Cerberus Helpdesk 3.

0
GETTING STARTED

Revised: August 11, 2006

WebGroup Media, LLC:

Jeff Standen
Jerry Kanoholani
Darren Sugita
Mike Fogg
Brenan Cavish
Dan Hildebrandt

Contributors:
Ben Halsted
Jeremy Johnstone
Trent Ramseyer

Copyright © 2006 by WebGroup Media, LLC.

Table of Contents
Introduction
What is Cerberus Helpdesk?..................................................................................................................................................4
Our Example Scenario...........................................................................................................................................................4
What did that previous e-mail say?....................................................................................................................................... 4
Different Employees, Different Jobs..................................................................................................................................... 5
Your Information is Web-Accessible and Secure................................................................................................................. 6
New Ticket Notification........................................................................................................................................................ 6
The Spam Filter that Learns.................................................................................................................................................. 6
A Central Repository for Knowledge.................................................................................................................................... 7
Providing a Customer Support Portal.................................................................................................................................... 7
Installation
Installation Requirements...................................................................................................................................................... 8
System Requirements (Server).........................................................................................................................................8
System Requirements (Employee)...................................................................................................................................8
Installation Service................................................................................................................................................................ 8
Installing the Web Interface...................................................................................................................................................9
Windows-based Servers...................................................................................................................................................9
Unix-based Servers (e.g., Linux, BSD, MacOSX).......................................................................................................... 9
Setting Web Server Permissions............................................................................................................................................9
Windows-based Servers...................................................................................................................................................9
Unix-based Servers.......................................................................................................................................................... 9
Creating the Database.......................................................................................................................................................... 10
Using the MySQL Command Line................................................................................................................................ 10
Initializing Cerberus Helpdesk.......................................................................................................................................10
Verifying your Settings and Environment...........................................................................................................................11
Initializing the Cerberus Helpdesk Database.......................................................................................................................11
Logging in to Cerberus Helpdesk for the First Time...........................................................................................................11
Installing the Support-Center (optional)..............................................................................................................................11
Windows-based Servers.................................................................................................................................................11
Unix-based Servers (e.g., Linux, BSD, MacOSX)........................................................................................................ 11
Initializing the Support-Center.......................................................................................................................................12
New Concepts in Cerberus Helpdesk 3.0
Workflow.............................................................................................................................................................................13
Agents............................................................................................................................................................................ 13
Teams............................................................................................................................................................................. 13
Tags................................................................................................................................................................................13
Mailboxes............................................................................................................................................................................ 14
Flagging............................................................................................................................................................................... 14
Search Builder / Search Criteria.......................................................................................................................................... 15
Dashboards.......................................................................................................................................................................... 15
Quick Find........................................................................................................................................................................... 16
Mass Actions....................................................................................................................................................................... 16
Importing E-mail................................................................................................................................................................. 16
Failed Messages............................................................................................................................................................. 16
Import Raw Message..................................................................................................................................................... 17
Basic Configuration
Uploading your Cerberus License....................................................................................................................................... 18
General Mail Settings.......................................................................................................................................................... 18
Mailboxes - Routing E-mail................................................................................................................................................ 19
Creating a mailbox:........................................................................................................................................................19
Configuring the PHP Parser.................................................................................................................................................19
Creating a POP3 Account.............................................................................................................................................. 19
Scheduling Cerberus to Access Your POP3 Account....................................................................................................19
Workflow (Tag Sets, Teams, Agents ...)............................................................................................................................. 20
 Agent Creation............................................................................................................................................................... 21
Tag Set Creation.............................................................................................................................................................21
Team Creation................................................................................................................................................................21
Mail Rules............................................................................................................................................................................22
My Cerberus (Preferences, Notifications, etc..).................................................................................................................. 23
Preferences..................................................................................................................................................................... 23
Notifications...................................................................................................................................................................23
Watchers.........................................................................................................................................................................23
Knowledgebase....................................................................................................................................................................24
Support-Center.....................................................................................................................................................................24
Dashboards
Add a Dashboard................................................................................................................................................................. 25
Add a View.................................................................................................................................................................... 25
Select the View Columns...............................................................................................................................................26
Set View Criteria............................................................................................................................................................26
Mass Actions....................................................................................................................................................................... 26
Create a New Ticket............................................................................................................................................................ 26
Teamwork
Teamwork Modes................................................................................................................................................................ 28
Quick Assign....................................................................................................................................................................... 28
My Flagged Tickets....................................................................................................................................................... 28
Monitor................................................................................................................................................................................ 29
Advanced Configuration
Importing E-mail................................................................................................................................................................. 30
Failed Messages............................................................................................................................................................. 30
Import Raw Message..................................................................................................................................................... 30
Cerberus Workstation
Workstation & Cerberus 3.0................................................................................................................................................ 31
Workstation Configuration.................................................................................................................................................. 31
Cronjob / Scheduled Task
The External Cronjob.......................................................................................................................................................... 32
Parser Paths.................................................................................................................................................................... 32
Accessing the crontab.................................................................................................................................................... 32
Adding the new cronjob.................................................................................................................................................33
Scheduled Task (Windows).................................................................................................................................................33
 1
Introduction
What is Cerberus Helpdesk?
Cerberus Helpdesk provides mission-critical e-mail management for over 12,000+ companies worldwide, from one-
person startups to Fortune 500 giants. It is the flagship product in a customer relationship management suite created
by WebGroup Media, LLC. and developed in partnership with a community of thousands of users.

Our Example Scenario

To cover the installation and configuration of Cerberus Helpdesk in an interesting and meaningful way, this guide will
be based on a persistent example scenario involving our team at WebGroup Media, LLC. While the needs of each
real-world environment are obviously different, this approach should give you a better understanding of how the
various parts of the system system work together cohesively.

