Run your helpdesk with HelmDesk

★ What HelmDesk does

HelmDesk is a helpdesk and ticketing layer that sits on top of your conversations. When a customer messages one of your connected channels, HelmDesk automatically opens a ticket — a trackable record with a status, priority, owner, and response deadline — so nothing gets lost in a busy inbox.

1 First-time setup

The first time you open HelmDesk, a short setup wizard walks you through four quick steps. HelmDesk won't create any tickets until setup is finished — so take a minute to get this right.

1. Channels — choose which support channels HelmDesk should watch (Email, SMS, Live Chat, Web Chat, WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, Google). All channels are on by default; turn off anything you don't use for support.
2. Filters — decide what should not become a ticket. Ignore automated/marketing replies, ignore very short one-word messages, and set keyword lists that force (or skip) ticket creation.
3. Assignment — pick how new tickets are routed: round-robin across your team, to one specific agent, or left unassigned for agents to pick up.
4. SLA & lifecycle — set response and resolution targets per priority, when resolved tickets auto-close, and your ticket number prefix.

2 Getting around your workspace

Across the top of HelmDesk you'll find these areas:

*Agents see only their own tickets and metrics everywhere; admins see the whole team's.

3 Tickets & how they're created

A ticket is a single customer request you're tracking to resolution. Tickets get created three ways:

Automatically, from inbound messages

This is the main path. When a customer messages one of your configured channels, HelmDesk opens a ticket, links it to the customer's contact, and (if enabled) sends an auto-reply. If the same customer already has an open ticket, their new message is added to it instead of creating a duplicate.

From your client portal

If you've turned on the client portal (Agency plan), customers can submit requests through your branded intake form, and each submission becomes a ticket. See section 10.

Manually

Log a ticket yourself from the Queue or Board using New ticket — useful for phone calls or requests that came in off-channel. Enter the subject, contact, channel, priority, and details.

Ticket statuses

4 Working in the Inbox

The Inbox is a three-pane workspace and where you'll spend most of your time.

5 Queue & Board

Queue — your work list

A focused, filterable list topped with live KPIs: Open, Overdue, Unassigned, Average first reply, and In-SLA % over 30 days. Use the filter chips to switch between My queue, Unassigned, All open, and Overdue. Agents see only their own tickets.

Board — drag-and-drop Kanban

Tickets laid out in columns — New Open Pending Resolved. Drag a card from one column to another to change its status instantly. Each card shows the ticket number, subject, priority, assignee, SLA state, contact, and last activity.

6 Dashboard & reporting

The Dashboard covers the last 30 days and is the view you can confidently show your own clients.

• Headline KPIs — open tickets, overdue, resolved in 30 days, average first reply time, and In-SLA %.
• Created vs. Resolved — a 14-day trend so you can see whether you're keeping up.
• Open by agent — current workload across the team.
• Tickets by status and Tickets by channel — where your volume sits.

Agents see metrics for their own tickets only; admins see the whole team.

7 Priorities & SLA targets

Every ticket has a priority that drives its response and resolution deadlines. These are the defaults — change them anytime under Settings → Assignment & SLA.

How the SLA clock behaves

• The first-response clock stops as soon as an agent replies (even from outside HelmDesk).
• The clock pauses while a ticket is Pending (waiting on the customer) or On hold.
• When a deadline passes, the ticket is flagged Overdue and turns red — a visibility flag so it floats to the top of your queue. Nothing is reassigned automatically.

8 Team & seats

Admins manage the team under the Team tab.

1. Sync your team — pull your current user roster into HelmDesk with one click.
2. Control app access — each user has an App access toggle (on by default). Turn it off and that person sees a "no access" screen when they open HelmDesk. Admins always keep access.
3. Mark who's assignable — toggle each person Assignable (receives tickets) or Excluded. People removed from your CRM show a "Deleted in CRM" badge.
4. Watch your seats — a bar shows "X of N seats in use." If you try to activate more agents than your plan allows, HelmDesk asks you to switch to a larger plan.

There are two roles: Admins (full access to Settings, Team, and all tickets) and Agents (work only their assigned tickets). Whoever installed HelmDesk is an admin. App access and Assignable are independent — someone can have access to use the app without receiving ticket assignments, and vice versa.

9 Settings

Admins configure HelmDesk across three tabs.

Channels & filters

• Choose which channels count as support channels.
• Ignore automated/marketing replies and very short one-word messages.
• Turn the auto-reply on or off and edit its message.
• Set always-create and never-create keyword lists for fine control over what becomes a ticket.

Assignment & SLA

• Pick your assignment mode: round-robin, a specific agent, or unassigned. With round-robin, optionally balance evenly within each priority so every agent gets a fair share of urgents, highs, normals and lows — not just of the total.
• Set first-response and resolution targets per priority, with a plain-English live preview.
• Set how many days before resolved tickets auto-close, and whether customers can reopen a resolved ticket (Never / 3 / 7 / 14 / 30 days).
• Choose your ticket number prefix (e.g. HD-1042).

Branding & portal (Agency plan)

• Set your brand name and primary color — they replace HelmDesk's name and accent throughout.
• Turn on the client portal and build your public intake form.

10 Your client portal (Agency plan)

The client portal is a branded, public web form your customers can use to submit requests — every submission becomes a ticket, automatically linked to the right contact.

Build your form

1. Go to Settings → Branding & portal and turn the portal on.
2. Use the drag-and-drop form builder to add, reorder, edit, or remove fields, with a live preview of the customer-facing form as you go. Field types include text, long text, dropdown, radio buttons, and checkboxes — each with an optional placeholder and help text.
3. Map each field to a core detail (name, email, phone, subject, message) or leave it as a custom question — custom answers show up in the ticket's "Form details" panel.
4. Mark fields required as needed and save. Share your portal link with customers.

No customer login required — anyone with the link can submit. Each submission creates a ticket and, if the person isn't in your CRM yet, creates the contact automatically (tagged so you know it came from the portal). The form carries your brand name and color, with a "Powered by {your brand}" footer, and HelmDesk protects it from spam automatically.

11 Workflow automation

HelmDesk publishes workflow triggers so your CRM workflows can react to what happens in your helpdesk. Add a HelmDesk trigger as the starting step of a workflow, then run any actions you like — send an SMS or email, create a task, move a pipeline stage, notify your team.

Available triggers

Each trigger passes the ticket details into your workflow — reference them as {{trigger.ticketRef}}, {{trigger.contactName}}, {{trigger.priority}}, {{trigger.status}}, and more — so your messages and tasks can include the right context.

12 Plans & billing

HelmDesk is a flat monthly subscription — no per-message or per-ticket fees, ever. Every plan starts with a 3-day free trial, so you can set it up and see it working before you're billed. Pick the plan that fits your team's size and the features you need.

Open the Plan pill in the top-right to see your current plan and upgrade or switch at any time. Billing is handled on your own account — upgrades take effect right away.

13 Data & privacy

HelmDesk stores only what it needs to run your helpdesk — a reference to each customer's contact plus the ticket history. It doesn't copy or hold customer data beyond that.

• If you uninstall, your tickets and settings are kept for a short grace window so a reinstall restores everything.
• After 7 days, all of your workspace data is permanently and automatically deleted. Reinstalling within the window cancels the deletion.