Discord as a helpdesk?

[verysmartbenn]

Good Morning all,

I just wanted to show you something I've been working on, but something we're going to test with staff soon, but I wanted everyone's ideas and preferences with this! I've made a discord server for our place, which is also our helpdesk?! I know it seems crazy, but it works. Over 15 different topics to choose from, putting them into seperate channels for logs. Some quick questions for people to get to us with. And with a great way to look at tickets and follow/claim/close them. What does everyone else think? I would go into more features, but i'd be here forever.

 

(Images are in a .zip, I promise it's not dodgey lol)

 

Kind Regards

verysmartbenn

Images for discord helpdesk.zip

[Garacesh]

I personally wouldn't use Discord for a helpdesk because I'm disinclined to mandate folks sign up for third-party services to receive support - plus we block discord here anyway under social media.

That being said, there are a number of ticketing bots out there that do work very well, plus the ease of attaching images, so I can see the appeal. Whatever works well for you and your team.

[localzuk]

Immediate thought - data protection risk.

[jthompson]

You'd want to be able to manage access to it, such that when staff leave, they can't continue to access old helpdesk data.

[David44]

I'm personally not a fan of asking people for their name when they have signed in to a system. You should already know their name. It would be good if the room number defaulted to their timetabled room too, with the ability to change it of course. These are the types of benefits that a homemade system should have over a third party one-size-fits-all system. If it's easier for people to phone or email, they will phone or email. Especially if you are asking them not to provide any sensitive information. Look at your existing tickets, how many of them don't contain sensitive information?

[verysmartbenn]

I'm personally not a fan of asking people for their name when they have signed in to a system. You should already know their name. It would be good if the room number defaulted to their timetabled room too, with the ability to change it of course. These are the types of benefits that a homemade system should have over a third party one-size-fits-all system. If it's easier for people to phone or email, they will phone or email. Especially if you are asking them not to provide any sensitive information. Look at your existing tickets, how many of them don't contain sensitive information?

 

We aim for people to answer the questions without sensitive data, I think a room number, and a phone extension number along with a name isn't too bad. With the staff we don't need to request full names, normally just a first name or last name. We are aware that the bot is managed by other people (the person who made the bot etc) but after speaking with them it seems the only way the bot can store sensitive information is when there is a online sort of form which shows the answers shown. There isn't a way for the bot to see the information within the discord. So it isn't too bad of a safeguarding risk, because you still trust other people with your works information no matter what helpdesk you use. Thank you for the reply tho!

[verysmartbenn]

You'd want to be able to manage access to it, such that when staff leave, they can't continue to access old helpdesk data.

 

That's something we looked at, and it's just a case of removing the staff member from the discord. We're sending out a one off invite link for a day, so this can't be shared. We also need to give the permissions to staff with the #verify in which that proves they are. From then on, removing someone from the discord who has left means they're no longer able to access anything.

 

Thank you for your reply!

[verysmartbenn]

Immediate thought - data protection risk.

 

We did consider this, but after speaking to the people who own the bot, the only data saved is from the initial questions when a ticket is opened. Apart from that, nothing else is recorded or stored. So unless they want to steal someones room number and their issue

[verysmartbenn]

I personally wouldn't use Discord for a helpdesk because I'm disinclined to mandate folks sign up for third-party services to receive support - plus we block discord here anyway under social media.

That being said, there are a number of ticketing bots out there that do work very well, plus the ease of attaching images, so I can see the appeal. Whatever works well for you and your team.

 

Thank you for your reply! We have discord blocked for students, and this is something for staff only. And all they have to do is create a discord account which takes a couple of minutes. The link is sent out through email and BOOM. They're in! It 's something, which with nitro too makes life very simple in regards to instant replys, video and audio calls. Saves time. The server alone took me around 3 days to create. With other bots for calendars, quick guide auto reply bot, which helps staff with simple issues. And other cool features!

