by fullhelp on 5/7/19, 7:19 AM with 72 comments
by zaroth on 5/7/19, 7:42 PM
The non-recurring pricing model makes it almost too cheap, but it’s right in the sweet spot of pulling out the corporate card and not even thinking about it.
$129 is cheap enough for the all but the tiniest projects.
I do like the simplicity of a single price point with no tiers or feature table, but it’s hard to shake the thought you’re leaving a lot on the table, or almost even disqualifying yourself from someone looking for a “premium” solution. I might suggest a $499 and $1999 version which offer merely higher tiers of support, just to see if anyone buys it. Pick some price which feels almost outrageous to you. At the very least it would anchor the $129.
At $129 the support should be limited to forums and self-help only.
docs.fullhelp.com - “Powered by FullHelp”.
Dogfooding doesn’t get better than this! I didn’t see an active live chat widget though?
You should be highlighting this as your product demo effectively.
by repeek on 5/7/19, 6:48 PM
I could see this being a viable alternative, but it appears to be missing a key feature for us, analytics. As an B2B SaaS app, we have support SLAs that mandate specific response times. HelpScout makes it easy for us to report response times. We can also tag support themes to help focus product development; being able to see metrics around theme frequency is very important.
Analytics also tell us which Knowledge Base articles are most popular as well as phrases users search so we can be sure we surface the correct article.
by jstsch on 5/7/19, 11:40 PM
* I sent a support request by email with two screenshots. The first screenshot did not show up in the web view (the cid: remains in the HTML source).
* A demo account with lots of dummy data might be useful for a quick glance at the product.
* Might want to add a Letsencrypt wildcard SSL domain for https://*.demo.fullhelp.com
* Missing language string when creating an article: Title.created
* There is a non-deletable dummy note attached to a customer from a certain Peter Richards ;)
* Typo: shoirtly -> shortly
* Theming: this is quite a big feature, so understandably a bit rough right now, perhaps offer a blank template .ZIP file to get started?
* I'd like to be able to modify language strings, but perhaps this goes via the theming ZIP
Looks quite cool!
by scrollaway on 5/8/19, 1:12 AM
I know you decided against selling this as a SaaS but please reconsider. That you are self-hostable is a selling point that will drive potential hosted customers to you.
It's the same story with Gitlab: I love that it's open source and self-hostable. I prefer they take care of the hosting for me, but it's good to know if they go under, I can switch to the self-hosted version and there will be very few workflow changes for my team.
by 0XAFFE on 5/7/19, 6:47 PM
Edit: And maybe point out, that the Documentation (https://docs.fullhelp.com/) is actually the software you are presenting. I did not realize that immediately.
by PakG1 on 5/8/19, 2:25 AM
We are currently setting up GLPI + OCS Inventory NG because we couldn't find any other options that had good asset management. That being said, GLPI is clunky. It's not my first choice, but I couldn't find many options out there that integrated asset management.
I feel like as more and more web-based businesses grow, traditional help desk requirements are being left behind (perhaps helped by some organizations going BYOD). Bit jealous of all the people who need help desk software but don't need integrated asset management.
by usaphp on 5/8/19, 4:25 AM
by fullhelp on 5/7/19, 7:20 AM
I'm Gerardo, a web developer based in Puerto Rico.
Full Help is a self-hosted help desk and multi-knowledge base software created for small businesses and freelancers.
The backstory:
I was using Help Scout and Zoho Desk before considering creating something like Full Help. Both services are excellent, the problem with Zoho Desk is that it is more focused on large businesses, with complex requirements.
I gave a try to Help Scout, and I was impressed. It was simple and perfect for companies of all sizes. My main issue with Help Scout was the pricing and the limitations of each plan, especially on the lower ones. It was expensive (and still is for me).
Another problem for me with Help Scout was the lack of customizability on the docs sites. The only way I was able to customize the look and feel of the knowledge base sites was through custom CSS and JavaScript. I wanted to get my hands dirty with my own HTML and site structure, but that wasn't possible at that moment (and still isn't I think).
I then started considering creating my own help desk, something small (yeah right); something that could give me the flexibility I wanted and at the same time, lower the costs.
I started working on a knowledge base management system in my free time that allowed me to create several knowledge base sites that I needed for multiple projects and products. I finished it in two months or so, can't remember exactly. It worked and got the job done.
I was using a regular email account for customer conversations and the knowledge base system for customer documentation, etc.
I was missing the integration I had between the knowledge base content and customer conversations. With Zoho Desk and Help Scout, I was able to quickly search the docs and insert a link into the email/chat message, along with other useful features. Also, I was considering selling it as a hosted service at that time, and for me, the knowledge base system alone wasn't enough for a commercial business app.
