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Initial Setup

This is the order to configure Desk Center in. Each step is worth less until the one above it is done, which is why they are numbered rather than listed.

You do not have to finish this in one sitting. Desk Center works from the first minute with the defaults it ships with; everything here replaces a default with a decision. The Getting Started screen inside Desk Center shows the same list and tells you where you stand on each line.

flowchart TD
  A[1 . A board of your own] --> B[2 . Columns in your words]
  B --> C[3 . People who can be assigned work]
  C --> D[4 . Work that arrives on its own]
  D --> E[5 . The fields you keep asking for]
  E --> F[6 . When finished work leaves the board]
  F --> G[7 . Who sees which board]
  G --> H[8 . What gets emailed]

Before you start

  • Your account must have Desk Center enabled. If the entry is missing from the portal's top bar, ask whoever provides your service.
  • You need to be an administrator of the account. Regular users see the work; they do not see the setup screens.

1. Create a board of your own

Desk Center → Getting Started

Every account starts with a sample board so that nothing is empty on the first open. It is ours, not yours — its columns describe how a software vendor works, not how your business does.

On Getting Started, pick the kind of work that is closest to yours — customer support, field work, and so on — and apply it. That creates a board with columns and fields appropriate to it, and points new work at it.

One board or several?

Start with one. A board is worth splitting when two groups of people would never look at each other's columns — not merely because the work is different. Two boards also means deciding who sees which, which is step 7.

2. Make the columns say your words

Desk Center → Workflows → (your board) → Columns

Rename, add, reorder and remove columns until the board reads the way your team talks. For each one, choose the category honestly — see the four ideas for why that matters more than the name.

Things worth knowing:

  • Renaming is always safe. Nothing is keyed on the name.
  • Removing a column moves its work, and asks you where to. Work is never left in a column that no longer exists.
  • A column whose category is Done or Cancelled starts the archive clock (step 6).

3. Make sure work can be assigned

Work is assigned to the account's users, which are the same users as the rest of the platform — Desk Center does not keep a separate list.

If there is only one user, assignment has nothing to choose from. Add the people who will handle work in the usual place: Users in the admin portal.

4. Let work arrive without being typed

This is the step that turns Desk Center from a list somebody fills in to a record that fills itself. There are two routes and they can both be on:

  • A call ends with a disposition → a work item is created on the board you choose.
  • A call came through a queue → work from that queue lands on the board you choose.

Both are covered in Work That Arrives On Its Own.

5. Add the fields you keep asking for

Desk Center → Fields, then attach them to a board under Workflows → (your board) → Fields

The bare work item answers what happened and nothing about your work. If your team always ends up asking for an order number, a serial, a site address — make it a field so it is asked once and recorded in the same place every time.

Types (Desk Center → Types) are a named set of fields: Complaint, Installation, Quote. Use them when one board carries several kinds of work that each need different questions. A board with four types on it is as ordinary as a board per type.

Not on day one

Add fields once you know what you keep asking for, not before. A field invented in advance is one nobody fills in.

6. Decide when finished work leaves the board

Desk Center → Workflows → Settings

The archive window is how long an item stays visible after it reaches a Done or Cancelled column. The default is 3 days.

Set it to what your team actually needs to still see finished work — a day for a busy support desk, two weeks for work somebody reviews weekly. Each board can override the account's number.

Archived work is not deleted and not hidden: it is in the board's Archive view, searchable and complete.

7. Decide who sees which board

Desk Center → Workflows → (your board) → Settings → Who can see this board

By default every board is readable by everybody in the account, which is the right answer for most accounts and the only answer for one with a single board.

Once you have boards that different groups work, you can limit one to:

  • only these people — a named list; somebody who joins the account later is not on it;
  • everybody except these people — the opposite; somebody who joins later is included.

Pick by which list will age better. See Who Sees What.

8. Decide what gets emailed

Desk Center → Workflows → Settings → Email notifications

Out of the box Desk Center emails about everything it can: work assigned to you, a status change, blocked work, a new note, and being mentioned by name.

Switch off what your team does not want. The account's setting is a ceiling: each person can narrow their own mail further, and nobody can turn on something the account has turned off. See Notifications.

What is not in this list

Attachment storage. How much disk this account's files may use is set by whoever provides your service, not here. You will be warned inside Desk Center before you reach the limit and you can free space yourself — see Attachments and Storage.