[Garacesh]

Thank you for your reply! We have discord blocked for students, and this is something for staff only. And all they have to do is create a discord account which takes a couple of minutes. The link is sent out through email and BOOM. They're in! It 's something, which with nitro too makes life very simple in regards to instant replys, video and audio calls. Saves time. The server alone took me around 3 days to create. With other bots for calendars, quick guide auto reply bot, which helps staff with simple issues. And other cool features!

 

Yeah. I can really appreciate that it has a lot of useful tools.. Screen sharing to help remote support, voice chat in lieu of phone calls, text chat in lieu of emails, ticketing bots, roles and permissions are probably useful for different levels of access, @everyone pings to notify of issues instead of an all-staff email. Definitely good tools to have.

But

Aforementioned data protection issues are a given, now maybe you decide there's a business case for it and it's an acceptable risk, I just prefer to limit wherever possible. Plus as I said, I don't like to mandate third-part services for support. We run Spiceworks on-prem and staff just send us an email, goes to my tech and I, we can accept it (which is something discord doesn't really have but I suppose you could probably kludge a setup like reacting to the initial message to say "I got this one") and that works pretty seamlessly for us. It would be nice to have some of the extra tools but I'm not convinced Discord is the right play.

[PrimaryNetMan]

Immediate thought - data protection risk.

 

Would expect a helpdesk to be integrated with your current identity systems, such as Google, O365 or MIS

[TechMonkey]

Looks like some good work and slick setup.

From my POV it is a bit limiting. We use our helpdesk with staff, students, parents, even some external systems. Even if you only intend to use it with staff for now you are preventing yourself from even the consideration of expansion at a later date.

Also how does it scale? I have no idea how big or small your school is but how manageable will it be with 50 staff on, 100, 200+?

Demanding users setup a Discord account, however quick, just to log an issue with our systems seems a tad OTT. I know I would have second thoughts if I were a member of staff and I use Discord.

For a small start-up or company or where Discord usage is already high this may work but I'm not sure it is a solution for a school.

 

From a different, managlement, perspective, how are you going to report on your tickets? Can you get an overview on all tickets or do you have to go into each channel to see what tickets are there? Can you run a report on how many tickets were generated last term, compared to this term? What is the spread of tickets between sites/buildings/departments? What is the average time to response and solution?

Also is it able to follow ITIL? Can it merge tickets or link them to an incident?

What it boils down to is why is this system better or more usable than any other free system? Especially with the high entry barrier we have all pointed out.

 

You have to consider it from your organisations perspective though. If it works then awesome! It looks better than a Shared Mailbox solution. But, and I hope this doesn't appear rude, it seems more like a justification to use Discord, and have it open, than a justification for a helpdesk.

[verysmartbenn]

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Would expect a helpdesk to be integrated with your current identity systems, such as Google, O365 or MIS

 

Discord is a difficult one to use, needing to use bots is the only downfall. But it works, it works rather well. We have done a assessment of it, and we think it will work well. And if you see our place on the news, then it wasn't my fault, remember that.

[verysmartbenn]

Looks like some good work and slick setup.

From my POV it is a bit limiting. We use our helpdesk with staff, students, parents, even some external systems. Even if you only intend to use it with staff for now you are preventing yourself from even the consideration of expansion at a later date.

Also how does it scale? I have no idea how big or small your school is but how manageable will it be with 50 staff on, 100, 200+?

Demanding users setup a Discord account, however quick, just to log an issue with our systems seems a tad OTT. I know I would have second thoughts if I were a member of staff and I use Discord.

For a small start-up or company or where Discord usage is already high this may work but I'm not sure it is a solution for a school.

 

From a different, managlement, perspective, how are you going to report on your tickets? Can you get an overview on all tickets or do you have to go into each channel to see what tickets are there? Can you run a report on how many tickets were generated last term, compared to this term? What is the spread of tickets between sites/buildings/departments? What is the average time to response and solution?

Also is it able to follow ITIL? Can it merge tickets or link them to an incident?

What it boils down to is why is this system better or more usable than any other free system? Especially with the high entry barrier we have all pointed out.

