Can Trello be used as Support Help Desk (Ticketing System)?
Asked by arockia jacco:

Hello,  

I'm planning to set up a support help desk (Ticketing System) in my organization. Can Trello be used as a ticketing system? I'm expecting something similar to Freshdesk, Zendesk, HubSpot etc.  

If yes, please guide me through materials to understand better.  

Appreciate your response at the earliest possible!


Answers:
author: mustafa sener _Hipporello_
body: Hi,

If you want to do this in Trello, you need to open a separate board for each of customer and try to manage them on those separated boards in order to prevent them to see each other's requests. So there are no obvious native ways to do it.

But you can use Hipporello, a service desk power-up built just for Trello users, to tackle this problem. I am the founder of this power-up and I strongly suggest that you should give it a try. Hipporello connects your customers and employees to your support, IT \& business teams by creating Trello cards via online forms and emails. And it enables further communication with customers to be handled on Trello card. You don't need to go back to your email provider to contact the requester. There are many more features that I don't want to spend your time on.

Please go and check our website or Trello power ups for Hipporello.

comments: author: Team Hipporello
body: I forgot to add our website. Please see below:

Website:

<https://www.hipporello.com>

Powerup link

<https://trello.com/power-ups/5dd670e21b2a8973687ca15a>


author: Mark Fowles
body: Hi [@arockia jacco](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/3091685)

Sorry that I am very late to the party here.

Check out [www.sendboard.com](https://www.sendboard.com "SendBoard for Trello") - We created this Power-Up to allow teams to set up an email helpdesk - right within Trello.

It works like Zendesk/Freshdesk - allowing customers to engage with you via email. You can use your own email address like help@example.com to send/receive emails directly from Trello.

You can find out more at [www.sendboard.com](https://www.sendboard.com "SendBoard for Trello")


author: Iain Dooley
body: [@arockia jacco](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/3091685) I created an integration that allows you to use Trello as a Gmail client:

<https://trello.com/integrations/#/benkoboard>

This means you can have emails automatically created as cards, and then reply directly from the card.

It can also be modified so that this is shared between team members, ie. anyone can reply to cards in certain boards (although that's not a native feature yet so needs some custom Trellinator code to make it work).

You could just create a new G-Suite account called support@yourdomain.com and then connect that to a new Trello account and allow multiple people to login to that account to reply so it's just a sort of "shared inbox on steroids" rather than being a complete helpdesk solution.

Running your helpdesk in Trello can save you a tonne of money and has the added benefit of allowing you to map out workflows/checklists/systems for dealing with enquiries (imho) better than any of the other helpdesk software on the market.

comments: author: arockia jacco
body: Hello Iain,

Great Share!

But, if I respond to the card that has been created by sending mail to support@domain.com, **Will the answers reach the respective customer?**

Also, I need assistance in assigning cards (tickets) in a round-robin method to my support team. Is this possible?


author: Iain Dooley
body: [@arockia jacco](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/3091685) yep that's right if you type @reply followed by your message, then the reply will go to the sender of the email.

You can try it out by emailing team@benkoboard.com then I'll reply with a screenshot of what my reply looks like when I'm sending it to you :)

In terms of alerting team members of the new enquiry, you can just post a new comment "@board new enquiry" and then everyone on the board will get that notification and the first person to see that can assign themselves to the card.

Alternatively you could do a strict round robin with Trellinator like this:

<https://gist.github.com/iaindooley/11ad5d5effdb62e4c1f0ca0246aed238>

Benko Board is written in Trellinator. You can see how to set up Trellinator here:

<https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Marketplace-Apps-articles/Introducing-Trellinator-Automate-Trello-with-Google-Apps-Script/ba-p/925271>

Actually the example I talk about above using the board level notification is the example shown in the Trellinator overview video on the website.


author: arockia jacco
body: Iain,

Thanks much for this brief description!

May I get some User Guide or Manuals to kick start using Trello? I don't find any documentation.


author: Iain Dooley
body: [@arockia jacco](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/3091685) Benko Board has a crappy on-boarding process, it's not a power up and you can't install it on your own unfortunately. It's listed as an official Trello integration, but it needs a very "hands on" install. You can book an installation from the website or email team@benkoboard.com if you can't find a suitable spot. This will allow you to try it out and assess it for your team.

Trellinator is free and open source, and can be set up reasonably simply by following these instructions but the setup is still pretty cumbersome:

<https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Marketplace-Apps-articles/Introducing-Trellinator-Automate-Trello-with-Google-Apps-Script/ba-p/925271>

The implementation of Trellinator commands requires coding, though. It's not too difficult, I just hire people on Upwork to do the code, there are many people capable of doing google apps scripting and the Trellinator documentation takes them through a detailed description of how it works.

Alternatively I can handle that process for you. Either, this is still something that is quite a "high touch" on-boarding process.


author: Stef
body: Hi [@arockia jacco](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/3091685) I'm curious about the workflow you had in mind for Trello as a ticketing system. For example, are you looking to set up Trello where new tickets would be added as cards, and responding to those cards would mean responding to your customers?

Trello excels as a tool for organizing and managing tasks, plans, and projects, but the board template Jodi shared is a neat way of managing and responding to issues with Trello, so that might be something you can look into.

comments: author: arockia jacco
body: Hi Stephanie,

Yes, my workflow is very similar to what you mentioned above.

For example,

1. If my customer sends an email to support@xxx.com, this should be added as a New card, and if any support agents respond to that card, the response should reach the end customer.

2. Is it possible to have a dedicate Trello account for my customer, so that he/she can raise a ticket directly by logging into his/her account?

**Can Trello be used for such purpose?**

To my knowledge, Trello can only be used as a task, project management tool. But was curious to know if the tool will help my use case.


author: Jodi LeBlanc
body: Hi [@arockia jacco](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/3091685) have you checked out the trello.com/inspiration boards? I found this one that you may find useful: <https://trello.com/b/tqcbOCXq/it-support>

Let me know if this helps.  
Thanks,

Jodi

comments: author: arockia jacco
body: Hello Jodi,

Thanks for your response!

I'm expecting something very similar to Freshdesk or Zendesk. Trello requires a lot of manual work.