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