Open*HelpDesk

Getting started

Your first ticket

A ticket is created the moment a request reaches your workspace. This page walks the fastest path from a fresh workspace to a real ticket sitting in the inbox — and the ways to point your own support address at Open HelpDesk once you are ready.

How requests arrive

Tickets come in through four channels: email, the customer portal, the embeddable widget, and the API. Email is the one you set up first, and the one this page concentrates on. Whichever channel a request uses, it lands as a New ticket in the same inbox.

The address that works immediately

Every workspace is given a support address the moment it is created:

support@acme.open-helpdesk.com — with your own slug in place of acme.

This address is live from the start. It needs no DNS, no verification and no setup: mail sent to it is received by the platform and turned into a ticket straight away. It is the address the onboarding shows you, and the quickest way to see the product work. You can hand it out as-is, or keep it as the destination behind your own address, described next.

Bringing your own address

Most teams want requests to reach a familiar address such as support@yourcompany.com. There are two ways to connect one, both set up under Settings → Email (or during onboarding).

Forwarding

Add your address in the workspace, then, at your own email provider, create a rule that forwards everything sent to it on to your provided address (support@acme.open-helpdesk.com). That forwarding rule lives with your provider — Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, or wherever your mailbox is hosted — not in Open HelpDesk. The address stays marked unverified until the very first email reaches it through your forward; that first message flips it to verified and confirms the path is working.

IMAP

If you would rather have Open HelpDesk collect mail directly, connect the mailbox by IMAP: host, port, and the account's username and password. The password is encrypted at rest. Use the Test button to check the connection; the address turns verified once that connection succeeds.

The widget

The embeddable widget is the no-email path. You drop its script onto your own site, and a visitor who opens the “Need help?” panel and sends a message creates a ticket without leaving the page. They are told every reply will come by email, so a widget ticket continues as an ordinary email conversation. The widget is configured under the portal settings.

Send a test

The best proof is a real message. From any mailbox, send an email to your workspace address:

  1. Send a short email to support@acme.open-helpdesk.com (your slug).
  2. Open the agent workspace at /app.
  3. The message appears as a New ticket, with the sender registered as a contact and the subject as the ticket subject.
  4. Reply from the ticket; your answer is emailed back to the sender.

The final onboarding step exists for exactly this — it marks itself done as soon as the first ticket exists.

Look at the inbox right after the test: the new ticket at the top of the list, its channel marked as email, and the sender shown as a contact.
Figure 2. Look at the inbox right after the test: the new ticket at the top of the list, its channel marked as email, and the sender shown as a contact.
A forward that points at the wrong target, or a custom sending domain whose records are not in place, drops mail quietly. When an incoming message cannot be matched to an address your workspace knows, it is refused — it does not become a ticket, and the sender is not necessarily told. Add the address in the workspace before you point a forward at it, send yourself a test from an outside mailbox, and confirm the address shows as verified. Do not announce a new support address to customers until a test email has landed as a ticket.