Glossary of helpdesk terms
Each CloudFly Helpdesk concept paired with the exact English label the console prints for it, so this documentation and the screen name one thing one way.
This documentation and the console do not always spell a thing the same way. The middle column of every table below is the label as the English console prints it, so when a guide names something you cannot find on screen, look it up here first.
The Vietnamese console prints different labels; those are listed on the Vietnamese edition of this page.
Inboxes and conversations
| Term used in the docs | Console label | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Inbox | Channels | The queue one source pours into, and the boundary permissions are drawn around. |
| Channel | Channels | The technical route into an inbox: the widget, a Facebook Page, a Zalo OA, Telegram, a mailbox. |
| Widget | Website Widget | The chat panel embedded on your own site. |
| Conversation | Conversations | A message stream between one customer and your team, owned by a single inbox. |
| Conversation state | Open, Snoozed, Resolved | The only three values a conversation can hold. |
| Private note | Internal discussion | Staff-only message; the server refuses a public message that quotes one. |
| Thread | Threads | A side discussion branched off a message, with its own read state. |
| Archive | Archived | Clears a conversation from your own queue and leaves everyone else's alone. |
| Mention | Mentions | Naming a colleague with @; raises a notification and has its own feed. |
| Canned response | Canned responses | Per-agent saved text, inserted into the composer. |
Tickets and SLA
| Term used in the docs | Console label | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Ticket | Tickets, Ticket | A unit of work with its own reference, its own column and a deadline. |
| Ticket reference | HD-0001 | A global reference issued atomically, so no two tickets collide. |
| Stage | Kanban, Kanban boards | A step in one team's workflow; drag to move a card, and the move is recorded. |
| Priority | Low, Medium, High, Urgent | The four levels a ticket can carry. |
| Internal note on a ticket | Internal | A badge on a reply line that the customer cannot read. |
| Customer-facing reply | Public Reply | The reply the customer receives by email or through the portal. |
| SLA | SLA Policies | A promised response and resolution time, attached by tag, customer or team. |
| Working calendar | Working Calendars | The hours, holidays and shifts the SLA clock obeys. |
People, contacts and access
| Term used in the docs | Console label | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Contact | Contacts | The profile of somebody outside the workspace: name, email, phone, attributes. |
| Linked profile | Linked records | A staff claim that two records are one person; reversible, and the author is logged. |
| Assignee | Assignee | The person answerable for one conversation or one ticket. |
| Team | Teams, Team | A group of staff used for assignment and for building a Kanban board. |
| Department | Departments | An organizational unit above teams, with its own ticket and notification settings. |
| Tag | Tags | A keyword on a conversation, ticket or contact, used to filter and to target SLA. |
| Workspace role | Role | Either administrator or agent. |
| Per-feature role | Conversations role, Tickets role | Each takes Admin (can write) or Member (read-only). |
Those last two rows are separate axes, described in Roles and per-feature permissions.
Read next
Contacts, channel identities and linked records
One human can occupy several contact records in CloudFly Helpdesk. How channel identities work, what linking asserts, and why a link is transitive.
Working the shared inbox
The conversation queue is the screen a support agent looks at all day. This section covers filtering, assigning, replying, internal notes and tidying up.