As is likely true with your company, our example scenario has a series of goals we want to accomplish by using
Cerberus Helpdesk:
• We need to receive, respond to, and archive e-mail based interaction with our customers, partners, and
vendors using a centralized system (the “helpdesk”).
• The helpdesk should be customizable so that e-mail conversations are automatically dispatched to, and
handled by, our appropriate teams depending on various criteria, such as: department, product line,
region, etc.
• Information should be securely accessible by our employees using a standard web browser. While most
employees work from our main office, some employees (Sales) may need to access information while
away from the office, and others (Support) may be outsourced or otherwise spread around the globe.
• Agents should be notified when tickets come into the system through e-mail, leaving the agent free to
perform other tasks.
• There should be a mechanism provided to dramatically reduce the amount of junk e-mail entering the
helpdesk.
• Cerberus should capture knowledge/experience for re-use and eliminate islands of knowledge. We want
a way to catalog commonly asked questions and provide answers that are accessible to both customers
and employees.
• Allow customers to check the progress of their issues or view the history of all their past correspondence.

What did that previous e-mail say?

Our company receives hundreds of e-mail messages each day. Many of these messages are part of a history of
conversation that can be dozens, or hundreds, of messages long. Using standard e-mail applications on each team
member's desktop PC to track all these conversations quickly led to our team becoming both “out of sync” and
overloaded.
Cerberus Helpdesk was born out of this need for a shared mailbox system for e-mail communication with our
customers. Our team members can now work on the issues which need their particular expertise the most -- quickly
changing gears and getting up to speed on any open issue without digging for past e-mail correspondence or scattered
notes.
The general process is very simple. The helpdesk analyzes incoming e-mail and assigns new conversations a unique
ID number which is referred to as a ticket. If someone sends an e-mail reply to an existing ticket, this reply is
automatically added to the existing ticket conversation in chronological order. Each ticket message is archived in a
database.
The helpdesk helps us route and categorize tickets that come in, and it keeps track of the tickets which have been
previously resolved. We want our team to be shown relevant, high priority tickets that are still open – without wasting
their time with tickets that are delayed by waiting on the customer or another team member. If a team member can't
solve a ticket they can quickly reassign a ticket or offer some suggestions to the helpdesk system to have it rerouted
automatically.
Once a ticket is resolved, we have an archived history which can be used as a knowledge resource for future
troubleshooting, statistics or legal compliance.

Different Employees, Different Jobs

Our team at WebGroup Media, LLC. (WGM) uses Cerberus Helpdesk to divide and sort tasks between teams and
agents. Each Agent (employee) is set up in the helpdesk to have access to tickets that are relevant to their specific
jobs.
WebGroup Media employees need access to the following:
• Jerry only needs access to sales e-mail threads.
• Darren answers support-related questions.
• Brenan answers both sales and support correspondence.
• Jeff works on developing Cerberus Helpdesk and Cerberus Workstation, but sometimes checks sales and
support tickets.
• Mike develops for both Cerberus Helpdesk and Cerberus Workstation. He only needs access to e-mails
related to development.
• Dan is developing for Cerberus Workstation and only needs access to information regarding Workstation
specifically.

As you can see, we have 4 different types of workers. Our employees do work related to sales, support, Cerberus
Helpdesk development, and Cerberus Workstation development. We do not want Dan, who works only with
Workstation, to have to go through sales correspondence in order to find e-mail related to Workstation development.
Darren does not need to see sales tickets in order to support our product. Cerberus Helpdesk allows us to organize
workflow so that our employees do not have to waste time with with information that is not necessary for them to
accomplish their job goals.
Cerberus Helpdesk allows us to do this by organizing information through the use of teams. Inside of the web-
interface an agent is created for each of our employees and they are organized into the following four teams:
• Cerberus Helpdesk Sales Jerry , Jeff, and Brenan
• Cerberus Helpdesk Support Darren Jeff, and Brenan
• Cerberus Helpdesk Development Jeff and Mike
• Workstation Development Jeff, Mike, and Dan
Each Agent is able to view tickets relating to the teams that they are in. Simply by clicking on the Cerberus Helpdesk
Sales link inside of Jerry's Teams, Jerry is able to see all sales correspondence. He does not have to filter out support
questions. This means the he can do what he does best, sell Cerberus Helpdesk! Also, it is easy to change the team
properties associated with a ticket inside of the helpdesk. If one of Jerry's sales tickets turns into a support issue that
he does not know how to deal with, he can hand it off to support. If Darren solves his support problem and the
customer needs to talk to Jerry again, Darren can send the ticket back to the sales team.
Cerberus Helpdesk is also useful for solving the common “grab bag” problem that we have often seen occur when
companies try to respond to e-mail. If a ticket comes in, we need something that will prevent both Brenan and Jerry
from answering the same e-mail. Ticket flagging solves this problem. If Jerry chooses to respond to a ticket, he can
choose to “flag” a ticket. When a ticket is flagged by someone, it will take the ticket away from the common ticket
pool so that no-one else will try to respond to the ticket when he is. Also, the helpdesk will automatically flag any
ticket that an agent chooses to reply to. If Brenan forgets to flag a ticket and hits reply, the helpdesk automatically
takes that ticket out of the common ticket pool.

Your Information is Web-Accessible and Secure

Cerberus Helpdesk has a web-interface that allows agents to securely access the helpdesk from anywhere in the world.
Darren and Brenan both use the helpdesk to answer many support tickets at home. They can access their accounts
from any computer in the office, at their home, or on vacation if they want to. They are able to search the database for
information regarding tickets, which is securely located on our server. They do not however, have access to
information that they do not need to perform their jobs. The helpdesk allows us to create individual permissions for
each agent.

