Written by Ian Landsman, published on 01.11.2021
This is the first stable release of HelpSpot 5. To get a visual preview of some of the changes you can check out https://www.helpspot.com/new.
If you are upgrading from version 4.x you need to make sure you have upgraded to version 4.9.5 before upgrading.
Potentially Breaking Changes
New Features
- New workspace / admin UI
- New default user icons feature the user’s initials and can also be customized to an Emoji or Uploaded avatar
- Custom CSS and JS can now be easily added in the admin web interface
- Staff notifications now include attachments and images
- The access key for tickets is now longer and more secure
- Reports can now be scheduled and emailed to selected individuals
- Reports can now be shared with other staff members and permission groups
- SAML authentication is now supported for staff and customer single sign-on
- New WYSIWYG editor based on TinyMCE
- New email parser for more reliable email display
- Mailboxes now have the option to archive mail. You can change this setting in Admin > Email Mailboxes for each mailbox. If archiving is turned on a helpspot_archive_folder folder will be created in your IMAP mailbox and messages will be moved there instead of deleted. This feature is not supported for POP3 mailboxes.
- A new failed jobs screen in the admin area allows you to track when a job (such as retrieving an email) hasn’t completed successfully
- Secondary portals are now automatically created eliminating the need to manually place files on the server when creating them
- Email sending is now queued instead of being inline. This will reduce sending errors and speed up the request update process
- Email templates now support conditional logic and more via blade syntax
- Image upload and attachment interface is now simplified and supports drag and drop and copy a paste of images.
- Updated date/time picker UI allows you to enter dates and times with your keyboard or through the UI.
- Responses can now be easily deactivated in the response management list.
- Responses can now be accessed via the # shortcut directly in the note editor. Type # then the title of the response and hit enter to include it.
- Placeholder tags can be auto-filled with the $ shortcut directly in the note editor. Type $ then the name of the tag and press enter to include it. The tag will be automatically formatted in the correct syntax.
- Staff can now be tagged directly in the note editor using the @ shortcut. Type @ then the staff members name in order to tag them in the note and send them a notification. Staff will be sent a notification on that particular note. If you wish to subscribe to them as well you can choose that option in the staff notification area.
- Automation rules can now have custom schedules defined in the automation setup screen.
- The API now supports token-based auth
- Recurring requests can be created through the response interface
- New permissions settings allow staff with the limited category permission to still transfer requests to other categories and staff, but then not access the request after the transfer
- A new default portal theme option is available, called “Clean”
- Portal accessibility improvements have been added to the default templates
- A secondary portal can be marked as primary in the UI
- New dark mode admin theme