Then started the second stage, creating a "simple" communication management system. Something that could receive and send emails and could be integrated with the knowledge bases.
I started working on it by first designing a flexible and scalable database structure for the conversations feature. I wanted something that could allow the possibility of adding other conversations channels in the future.
The conversations section was finished, and everything was working as I initially wanted. It was receiving and sending emails (powered by Mailgun), and I had the integration between conversations and help content. Good!
Remember when I said, "something that could receive and send emails"? The other guys had live chats, something trendy these days. It wasn't smart to release a cloud help desk solution without live chat support, right? I added the live chat and while I was on it, developed a widget where customers could chat with support agents, and browse the knowledge base content from within the same widget, without leaving the main website.
But, wait! This is a cloud business solution, we need teams! I rolled a full team feature with role-based permissions and an invitation system. (currently, only "Account owner" role is present on the software; more roles coming soon!).
In conclusion, the small knowledge base system turned out into a big application with lots of useful features created to provide a full help desk software that's focused on small businesses and freelancers.
There are lots of other useful features planned, like more conversations channels, Single Sign-On, Integration with third-parties, and many more.
The software is a single page application. The UI is powered by a versioned Restful API. The API can be used for integrating the help desk with existing software, without hacking the core.
About the codebase:
It was developed with Laravel 5.7 using the Test Driven Development approach (Can't live without unit and integration tests!). The codebase follows today's standards. I'm a fan of thin controllers and thin models, so the logic is mostly split between service classes, presenters, and models (when necessary).
Anyone that understands the Laravel framework will be comfortable working with the code.
As I've mentioned before, my initial plans for Full Help was to launch a small cloud-based help desk service, mainly focused on Puerto Rico and other Latin countries. I decided to release it as a self-hosted solution because of the lack of good options along with the cloud space being crowded.
Regarding the distribution/sale method:
I opted to go with a custom made checkout system mainly because of the flexibility and better brand integration/control. There's also an affiliate program which is currently private, with plans on opening it to the public in the future.
The checkout requires an account registration (which some people don't like, unfortunately). This is for better license management (like renewals) and to give the user access to all his orders and invoices. I have plans on adding an app store (not anytime soon) where the user can purchase knowledge base themes and other extensions or services.
What are your thoughts, comments or suggestions? Any feedback regarding the software itself, landing page, pricing or anything is much appreciated.
Thanks for your time!
by veb on 5/8/19, 1:42 AM
I'll be in touch! Great stuff.
by tjbiddle on 5/8/19, 5:57 AM
by fmos on 5/8/19, 8:04 AM
Love the readability and content of the license terms as well. In particular the parts on software modifications.
One feature that is a show-stopper for our workflow is the possibility of shared drafts, i.e. where an email response can be prepared and stored by one person and later reviewed, perhaps completed, and sent by someone else. Do you think this is something that you might consider adding in the foreseeable future?
edit: btw, might serve as a differentiation over Zammad https://github.com/zammad/zammad/issues/629
by pxtail on 5/7/19, 9:01 PM
In our company we are using https://www.bookstackapp.com/ as knowledge base solution for multiple clients/projects (separate installation for each). Main requirement is to be able to control which user or group can access particular document or group of documents. Is it possible to achieve something like this using your project?
by tmikaeld on 5/7/19, 7:11 PM
I'm guessing it's based on PHP/SQL since you mention Wordpress?
What are your roadmap for the software?
I think a demo would bring a lot more sales.
by rahimnathwani on 5/8/19, 12:55 PM
Please prioritise reviewing your pricing/hosting model. If you want to serve your users well, you will want to work on this full time. Making enough money will make it more likely you can do this.
Even if your objective is to be much cheaper than your competitors (and serve people who can't afford them), you can still offer this as a SaaS product, but:
- have a lower monthly price than the competitors you mentioned (even 50% lower)
- charge much more for plans that include features important for large customers, but which smaller companies can easily live without (e.g. SSO)
by 5_minutes on 5/8/19, 1:17 AM
by whycombagator on 5/8/19, 1:42 AM
Just an FYI, after test driving the knowledge base in the demo (creating an article etc) clicking on "View site" yields a "NET::ERR_CERT_COMMON_NAME_INVALID" error.
I had to manually update the url to http:// in order to view the knowledge base
by kekub on 5/8/19, 6:10 AM
by _1tan on 5/7/19, 7:10 PM
by NewsAware on 5/8/19, 1:59 PM
by jaden on 5/7/19, 8:18 PM
by jppope on 5/7/19, 10:36 PM
by leesalminen on 5/8/19, 12:53 AM
by nvr219 on 5/7/19, 9:49 PM
by zelon88 on 5/7/19, 7:16 PM