New Ticket Notification

Our employees are not constantly checking the helpdesk for tickets. Rather we each have multiple tasks which we
need to perform during the course of the day. If Jerry is on the phone with a customer, he might not be actively
watching the helpdesk for a ticket concerning another lead. However, he does not want to miss the incoming ticket
either. Cerberus Helpdesk provides two ways for him to track incoming tickets.
Jerry can choose to have the helpdesk send him notifications through e-mail whenever a ticket has arrived into a team
that he is part of. These notifications will let him know either if it is a new ticket or if it has been assigned to him by
another agent in the company. If Brenan sees a ticket that he knows Jerry needs to handle, he can assign the ticket to
him and the Helpdesk will automatically send Jerry an e-mail informing him that this has been done. Another type of
notification is the “watcher” option. If Jerry chooses to set himself up as a watcher, the helpdesk will e-mail him a
copy of every e-mail that comes in to the helpdesk that is associated with one of his teams. With this option, Jerry can
see the content of the sales ticket that he has been waiting for, without having to login to the helpdesk. Since his e-
mail automatically downloads, he gets this in real time.
Cerberus Helpdesk also has a monitor mode. The Monitor mode is an option that can be found in the Teamwork
section. It is designed to show all activity within teams that your agent has permission to watch. It will update
regularly, causing information about activity to arrive quickly. This mode is good for supervising roles and for
watching/tracking incoming tickets. In our case, Jerry can have this mode on while he is talking on the phone and be
kept up to date on all incoming tickets.

The Spam Filter that Learns

Any company that has an e-mail address that is known to the public knows that spam has a way of dominating your
inbox. Clearing out junk e-mail ends up taking up a large amount of your time, reducing your ability to effectively
respond to customers. We wanted a filter that would intelligently filter out e-mail that we consider spam, but would
not blindly block e-mail domains or an IP address in the process. WebGroup Media created a solution that was
different than existing spam filters, a novel approach to dealing with spam
Cerberus Helpdesk uses a Bayesian filter to calculate the likelihood that a specific e-mail is a spam message. It
works by looking at messages that have previously been marked as spam and checking for keyword correlations
between the two e-mails. After checking for a correlation, the helpdesk will assign a spam probability to the ticket. If
you mark this e-mail as spam as well, it will take the data from this e-mail into consideration, as well as the first e-
mail when it calculates the spam probability of your next incoming ticket. If you choose to leave the e-mail as not
spam, it keywords in this e-mail will be matched with other e-mails that were also marked as not spam. Once you
have taught your helpdesk what kind of messages you think are spam, it should dramatically reduce the amount of
junk e-mails that you have to deal with.
What WebGroup Media LLC considers to spam might be very different from another company. For example, WGM
is a software company. This means that e-mails that are related to prescription drugs or hormonal enhancements are
not really pertinent to our business. We have effectively taught our helpdesk to filter out e-mail that is trying to sell us
these types of products. However, companies which sell these types of products may want to edit out all types of e-
mail that try to sell them software. Our spam filter allows for customers to tailor the helpdesk to their own needs.

A Central Repository for Knowledge

At WGM, having six employees that perform a specific role in the company has created 6 individuals with very
different areas of expertise. We often have to ask each-other questions that deal with issues that the person we are
asking has dealt with numerous times in the past. To help avoid creating “islands of knowledge and experience” we
implemented a knowledgebase which helps us share some of our knowledge and experience with each-other and our
customers.
We use our knowedgebase to describe common questions and their answers. Often at WGM, Support deals with
many “known” bugs that Sales is not aware of. If Jerry is talking to someone who has recently purchased and they are
reporting an error, he can search our knowledgebase and check to see if this bug has an easy solution. If there is a
related article, he may be able to help the customer quickly without having to refer the ticket to support to get it
resolved.
One of the novel abilities our knowledgebase has is its ability to associate the knowledgebase article to key words and
tags (or types). This makes it easy to look for problems that are in a certain category. At WGM we often have
problems related to installation or our e-mail parser. Our knowledgebase has many articles that are housed under
categories related to the articles. If Jerry wants to look at installation related questions, he simply looks under
“Installation” inside of the knowledgebase.

Providing a Customer Support Portal

One of the goals of the helpdesk was to make it easier for our customers to track their own tickets as well. For this
end we created the Support Center. The Support Center is a public portal which customers can login to in order to
view old tickets or create new tickets. If you send important documentation to a customer, they will always have a
place they can check in case that documentation ends up missing. This public portal is separate from the helpdesk, so
you are never in danger of having customers see information that they do not need to see.
If Jerry from sales works out a deal with Amy through e-mail. Amy can access this information at anytime by logging
into the Support Center and viewing past e-mail correspondence. This saves Amy and Jerry time if Amy can't find the
specific e-mail or needs any of the information from the ticket thread. Some of our customers have sent us hundreds
of e-mails. The support center makes it easy for them to keep track of this correspondence in a centralized location.
Another benefit of the support center is that the customer does not need to send the ticket through e-mail for it to be
received by the helpdesk. The customer only needs to login to the Support Center and submit a ticket. The Support
Center will then send that ticket to the helpdesk. Sometimes customers do not have access to the e-mail address they
sent their original e-mail from, like if they are at a remote location. A public Support Center solves their problem of
not being able to communicate with us.
 2
Installation
Installation Requirements

System Requirements (Server)

• An Internet or Intranet network connection
• A web server application (e.g., Apache, IIS)
• PHP 4.2.0 or newer (http://www.php.net/)
• MySQL 3.23 or newer (http://www.mysql.com/)

System Requirements (Employee)

• A computer with an Internet or Intranet network connection
• A modern web browser (e.g., Internet Explorer 5.5+, Firefox 1.0+)

Installation Service
We offer a professional installation service to get your helpdesk up and running quickly. If your company doesn't
have in-house experience deploying web applications, our professional installation service is the quick and painless
alternative to struggling with a lot of technological complexity that you really don't need to worry about.
Windows-based Servers: We will need access to your server through VNC or GoTo Meeting.
Unix-based Servers: We will need access to your server console through SSH. If applicable, we may also need
access to your Control Panel software (e.g., Plesk, Cpanel, Ensim) to configure your helpdesk mailbox.
In some cases it is possible to install the application without VNC/SSH. If you have questions about our installation
service, please write to sales@cerberusweb.com
You can purchase installation service from:
http://www.cerberusweb.com/purchase.php
Installing the Web Interface
Cerberus Helpdesk can be deployed on Windows-based and Unix-based web servers. Follow the instructions below
for the server environment you are using.