 

You have to consider it from your organisations perspective though. If it works then awesome! It looks better than a Shared Mailbox solution. But, and I hope this doesn't appear rude, it seems more like a justification to use Discord, and have it open, than a justification for a helpdesk.

 

You've brought something very good to the table here. And thank you for your response. From our perspective, we are rolling out laptops, and discord will come with the image. Discord is something which will always be opened and allows staff quick access to getting support. The tickets are opened and then put into a catagory, but just like a normal helpdesk to navigate through. We have around 200 staff, so making discord accounts for all may be a tad on the harsh side, but it's something we can always go through.

 

[From a different, managlement, perspective, how are you going to report on your tickets? Can you get an overview on all tickets or do you have to go into each channel to see what tickets are there? Can you run a report on how many tickets were generated last term, compared to this term? What is the spread of tickets between sites/buildings/departments? What is the average time to response and solution?] - Yes, the bot has a online management system, where all this is mapped and graphed and made accessible to anyone you add to the admin list. So this can be accessed and easily understood by anyone you ask. The main reason we looked at discord was due to there being difficult getting through to staff with emails. Everyone uses emails, waits for replies. And when you're busy, waiting for the reply and it coming through at the wrong time can be frustrating. So we're going to try having the ability to have a instant online interaction with an instant reponse. A way to share files, images, call, and share screen all in one soluation. And best, all being free. (Unless you want nitro).

 

We just wanted to try something different, even for our team (we're google based) yes there's google chat, but having out ticket system, and a way to have conversations, share information, announce things to staff, have a calendar to see which notifies you, the ability to poll and get staff reactions or ideas will take us forward (we hope)! Thank you for your response, you outlined some key things we've taken on-board. But we have done our own testing and we feel rather confident with it. We will let it take its' own course!

[DalekSec]

Honestly from my point of view, if it sounds like a hack and looks like a hack. Its a hack.

 

Much rather stick to the more common and supported methods such as Spiceworks etc.

 

At the end of the day Discord is not designed for this, someone has created a plugin. Which yes, might do what you want. But what if 2 months down the line the developer stops doing it and within months there's an issue that will never be fixed, you then have discord installed on all these devices for no reasons. Or Discord pushes out an update that breaks the plugin, which is very common.

 

Plus as im writing this, how are you going to stop staff creating new servers and inviting people into them?

 

Discord is a great tool dont get me wrong i use it daily, but i would never use it as a ticketing system for a school.

[Katy]

Immediate thoughts - generally agree with @Garacesh. I can imagine it'd work well at something like a niche tech company where all the users are... not sure how to word this but likely to already have and use discord themselves - but I'm not sure the average teacher would fit that profile. Thinking back to the teachers at my last school, nah. But I can see the benefits in it - screen share and voice/video chat etc.

[Boredguy]

So you expect all staff to sign up to a third party system with their school e-mail account?

Sorry but that does sound like doing something in Discord just for the sake of it.

 

If your a o365 site, then Teams now has a basic Ticketing app available to it, and user accounts are all integrated so no issues about Data Sharing required due to personal information, plus there is the whole gambit of fully functional helpdesks that can integrate with O365/G-Suite for authentication.

 

Considering it wasn't too long ago when Discord had a data leak and we had to change passwords, it's not a platform I would ever recommend any of our sites using other than in a personal setting with their own personal e-mail accounts.

[TechMonkey]

You highlight in an interesting point there. Why is Discord part of the image on the new laptops? Unless it is being included for a different reason you have setup a circular argument there. You are including Discord on the image so a Discord helpdesk system makes sense, but Discord is in the image to allow the helpdesk.

 

You will have to be careful with your instant online interaction. What about after hours? What if 15 tickets all come in? If you are touting this as instant access and you don't have the people to facilitate this then staff will become disillusioned. At least with email staff should be checking it semi regularly so know an interaction will be there, depending on your SLAs. Is Discord going to be part of the official school communication policy? Staff now have 2 places, email and Discord, to keep an eye on? Has that been OK'd by management?

