SupportCenter User's Guide

This document is just short installation cookbook not updated with every new feature. Full installation guide updated periodically you can find here: SupportCenter documentation

SupportCenter installation instructions

Requirements

  • any platform that is able to run webserver+PHP (e.g. Apache, httpd.apache.org) and MySQL server, successfully tested on MS Windows and GNU/Linux
  • PHP 4.3.0 or higher
    homepage:php.net
  • MySQL 4.1 or higher
    homepage:mysql.com
  • Javascript enabled web browser 
    			  - Firefox 1.0+ (as well as Mozilla)
			  - Internet Explorer 6+
			  - Opera 8.5+
			  - Safari 2.0.x+
			  - Konqueror 3.5+

Preliminary steps

You should create the database and database user with mysql shell by executing the sql commands below: 

  CREATE DATABASE database_name;
  GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON database_name.* TO database_user@localhost IDENTIFIED BY "database_password" WITH GRANT OPTION;

Customize it to match your database_name, database_user, and database_password.

You could also use some MySql administration tool (such as phpMyAdmin or CPanel) to perform this step in more user-friendly way.

Automatic installation

Before you can start automatic installation wizard, you need to copy all files from distribution package to your server.

Automatic installer needs to have write enabled access to directory server/settings. On unix/linux systems you can grant access to it as follows: 

  chmod 777 server/settings

After installation you can change it back to more safe permissions (chmod 755 server/settings).

Now point your browser to root directory of SupportCenter, e.g. yourdomain.com/SupportCenter/ (this depends on configuration of your web server and location of SupportCenter directory). The installer should start automatically, but you could also launch it directly with url yourdomain.com/SupportCenter/server/install.

After start, installer will guide you through the rest of installation.

Post-installation steps

IMPORTANT If installation was successfull, you should remove directory server/install for security reasons.

Set up cron on unix/linux systems to execute command below every minute. This command will run job that is necessary for receiving emails and sending email notifications: 

  cd path_to_supportcenter/server && php jobs.php

You can edit cron jobs with command: 

  crontab -e

The cron record will look like this: 

  * * * * * php path_to_supportcenter/server/jobs.php

On MS Windows, you could use scheduler to schedule this job.

Running

Point your browser into root directory of SupportCenter, eg yourdomain.com/SupportCenter/ (this depends on configuration of your web server and location of SupportCenter directory).

Login with username/email and password of administrator’s account, that you have created during installation.

How to Upgrade to newest version ?

You should do following steps if you like to upgrade to newest avaible verision of SupportCenter:

  1. Download newest installation file from your members area (Memebers area)
  2. Make backup of your database and old installation files (if something will go wrong, you can always get back to old release, which worked for you)
  3. Replace old installation files with new files
  4. Follow upgrade wizard: http://yourdomain/server/install/index.php
  5. You are ready.

Application Setup

First steps after successfull installation of SupportCenter should be:

  1. Login as administrator
  2. Check configuration (Settings - Configuration)
  3. Define Mail Accounts (Settings - Mail Accounts)
  4. Define Queues (Settings - Queues)
  5. Define Parsing Rules (Settings - Rules)

How to integrate submit ticket form to my existing web site ?

This is very simple. :-)
Just try it with our example php called submit_form.php distributed with installation files of SupportCenter.
Before you will start it, please check all configuration variables inside this file
(e.g. path to SupportCenter, name of domain, where is installed SupportCenter and similar)
You can change design and layout of form as you like so, that it will fit your website design.

Need more help ? Contact Us!

Web: www.qualityunit.com/supportcenter/
Email: support@qualityunit.com.
We will try to answer every ticket within 24 hours (except weekends).

Phone: +421 903 776 925 (8:00 - 20:00 GMT+1)
Address:
Quality Unit, s.r.o.
Tomanova 80/C
83107 Bratislava
Slovakia

Forum
For discussions about SupportCenter we prepared our forum.