Windows-based Servers
• Open your web browser and visit http://www.cerberusweb.com/downloads_helpdesk.php
• Click Download Agent GUI for PHP4/PHP5
• Save the cerberus-gui-3.X.X.tar.gz file.
• Extract1 the cerberus-gui-3.X.X.tar.gz file into your webserver's web path2.

Unix-based Servers (e.g., Linux, BSD, MacOSX)

• Log into your server shell using Telnet or SSH.
• Download the Cerberus Web Interface from
http://www.cerberusweb.com/download_fetch.php?fv=gui
• Copy the cerberus-gui-3.X.X.tar.gz file into your webserver's web path3.
Extract the archive using:
tar xvfz cerberus-gui-3.X.X.tar.gz

Setting Web Server Permissions

In order for Cerberus Helpdesk to function properly, your webserver needs to have the appropriate permissions.

Windows-based Servers
To control webserver access, right-click directories or files in Windows Explorer and click
Properties->Security.
• Grant your IUSR_USER user read access to the cerberus-gui\ directory.
• Grant your IUSR_USER user write access to cerberus-gui\tempdir and cerberus-
gui\templates_c

Unix-based Servers
• From the command line, change directory to cerberus-gui/ in your webserver's web path.
• Type the following commands:

chmod -R a+r .
chmod -R a+w logo.gif tempdir/ templates_c/

1 You can uncompress a tar.gz file by using a program like Winzip (http://www.winzip.com/).
2 Your web server's web path will vary depending on the vendor. Common directory names are httpdocs, htdocs, public_html and wwwroot.
3 See #2.
Creating the Database
There are many ways to create a new MySQL database, and your options will vary depending on your environment.
We will cover the most universal method: the MySQL command line. You can also use a web-based database
administration tool, such as phpMyAdmin.

Using the MySQL Command Line

Image 1: Creating a database and login in the MySQL command line.

Initializing Cerberus Helpdesk

Once the database has been created you will need to configure Cerberus Helpdesk to use it. Open your web browser
to your Cerberus Helpdesk files, for example: http://localhost/cerberus-gui/
• First, you will be prompted for your database information:
Database Server Address: localhost
Database Username: cerberus
Database Password: password
Database Name: cerberus_database
Click the Continue to the Next Step button.
• Next, you will be asked for a list of IPs which are authorized to install or upgrade Cerberus Helpdesk.
Click the first Use Your IP button.
Click the Continue to the Next Step button.
• The helpdesk will now test the database connection information you have entered.
If you have a green Connection Successful message:
Click the Generate config.php button.
Copy the output and paste it into your cerberus-gui/config.php file.
If your connection is not successful, click the Return to DB Connection Page button and double-
check your settings.
Verifying your Settings and Environment
Now we need to verify your helpdesk environment is compatible with Cerberus Helpdesk. Open your web browser
and visit your helpdesk installation page, for example: http://localhost/cerberus-gui/install/
Correct any errors until the bottom of the Installation Checker reads “No fatal errors detected”.

Initializing the Cerberus Helpdesk Database

It's time to create the database schema for Cerberus Helpdesk in the database we created earlier. Open your web
browser and visit your helpdesk upgrade page, for example: http://localhost/cerberus-
gui/upgrade.php
• Select the Cerberus Helpdesk 3.0.0 Clean Database Install script in the Brand New Installation Scripts
list.
• Click the Run Script button at the bottom of the page.
When complete, you should have a “Successfully updated!” message at the bottom of the page.
You are now ready to log in!

Logging in to Cerberus Helpdesk for the First Time

Open your web browser and visit your helpdesk, for example: http://localhost/cerberus-gui/
• You will be greeted with a login screen. Enter the following information:
Login: superuser
Password: superuser

You are now ready to customize the helpdesk to your environment!

Installing the Support-Center (optional)

Windows-based Servers
• Open your web browser and visit http://www.cerberusweb.com/downloads_helpdesk.php
• Click http://www.cerberusweb.com/download_fetch.php?fv=support_center
• Save the cerberus-support-center-3.X.X.tar.gz file.
• Extract the cerberus-support-center-3.X.X.tar.gz file into your webserver's web path.

Unix-based Servers (e.g., Linux, BSD, MacOSX)

• Log into your server shell using Telnet or SSH.
• Download the Cerberus Web Interface from
http://www.cerberusweb.com/download_fetch.php?fv=support_center
• Copy the cerberus-support-center-3.X.X.tar.gz file into your webserver's web path.
• Extract the archive using:
tar xvfz cerberus-gui-3.X.X.tar.gz
Initializing the Support-Center
We'll need to setup the config.php file to access the same database as your Cerberus Helpdesk installation.
• Edit your /support-center/cerberus-support-center/config.php file
define("DB_SERVER","localhost");
define("DB_NAME","cerberus");
define("DB_USER","yourusername");
define("DB_PASS","yourpassword");
* Please note that the italicized values are your own values for the database you just created earlier.
• Also make sure that the URL matches the location of your support-center files:
define("WEB_URL", "http://localhost/support-center/");

Setup of the Support-Center is covered in Chapter 4: Configuration.

