HelpSpot 5.0.58

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

Read through the upgrade documentation found here before continuing as there are a number of major changes.
Forums have been removed. HelpSpot will provide an export option and we recommend moving forums to one of the many purpose-built forum platforms. Here at Userscape we use Discourse (https://www.discourse.org/).
Tokens in templates and responses are now delimited by double “{“ characters. Existing responses and templates will be automatically converted. However, if you are using an external text macro tool, for example, you may need to make updates.
Admin Themes have been removed and have been replaced with custom admin JS and CSS settings.
Custom portal templates need to be updated.

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