A note on Date/Time and Time-zone in the system: How are date values handled

Idesk has been designed to be deployed on a single server and works with date/time functions by storing Unix timestamps in the database. The advantage of such a strategy is that time stamps can be converted on the fly and displayed or formatted based on user preferences.

Understanding Impact of time values in multi time-zone environments

Since it is a single instance, it impacts how the Support Hours are calculated in the system and escalations triggered. Support hours cut-off times trigger at server’s time settings only. However, users working with the system see timestamps in their respective local times.

So, if Idesk has been deployed in say Adelaide, and server's time has been setup for that, support hours will be calculated based on that. Thus a technician or a customer logging in from say Melbourne, would see time stamps converted to their local times if they have changed their timezones in the desk to match.

To explain this a bit more, say support hours are 9am to 5pm Adelaide time. A ticket is created at 11am Melbourne time. Technician logging in from Adelaide would see the time as 10am. Also, the database will store the time as 10am in Unix timestamp value since the server is in Adelaide.

If the technician in Adelaide fixes the ticket at 3pm for a Melbourne customer, the customer in Melbourne will see the stamp as 4pm. So, to declare support hours, please use converted local times. For our example above, Melbourne users should be informed support hours from 10am to 6pm Melbourne time.

This version of iDesk is multi location enabled for users but not multi location for running multiple support desks. If you run multi location help desks, you would need multiple instances of Idesk to be installed. While such a scenario can share a common AD forest or mail system, it is not possible yet to transfer tickets between systems.

Timezone

Sets the system wide Time-zone. Any new user added in the system inherits default system time-zone and can override under my preferences. Users logging first time on to the system are automatically prompted to set their time-zone.

Date Format

System wide default date format. Users can override and define their own format.

Survey Status

Use this switch to Enable or Disable Survey in the desk. Please read more about survey features in Staff / Survey section.

Minutes to Close Ticket

Tickets paused are automatically closed after Minutes to Close is reached. Set to 0 to disable.

Forgot Password Message

For AD users, password cannot be reset by the system. Instead this message is displayed. Customise as needed.

Web users password reset message

For local idesk users, also called Web users (see section on Users and Groups), a forgot password option is available and can be reached from the login screen.

Following message is shown if Idesk could successfully generate and email a new password.

Language preferences [ver 1.0]

Any new user added in the system inherits default system language. Can be changed by user under my preferences.

LD Settings

Second part of the form is for defining LANDesk user credentials. Please see Integration / LANDesk for more details.