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Get the most out of FocalScope knowledge-base articles
Monday, December 5, 2016 5:48 AM


You will encounter a few different kinds of articles in the knowledge base. This article is intended to help you understand essential FocalScope terminology and navigate and read the knowledge-base articles. Here is a list of the four main knowledge-base article types:

FAQs
These articles consist of a single question and a direct answer. FAQ articles have minimal screenshots (if any) in them and may link to other more elaborate articles, depending on the subject relevance.

Information Articles
These articles may include detailed descriptions of certain FocalScope features. Information articles usually have multiple screenshots and may link to other articles, depending on the subject relevance.

Tutorials
These articles demonstrate how FocalScope features are configured and include step-by-step instructions (with ample screenshots) as well as links to other articles, depending on the subject relevance.

Problems & Solutions
These articles cover a variety of  problems and issues related to FocalScope, email servers, the user experience, etc., and contain the most up-to-date workarounds and solutions. Each problem and solution article includes a mix of symptoms, known causes, troubleshooting guides, and solutions / workarounds for issues. These article also link to related articles, depending on subject relevance.

Essential Terminology

FocalScope has some unique terminology that you need to be aware of to understand the instructions / explanations given in our knowledge-base articles. Here is a list of the core terminologies you should be familiar with before proceeding:

Agent
In the FocalScope context, the term agent means any person who has a user account in FocalScope.

Ticketbox
The term ticketbox is used to refer to any shared group folder (or just shared folder) in FocalScope in which emails are collected.

Email Account
This refers to the email account that exists in your mail server (e.g., Exchange, Lotus Notes, Google, etc.), which is associated with an individual or group in FocalScope.

Agent Views
Supervisors and managers have the option to monitor the personal folders of their subordinates. Alternatively, if an agent is out of action, another agent can be given full access to their personal folders; thus, allowing customers to continue receiving support without having to reengage the support department.

Email
The term email should be understood in the common sense. It is a message that is sent or received, can contain embedded images or HTML formatted content, and can have attachments (files and images).

Ticket
A ticket, in its most basic form, is an email with a unique ID attached to it by FocalScope. A ticket will collect all subsequent correspondence related to the initial email. Multiple tickets can be combined into one ticket, and one ticket can be split into multiple tickets.

  • Tickets can be placed in various states (open, on hold, closed, and custome states)
  • Tickets can be placed in various custom categories
  • Tickets can be assigned to agents

FocalScope interface elements

Even though FocalScope's interface was designed to be intuitive and easy to use, there are some obscure areas that you may need to navigate to from time to time. Especially if you are an administrator. The following series of screenshots details the various elements in the UI that you need to be familiar with:

Please note
In articles, all interface elements will be in bold and brackets [...] to make it easier to spot which elements you need to navigate / click / interact with.

  1. Highlighted in red is the [Main menu], which is used to navigate between the [Workspace] and [Administration] screens and to access other tools, such as the Mobile Client download and configuration screen
  2. Highlighted in blue is the [Toolbar], which can be used to launch various FocalScope tools and functions
  3. Highlighted in green are the agent's private folders
  4. Highlighted in orange are the shared folders (ticketboxes) for various departments
  5. Highlighted in purple are the ticket state tabs. You can add additional custom tabs as required
  6. Indicated by the arrows is the status bar, which shows various system messages, alerts, and the agents status


Figure 1 - The agent Workspace screen



FocalScope ticketboxes have number cues that at a glance provide useful information to agents.

  1. The first column number indicates the amount of open tickets in the ticketbox
  2. The second column number indicates how many emails remain unread by the agent
  3. The third column number indicates the number of tickets in the ticketbox that are assigned to the agent


Figure 2 - Navigating to the Administration screen


Figure 3 - Ticketbox number cues



The administration screen is where most of the configuration is done for the various FocalScope features.

  1. Highlighted in red is the [Administration pane]. It contains multiple folders and subfolders that map to various FocalScope features and configurations
  2. Highlighted in blue are the various configuration tabs for the [Administration pane]
  3. Highlighted in green is the right-hand pane. When you configure various features in FocalScope, the settings are displayed here


Figure 4 - The Administration screen