Quick Start Guide

Welcome to LBE Desktop Helpdesk. This topic will get you up and running as quickly as possible.

Installation
Each machine that needs to use the helpdesk must have run the installation routine.

• Download the trial version from http://www.LbeHelpdesk.com
• Run the supplied setup.exe

Please do not install it onto a single machine and just shortcut to that exe from other machines. You must install and run it from your machine. The database can certainly be moved to a network server so that several people can share it. Simply move the .mdb file and connect to it from the File menu, Select Database.

Log In
Run the helpdesk from your Start menu. The helpdesk will load. After showing a splash screen then a Tip of the Day window, it will automatically connect to the default database (helpdesk.mdb) located in the same folder as you installed the helpdesk.

You will be asked to log in to the helpdesk:

If this is the first time select the user name 'Trial' and enter a password of 'password', then click the OK button.

The main window will be displayed:

Most of the buttons in the the toolbar at the top of the window are disabled at the moment.

On the left hand side of the window is a Tree view that shows you the main components of the system. The right hand side (empty at the moment) is used as a container for all the other windows in the system. You can click on the divider between these two areas and drag to resize their relative proportions if you wish.

On the tree view you can expand each level by clicking on the icon. The picture below shows the first three folders expanded:

These will be discussed in more detail later. For now, click the "Detailed" icon beneath the "Jobs" folder. This shows a list of all the helpdesk jobs:

It is empty at the moment because we haven't created any Jobs. To create a new Job, you can either:

• Press F3/F4.
• Select New Job from the File menu.
• Right click on the empty list and select "New Job" from the popup menu.

Do one of these now please.

You should see the New Job Window:

Resize the window so you can see all the fields, either by dragging a corner of the window or using one of the options from the Window menu.

Insert Problem and Solution from Knowledgebase
Clicking this will display a list of knowledgebase items, selecting one will insert the values into this Job. If the Solution field is not available (because the job status is not "closed") then only the Problem will be copied from the knowledgebase.

Problem Summary
Enter a description of the problem in the field labeled Problem e.g. 'Hard disk is making a strange noise'. By default, the system will copy the contents of a file named "newjob.txt" into the Problem summary. This is a simple text file and may be edited by you as required.

To Do
Enter a description of any actions that must be carried out before a successful completion of this Job e.g. 'Check if there is a backup of this user's data'.

Job Status
If the Job is completed, select Closed from the drop-down list and enter a description in the Solution field.

Time/Money Spent
You can specify how much has been spent on this Job in terms of both time and money. The Time Spent field will automatically increment for each minute you have this window open. If you wish, you can overwrite this with your own value (after which it will stop increasing automatically).

Contact
You must specify which individual raised this problem. The system uses a hierarchy of:

• Customers
  • Departments
    • Contacts

Click the drop-down list to show a list of all Contacts (the database has one contact initially) and select one.

Notes
If you need to add more extensive notes, click the Notes tab on this window and enter them there. Anything you type into the Notes will be moved to the History when you save.

Finally
The rest of the information on the screen has already been completed for you. We will come back to these later. For now, just click the Save button.

After clicking Save on the New Job, the window will close and the Jobs - Detailed view that we opened earlier will be refreshed. You should see something like:

The new job you created is listed. You can resize each column by dragging the dividers in the column headings, or click and drag a column to a new position if you wish. You can also change the font color and size (see Data Views).

Show History
Right click on the Job and select Show History. This will display a window showing the audit trail of what has happened on this job so far. You should be able to see all the Customer/Department/Contact information, plus a record of when the Job was actioned and your Problem/To Do and Notes.

Action this Job
Let's say that you telephoned the Contact and asked them to run some further tests (e.g. defragment the hard disk). You need to record this Action. So, right click on this job and select Action Job. You will be shown the same window that you saw when you created the Job. If you select the History tab you can view the Job's audit trail. Enter any new notes and click the Save button.

When you return to the Jobs Detailed view, you will see that the 'Last Actioned' column has been updated, if you right click and select 'Show History', you will see a record of your last action has been made in the History.

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