 3
New Concepts in Cerberus Helpdesk 3.0

Workflow

One of the major enhancements in Cerberus 3.0 is the addition of highly flexible and customizable workflow. When
modifying a ticket you now have the ability to assign tags and agents along with your standard ticket property
changes.

Agents
Agents are the staff of your company that handle requests through the helpdesk. Each agent has their own login and
password. Every time an agent responds to a ticket, the helpdesk logs which agent replied and when. This gives your
staff accountability. Also, each agent can be given permissions tailored for his needed access in your helpdesk. You
can set up agents to have full access to your helpdesk or to only be able to view one type of ticket.

Teams
Teams are used to group together, grant access to, and give security permissions to groups of mailboxes. Agents may
belong to multiple teams. Agents that have a managerial role may be assigned to dozens of teams. Teams are created
for the purpose of giving an agent access to e-mail inside of mailboxes. A team can be assigned to one mailbox, or
every mailbox inside of your helpdesk. Multiple teams can be assigned to a single mailbox. Your sales team might
want to be able to view tickets in the support mailbox. Team functionality makes it so that your sales team can view
tickets inside of the support mailbox along with the other mailboxes that they are allowed to see.
Once a ticket has entered into a mailbox that the team is able to see, that ticket is searchable or can be responded to by
any team that has access to that mailbox . Any agent in that team may view grab the ticket using the “Teamwork”
quick assign option in the helpdesk, by searching for the ticket, or by creating a dashboard that shows unassigned
tickets. The ticket will remain viewable and can be searched for even after it is closed by the agents in the team.

Tags
Adding a couple tags on a ticket will associate relevant knowledgebase articles to the ticket through Fetch & Retrieve,
quickly putting your team's expert knowledge into the hands of even your newest member. Tags can also be used to
divide work within a team or direct a ticket towards certain members with a particular skill-set. For example a ticket
tagged with 'RFC Compliance' would alert agents who know about this type of ticket to pay attention to the thread.
Tags are flexible enough to accommodate issues ranging from industry specific categories to established operating
procedures. Some uses that we have found for tags are marking ticket statuses and tagging common problems for
later searches. If Brenan sees an incoming order he can tag the order as “Billing In Proccess”. If Jeff, who has a
supervisor role, wants to check and make sure that billing is handled correctly, he can do a quick search for all tickets
marked with a “Billing In Process” tag.
Since tags are persistent, all tickets of that contain a specific tag can be searched for, even after the tickets are closed.
If all leads are marked with a “Lead” tag, Jerry in Sales can do a search for any lead and quickly pull up any that seem
promising, even if they have for some reason been closed.

Mailboxes

Mailboxes are the conceptual offspring of the Queue concept from previous versions of Cerberus Helpdesk. The
major difference is that there is now a way of assigning different permission sets to mailboxes.
Another big difference is the ability to set up mailboxes to automatically apply workflow to incoming tickets. This
provides you with more options when assigning tickets to agents.

Flagging
One of the primary ways Cerberus Helpdesk helps prevent multiple agents from stepping on each other's toes is
through our system of 'flagging'. When an agent flags a ticket or has a ticket flagged to her, the agent is indicating to
the team that she is planning to work on that particular ticket. An agent can flag a ticket manually, by choosing to
reply to a ticket, or a manager can flag a ticket for that agent..
Flagged tickets are removed from the Teamwork Quick Assign queue until they are released by the agent handling the
ticket. Agents can view all tickets currently flagged by going to the Teamwork section of the helpdesk and viewing
the “My Tickets” section. Wasting time by having two agents send duplicate responses to a customer should now be a
thing of the past!
Search Builder / Search Criteria

The search system has been simplified and super-charged. Instead of cluttering up your screen with every option that
is available for our searches, we've created a search builder that lets you add only the relevant criteria that you need
for the search you are running.
The new system allows you to search for any or all of a certain category, while indicating that you want nothing from
a different category all in the same search. For example, Darren can create a search that looks for all tickets in the
Support Mailbox, but at the same time make sure no spam tickets are included in the search. To do this he adds two
criteria tags in the workflow portion of the search: match any “support mailbox” and match none “spam” tags.
Another great feature about the new search builder is that your agents now have the ability to save their most common
searches! Using our search builder, you can have dozens of highly customized searches just one click away. Existing
saved searches can easily be modified and saved as different searches in case there is a need for a similar, but not
identical search.

Dashboards

Dashboards allow your agents to create custom, persistent ticket lists using any combination of search parameters.
This provides your agents with a way to manage information with incredible flexibility, fine-tuned to their roles and
tasks.
When creating a new dashboard, you can customize it quickly by using our new search builder. The search builder
has been added to the customize menu so that you can quickly create the ideal search for your new dashboard. If you
already have an ideal search created from a previously saved search, you can load it instead of creating a new one.
Each Dashboard can have multiple searches attached to them.
The possibilities are endless... Developers can keep an eye on new bug reports using tags for specific projects. Your
Support Manager can keep an eye on overdue and unassigned tickets. Your Sales team can list tickets where interest
in sales opportunities were tagged. Your Marketing team can list tickets tagged to indicate a user experience which
could provide a case study or testimonial.
Another great feature about Dashboards is that they keep a running total of Mailbox and Team ticket totals. This
means that it is possible to keep an eye on the running ticket tally of every team you are a part of, even while you are
browsing through your dashboard searches.
Quick Find
Quick find is a handy tool that can quickly run a search for the most commonly used search criteria. The main ones
are: Ticket/ID Mask, Requester, Subject, and Content. Quick Find is also persistent on each page and will save
whatever search criteria you used last.
Ticket/ID Mask is especially helpful as it takes partial ID Masks. So instead of having to correctly type each ticket
mask before a valid ticket appears, just do as much as you can remember and select from the list. Great for those
occasional ticket numbers yelled inside the office by your co-workers or pulling up vital information on the phone
with a current/potential customer.

