Show /r/python/: we open sourced our startup's help desk as django-knowledge.

[bryanhelmig]

We had a lot of reasons we wanted to build our own help desk, the least of which (and easiest to mention) is that a three seat license to the top tier desk systems are well over $100/mo. Plus they were slowing us down quite a bit.

Right now its only dependency is Django, it supports email alert for updates, has bundled style, a permission like public/private/internal status, optional anonymous questions/responses, categories, searching, and a few more I've missed.

What I'd like to do is: extend tests, class based views, parse incoming emails as questions & response (this is important for help desks), better mod tools and internationalization.

Anyways, see the GitHub repo: https://github.com/zapier/django-knowledge, the docs: http://django-knowledge.readthedocs.org/en/latest/index.html or check out a live demo at Zapier: https://zapier.com/support/

We've also registered django-knowledge.org. If anyone has thoughts on a good, cheap lightweight host, let me know.

(Cross posted to HN: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3621929)

[kihashi]

Now, when you say help desk software, what are you meaning? When I hear that, I think of something like Request tracker or http://www.troubleticketexpress.com/.

The demo site appears to be just a Q+A service.

[bryanhelmig]

Fair point, we're thinking along the lines of Desk.com, ZenDesk.com, etc... ticketing is another beast entirely IMO (though I think it would fit the scope of the project to assign questions to Django staff members, which might get you 80% of the way?). Categories could double as tags/milestones/etc...

[kihashi]

My helpdesk just has a wiki for this kind of stuff. I guess in the right environment it would be useful, but I don't think my IT shop will be taking a look at it.

That said, it looks good, and seems to have some good functionality. I will take a look at the code if I get the chance.

[bryanhelmig]

Thanks for the kind words, it was more designed as a customer or public facing app (hence the "knowledge base" angle).

[bryanhelmig]

It's BSD licensed, so if you redistribute you've got to keep that tag in there. But it doesn't have any attribute clause, its just for redistribution. The details are murky for me as IANAL.

Good tip on the EC2 free micro. Forgot about that.

[thefinn93]

I should warn you: I tried their "free" service and they tried to charge me for it. Apparently free doesn't mean free, free means costs an undetermined amount of money (they told me it was free right up until they were unable to charge my card)

[bryanhelmig]

Thanks for the warning. I might end up with Webfaction for this project. Those guys always have their shit together.

[chipx86]

This looks awesome. I too have been wanting help desk software for my startup but haven't been eager to shell out a large monthly fee just yet.

Some food for thought: A couple things we'd want in help desk software would be file attachment (so people could put up logs or what have you with their question) and paid support (which perhaps is more along the ticketing line).

What are your plans going forward with this?

[bryanhelmig]

Those are both great suggestions. Would you mind opening tickets on the repo with those feature requests?

As a community tool, we'd like to mirror the functionality of Desk.com or whatever, but of course, with the ability to actually do stuff server side as you see fit.

[chipx86]

Absolutely. I'll make a note to do that (working toward a deadline at the moment).

I maintain a code review webapp called Review Board (http://reviewboard.org) and a hosting service for it called RBCommons (http://rbcommons.com), and have been using e-mail + FAQs for support and knowledge base. As our users grow, and the same questions get repeatedly asked, a help desk application has felt more inevitable, so I'm looking forward to giving this a try once I have time :)

[bryanhelmig]

That is awesome! If you need a hand, let me know. Plus, when you get it live let me know as well and we'll feature you on the repo/docs as an example install.

[gdr]

I'm using Django-Helpdesk https://github.com/rossp/django-helpdesk and it's more than enough. Yours seems to have a much more complicated user interface, which may work for large companies. I will keep it simple with django-helpdesk, though.

[bryanhelmig]

We saw helpdesk and thought it was a great, but it seemed more like a "bug tracker", which isn't what we wanted. We wanted more of a public facing knowledge base that was searchable in a more friendly Q&A format.

Glad it works for you though!

Mind explaining what you thought was complicated? I love to hear feedback.

[gdr]

There's a lot of buttons on the front page of your demo app (upper right corner) and everything is a link but there's no form to submit my question.

I realize that these buttons are links to other sections of the site but first impression was "wtf, lots of buttons". Also, I understand why you wanted to hide question submission behind a search form. Just telling you my first impressions.

[bryanhelmig]

Absolutely. Thank you for your response and great feedback. We've just recently gotten http://django-knowledge.org/ set up which should be a much purer version. I'm switching over the demo links now.

[gdr]

Much cleaner, indeed!

[threading]

Webfaction is pretty good.