 

I hope you don't think I'm trying to be negative. I'll be interested to hear updates to the project. Can you post some shots of the reporting area, sounds interesting?

[Ironside]

Yeah I agree with Garacesh, Katy and Boredguy, Discord is not really a helpdesk, use Teams for flexible team communications or Spiceworks for a proper helpdesk.

[Garacesh]

I'm concerned that there's the potential for OP to take away the wrong message from this so just to clarify what I (and I feel others) are thinking..

 

I, like many others, use Discord daily. Without a doubt it's my #1 tool to communicate with others, in both a semi-professional (as in 'it's work stuff, but I don't operate as an agent of my employer') and personal capacity.

 

You've seen the ubiquitousness of Discord on the internet, identified its main strengths and hypothesised how they might be leveraged to help you fulfil your role. You've clearly put in the work, and it's obviously been a nice little passion project. You've hit a snag or two, and figured out how to work around it. To be fair, I think it's pretty cool, and from a 'you've had a problem and worked to build a solution' perspective, it's great. Definitely the kind of forward-thinking and not-afraid-to-try attitude I'd be looking for if I were hiring.

 

BUT, it's a huge case of 'wrong tool, wrong job'.

When there's so many tools now that operate over email (something your staff are already familiar with), and do LDAP or O365/GSuite integration, that are purpose-built for helpdesk ticketing, it just doesn't seem like the right play.

 

I just hope you don't think we're all sat here taking the metaphorical poo all over your hard work because we're all old-timers that aren't forward-thinking enough or embracing emergent technologies

[localzuk]

We did consider this, but after speaking to the people who own the bot, the only data saved is from the initial questions when a ticket is opened. Apart from that, nothing else is recorded or stored. So unless they want to steal someones room number and their issue

Data Protection obligations apply to more than just saving data. It applies to processing data. So, if someone puts any personal data in a request and sends it via this system, the data is traversing both Discord's servers and the bot's servers. So, you'd need to be able to justify this. As Discord is based in the USA, you would need to be sure your data processing isn't breaking GDPR which currently has major issues with transferring data to the USA (see Italy just fining a company for using Google Analytics because it is USA based)...

 

Have you considered using MS Teams instead? That would be much more likely to be compliant, and comes with proper tools for managing it. You can also write bots etc for it.

Edited June 30, 2022 by localzuk

[BKGarry]

As much as this is a nice idea, I feel it is ultimately flawed. One unsuitable server joined by staff, one dodgy notification, one bit of leaked data from within discord itself and you are opening yourself to a world of hurt.

 

I just think it is the wrong tool for the job, especially when there are plenty of dedicated helpdesk options out there and most can just lift tickets straight from an email.

[bushby]

going to throw in my 2 cents,

 

discord is not suitable for corparate use, this is due to its original target user base was communities for gaming and since the pandemic they then expanded to assit with remote learning.

now on to the bot side, where does the bot sit (on your servers or else where) bots do fall over on discord all the time, even the large ones with premium funtions,

the other aspect is the amount of spam bots that are on the platform, atleast once a week i get a bot DM me with spam, and i have no links to them either mutal friends or servers,

now what would also happen if a member of staff adds a NSFW server to their work account (this does happen) how are you going to block this nsfw server.

[ebeecroft]

going to throw in my 2 cents,

 

discord is not suitable for corparate use, this is due to its original target user base was communities for gaming and since the pandemic they then expanded to assit with remote learning.

now on to the bot side, where does the bot sit (on your servers or else where) bots do fall over on discord all the time, even the large ones with premium funtions,

the other aspect is the amount of spam bots that are on the platform, atleast once a week i get a bot DM me with spam, and i have no links to them either mutal friends or servers,

now what would also happen if a member of staff adds a NSFW server to their work account (this does happen) how are you going to block this nsfw server.

 

This. As much as Discord has it's uses I think we will stick with Spiceworks.

[bald_pig]

With so many paid and free options out there, this seems a bit daft and bullish. Just because you can, doesn't mean you should!