Old: ABC-123-123457
Improved: ABC-123-
(Search list will show up with everything matching and you can quickly choose the ticket)

Mass Actions

Dashboards and Saved Searches have become much more powerful with major improvements to Mass Actions. This
feature now allows your agents to change ticket properties and assign workflow to multiple tickets at the same time.
If one of your searches brings up 30 known leads that are assigned to your Support team, you can easily assign these
leads to Sales using our mass action tools.

Importing E-mail
Cerberus Helpdesk comes with two features that allow you to import e-mail into your system. The first allows you to
retry, delete, or ignore e-mail messages that the PHP parser fails to parse. The other import option allows you take an
e-mail message source and import the entire e-mail into the helpdesk by pasting the source into a text box. This means
that if a message fails because it did not have a correct To: address, you can now change the To: address inside of
the e-mail and paste the change into the text box to parse the failed message into the helpdesk.

Failed Messages
E-mail messages can fail to parse for a number of reasons. Some of these reasons are invalid header formats, e-mail
messages that do not match up with queues configured in the helpdesk (usually spam), and SLA settings can
sometimes cause certain mail to fail. Cerberus has a built in option that allows you to view the failed e-mail message
source, a reason why the e-mail failed, and also the ability to try to re-parse the e-mail.
Import Raw Message
The import raw e-mail feature inside of Cerberus Helpdesk allows the raw message source of an e-mail to be inserted
directly into a text box so that it can be manually injected into the helpdesk. This is a great tool for inserting non-
standard e-mails, mis-addressed e-mails, or other e-mails that have somehow failed to parse.
 4
Basic Configuration
Uploading your Cerberus License
Your Cerberus Helpdesk license comes with two licenses. One is an xml license which is attached to the confirmation
e-mail that you should receive once you purchase the software. The other is a character string that is for the optional
binary c-parser. Most people choose not to use this parser, and instead use the built in php parser which is less error
prone and much easier to install.

To upload the xml packet and unlock all Cerberus functionality, you will need to click the Configuration tab located
inside of the helpdesk. Once you click this option, you will be able to browse and upload the xml packet. Once this
is uploaded you will see your license status and expiration data.

If you are using the free version, you do not need to worry about a license. The free version comes with a built in free
mode which uses the php parser.

General Mail Settings

Before proceeding to other configuration options, take a quick look at your default mail settings. The first three
settings are the most relevant for getting the helpdesk up and running.You can find these settings at:
Configuration → Email / Parser → Mail Settings

Mail
Make sure that the Mail Enabled option is checked if you are planning on sending mail out of the helpdesk. This
should only be checked off it you are trying to see how the helpdesk system works and do not want mail sent out of
the helpdesk.

Mail Delivery
The setting switches the helpdesk's primary mode of sending mail out from your server's smtp service to php's built in
send mail option. If you do not know your smtp settings, or they do not work for sending out going mail from the
helpdesk, return to this section and change the Mail Delivery option to 'mail'.

SMTP Server
This is a server specific setting. Generally your server will have a specific smtp setting (eg.
mail.webgroupmedia.com) that you will need to enter in here if the default helpdesk settings do not work.
Mailboxes - Routing E-mail

Mailboxes need to be created in order for the helpdesk to accept incoming e-mail.. All e-mail addresses that clients
send e-mails to are assigned to mailboxes.

Creating a mailbox:
Configuration → E-mail / Parser → Mailboxes → Create a New Mailbox
Mailbox Name: Sales
E-mail Friendly From: Cerberus Sales
[enabled] New Ticket Autoresponse: Your ticket # is ##ticket_id##
Unique E-mail Addresses Assigned: Add: “sales@webgroupmedia.com”
Submit.

This creates a mailbox called Sales which will receive all mail addressed to sales@webgroupmedia.com that enters
the helpdesk. This mailbox is set up to automatically sends an e-mail informing the customer of their unique ticket
number whenever they send in an e-mail.

Configuring the PHP Parser

Cerberus uses a parser as the gateway for all incoming e-mail messages. In order for your helpdesk to grab messages
from your mail server, you must have one of these parsers installed. This installation guide will cover how to install
the built in PHP parser.
Creating a POP3 Account
The first step for configuring your parser is to direct it to download from a POP3 account. To do this follow these steps:
Click Configuration --> E-mail / Parser --> POP3 Accounts
Select Create POP3 Account -->
Enabled: <True>
Nickname: My Cerberus
Host: mail.yourdomain.com
Login: <your user>
Password: ******
Max. Messages (10 default):
Max. Message Size (2000000 default):
Test mode: True
Select the Test POP3 Connection: SUCCESS! 1 message(s) in mailbox.
After getting the SUCCESS! Message:
Set Test Mode: False

Scheduling Cerberus to Access Your POP3 Account

After creating setting up a POP3 account, Cerberus needs to be configured to run the parser in regular intervals. To
do this a scheduled task must be created in the following way:
Select Configuration --> Cerberus Helpdesk --> Scheduled Tasks
This specific example will cover starting the internal timer.
Select the Internal Timer option.
Valid IP Masks: Allows these IP(s) to run the cron.php script. Enter in the IP number indicated on
the bottom of the text box.
Click Save Changes

Next we'll schedule the parser to run the internal timer.

Click Add a New Scheduled Task
Enabled: True
Title: <insert desired title>
Script: pop3.php
Day: Every Day
Hours: Every Hour
Minute: Every 5 Minutes
Click Save
The helpdesk should now be setup for retrieving e-mail from a POP3 account through the browser.
Setup using an external cron/scheduled task can be found in Appendix A.

Workflow (Tag Sets, Teams, Agents ...)

