).
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2. Navigate to your project's **Settings** and scroll down to the **Service Desk**
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section.
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3. If you have the correct access and an Premium license,
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you will see an option to set up Service Desk:
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![Activate Service Desk option](img/service_desk_disabled.png)
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4. Checking that box will enable Service Desk for the project, and show a
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unique email address to email issues to the project. These issues will be
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[confidential](issues/confidential_issues.md), so they will only be visible to project members.
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**Warning**: this email address can be used by anyone to create an issue on
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this project, whether or not they have access to your GitLab instance.
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We recommend **putting this behind an alias** so that it can be changed if
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needed, and **[enabling Akismet](../../integration/akismet.md)** on your GitLab instance to add spam
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checking to this service. Unblocked email spam would result in many spam
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issues being created, and may disrupt your GitLab service.
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![Service Desk enabled](img/service_desk_enabled.png)
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_In GitLab 11.7, we updated the format of the generated email address.
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However the older format is still supported, allowing existing aliases
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or contacts to continue working._
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5. Service Desk is now enabled for this project! You should be able to access it from your project's navigation **Issue submenu**:
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![Service Desk Navigation Item](img/service_desk_nav_item.png)
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## Using Service Desk
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### As an end user (issue creator)
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To create a Service Desk issue, an end user doesn't need to know anything about
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the GitLab instance. They just send an email to the address they are given, and
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receive an email back confirming receipt:
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![Service Desk enabled](img/service_desk_confirmation_email.png)
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This also gives the end user an option to unsubscribe.
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If they don't choose to unsubscribe, then any new comments added to the issue
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will be sent as emails:
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![Service Desk reply email](img/service_desk_reply.png)
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And any responses they send will be displayed in the issue itself.
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### As a responder to the issue
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For responders to the issue, everything works as usual. They'll see a familiar looking
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issue tracker, where they can see issues created via customer support requests and
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filter and interact with them just like other GitLab issues.
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![Service Desk Issue tracker](img/service_desk_issue_tracker.png)
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Messages from the end user will show as coming from the special Support Bot user, but apart from that,
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you can read and write comments as you normally do:
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![Service Desk issue thread](img/service_desk_thread.png)
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> Note that the project's visibility (private, internal, public) does not affect Service Desk.
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### Support Bot user
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Behind the scenes, Service Desk works by the special Support Bot user creating issues. This user
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does not count toward the license limit count.
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