Workflow should be set up in the following order: Agents, Teams, and Tag Sets. This will help eliminate confusion
and back clicking while you are configuring your helpdesk. The configuration chapter will use the WGM team as an
example for team creation.. We'll organize our Agents and Teams in the following way:

Sales Support Cerberus Development Workstation Dev

Brenan X X
Dan X
Darren X
Jeff X X X X
Jerry X
Mike X X
Agent Creation
First we'll create our agent, Brenan.
Configuration → Workflow → Agents → Create New Agent

Real Name: Brenan Cavish

Display Name: Brenan@WGM
Agent E-Mail Address: brenan@wgm.com
Agent Login Name: brenan
Agent Password: *****
Agent Password (again): *****
Agent is Superuser: [enabled]
Click Submit

You'll need to repeat the same steps to create the other agents.

Tag Set Creation

Our team would need to create a few Tag Sets and Tags that are specific to our needs. One particular Tag Set we
would create is 'Partnership.'

Configuration → Tag Sets → Add Set: “Partnership” → +

Now let's say that a particular ticket is a request for information concerning the ability to resell our software with a
volume licensing arrangement. Jerry sees that he'd like to follow up on this particular ticket later and bring it up in a
future meeting. In this case Jerry would create the tag ”Cerberus VAR” (Volume Added Reseller) under
the 'Partnerships' tag set, enabling him to search for the ticket later.
Organizationally, we want to include the “Cerberus VAR” tag under the Partnership Tag Set as it relates to
partnership opportunities with our Cerberus Helpdesk brand.

Configuration → Add Tag: → Add Tag: “Cerberus VAR” → in Set: “Partnership” → +

We just created the tag “Cerberus VAR” under the Tag Set “Partnership.” Next we'll tackle Teams.

Team Creation
Once we have completed setting up our agents, we can begin creating teams. These teams will group together
mailboxes so that agents have permissions to see each mailboxes according to their team permission settings.. In our
case we create the Sales, Support, Cerberus Development, and Workstation Development teams. Each team will be
responsible for tickets that are assigned to it and will not have to worry about other team's tickets.
Remember that our organization consists of six people of which have some overlapping roles within its various
departments. In our case Brenan, Mike and Jeff are members of multiple teams, while Jerry, Dan, and Darren are
members of only one team. In the example below we'll create and add Jerry to our Sales Team.
1. First we'll setup the Cerberus Sales Team:
Configuration → Workflow → Teams Add: “Cerberus Sales” → +

2. Next we'll add Jerry to the Cerberus Sales Team.

Members: → [check] Jerry

3. Third, we select which mailboxes we want to assign to this team.

Mailboxes → [check] Sales

4. The next step is to make Tag Set's visible for Jerry.

Visible Tag Sets: → [check] “Partnership” → Click Save

5. The final step is to grant permissions to this team.

Permissions: [check all] → Click Save

To add Jerry to the Support team, we would do the same steps as above with it being slightly different.
Configuration → Workflow → Teams Add: “Cerberus Support” → +

Mail Rules
Our basic configuration options are now taken care of, but we still want to take care of annoying spam! We can do
this by having our parser intelligently look for anything that looks like spam, tag it as spam, and hide it from our view.
Some companies might find that deleting spam instead of hiding it serves their needs better. This can be done
creating a Mail Rule. There are two different types of Mail Rules – Pre-Parse and Post-Parse.

WGM uses Mail Rules to tag all incoming messages that its Bayesian filter believes is spam. We do not simply delete
all messages in case there is a false positive. To do this, we create a Post-parse rule:

Configuration → Mail Rules → Create a New Post-Parse Rule

Rule Name: “SPAM”

Spam probability: greater than or equal to 90%
Apply Tags Spam (you may need to create this tag)
[enabled] Clear Existing Workflow: (clears existing tagss, as any e-mail
message is first processed by a mailbox and is
assigned tags. This clears those tags.)
Save
My Cerberus (Preferences, Notifications, etc..)

Preferences
We have provided each agent with the option of selecting a few options to help them personalize their agent and work
much faster in the helpdesk. Some of these options include hotkeys, notifications, time-zones, and languages.
My Cerberus → Preferences
By default, the timezone is set for GMT (+0), but Jerry is based in California PST (GMT -8) timezone. He sets his
default language to English, enables hotkey shortcuts, and adds an auto-message signature.
Timezone: PST
Language: English
[enabled] Keyboard Shortcuts: “h” = Dashboard | “s” = Search | “k” = Knowledgebase |
“p” = Preferences
Auto Message Signature: Jerry Kanoholani – Sales Account Lead, WGM Signature
Placement → “After Quoted Text” → [enabled] Auto
Insert Signature
This signature is automatically placed into the reply body of every e-mail Jerry chooses to reply to.

Notifications
Jerry isn't always near his browser but often wants to quickly be notified when sales e-mail come into the helpdesk.
To do this, he will need to setup notifications. You'll remember from earlier that we assigned agents to specific teams.
In Jerry's case, he's only assigned to one, the “Cerberus Sales Team,” and will only have the option to create
notifications for the “Sales Team.”
He can enable notifications like this:
My Cerberus → Notification → [enable Team] Cerberus Helpdesk Sales → Send
To: jkano@webgroupmedia.com → Template: ##ticket_id## --
##ticket_subject## -- ##requester_address##

Jerry also wants to know when any ticket has been suggested or assigned to him by others. Team agents can suggest
tickets by applying an agent to the ticket through workflow and can assign work by placing an agents flag on the
ticket.
Jerry turns on suggested ticket notification in the following manner:
My Cerberus → Notification → [enable]Event: Ticket Assigned/Suggested to
Me → Send to: jkano@webgroupmedia.com → E-mail Templates: New
Assignment: ##ticket_id## -- ##ticket_subject## --
##requester_address##

Watchers
Let's say Brenan would like to see all correspondence in the support mailbox sent to the e-mail address associated to
his agent. To do this he would select the watcher option instead of the notification option. This is different from
notifications because it sends the entire e-mail message, instead of just notifying the agent that a ticket has arrived.
Brenan will be able to view and reply to e-mails from a standard e-mail client (Outlook, Thunderbird, etc) by using
watchers.
He sets this up accordingly:
My Cerberus → Watcher → Cerberus Helpdesk Support → Submit
Knowledgebase
Customers often have very similar problems when they come to us for support. To help agents and customers deal
with this problem, WGM created a knowledgebase (KB) and knowledgebase articles so that frequently asked
questions can be answered without the customer having to create a ticket or wait for a response. We use the
knowledge-base as our first line for supporting our customer. Also, the knowledge base can be used to eliminate
islands of knowledge. If Darren, who is on support, keeps the knowledgebase up to date, Brenan who doesn't always
spend time on support can refer to the knowledgebase in case he does not know how to solve a particular support
problem.
One question WGM is often asked by customers is “Do you have any zip files of the CVS versions?” This example
will create a KB article to answer the question and then will tag the article “Cerberus Helpdesk” for organizational
purposes.
Knowledgebase Search → Add Knowledgebase Article
Summary: Do you have any zip files of the CVS version?
Article Type: Public (allows for customer to see KB article from the support-center, private can
be seen only by internal staff)
Article Content: Yes, we automatically build current CVS snapshots every hour:
http://www.cerberusweb.com/cvsweb.pl
Save
Tags → Select “Cerberus Helpdesk” → Apply Tags
This creates a Knowledgebase article that can be seen through the support-center by a customer.

Support-Center
Customers don't always have an e-mail client available to them, want to log into the system to see if they have any
activity on their submitted tickets, or sometimes can't find previous correspondence. Since we do not want customers
to see other customers information, we do not want them to be able to login to the helpdesk. The support center can
be used by them to track and submit tickets.
WGM needs customers to be able to contact them by opening tickets that will go to their Sales and Support teams.
The following is an example of how we would go about this process.
Configuration → Support-Center → Profiles → Create Support Center Profile
Profile Name: Webgroupmedia.com Support Portal
Company Name: WebGroup Media, LLC.
Company Email: support@webgroupmedia.com
Team: Cerberus Helpdesk Sales → Team Mailbox: sales@webgroupmedia.com
Team: Cerberus Helpdesk Support → Team Mailbox: support@webgroupmedia.com
[enable] Registration
[enable] Knowledgebase → Public "Browse by Tags" Root: - Top(Show All) -
[enable] My Account
[enable] Track Open Tickets
[enable] Welcome
Submit
Alright! If you already installed your support-center you should have a public facing portal.
http://yourdomain.com/support-center/
 5
Dashboards

Add a Dashboard
Taking advantage of Dashboards make it easy to organize tickets in a meaningful user specific way. For instance Jerry
wants his dashboard split in half. The top part showing 25 active sales tickets and the bottom half 25 tickets that have
been suggested by the other agents.

Dashboard → Add Dashboard(to the right of the switch button) → “Just The Sales”

Now that we've created a Dashboard we can choose what Teams to show. In this case Jerry just wants to show only
the Cerberus Sales Team in his “Just The Sales” dashboard.

Dashboard → select | customize | (just to the right of “Just The Sales”) → Select “Cerberus
Sales Team” → Auto-refresh every: 10 minute(s) → Save Dashboard

Add a View
Views list tickets by whatever criteria you set inside it. After creating a Dashboard, you need a View to go along with
it. We'll create 2 views. For instance in Jerry's case he wants to see the most recent 25 Active leads that have entered
the Helpdesk system on the top-half of the screen.

Let's add a View:

By default the Dashboard is empty of a view, so we'll create a default one:

add view (towards the top left) → New View Created!

A default view was just created that lists 10 tickets. However Jerry needs to customize this slightly to show the most
recent 25 Active Sales Leads.

Select the View Columns

Now we need to customize the view to show the correct columns. To make it show it shows the more recent 25 tickets
we'll need to use the “Ticket Last Activity Date” option from the dropdown list.

Click Customize (to the right of “New View”) → Name: “25 Active” → [dropdown 05: Ticket Due
Date] Change to [dropdown 05: Ticket Last Activity Date] → Paging: Show 25 Rows
→ Click Save

Ok, we saved the view with the columns but we need to go back to the customize screen so we can set the criteria.

Set View Criteria

Now we need to setup the criteria so that Jerry's view actually shows “Active” tickets. Using the embedded Search
Builder we can set up the necessary dropdown options to show only active tickets and/or suggested tickets.

Click Customize (to the right of “New View”) → Search Builder → Ticket Status → “Any Active
Status” → Add → Set Criteria

You can create multiple dashboards, each with its own view. For example if many tickets that are clearly SPAM just
based on the subject somehow arrive in one of our views we can Mass Action Mark as SPAM.

Mass Actions
Creating a dashboard views specific to your needs is great but sometimes we get e-mail that have incorrect tags, are in
the wrong mailbox, or worse, unsolicited SPAM. In these cases we can mass re-tag, mass set spam, mass delete or
assign from the system. To do this we click on the checkbox right next to the tickets and select the approrpaite
options. For instance let's do this quickly for some tickets that came in that are clearly spam.

Dashboard → Select Desired Tickets → Perform Action? Dropdown → Set Spam

Training: spam → >> → Commit

Create a New Ticket

Need to quickly create a ticket inside the system on behalf of the customer? Create the ticket and send them a copy of
the e-mail.

Dashboard → Create new ticket

To: <must be a valid e-mail address inside the system,
as you type valid e-mail addresses will appear for
you to choose from. If e-mail address is submitted

From:
Subject:
Mail a copy of this ticket to the requester
Don't send an autoresponse to the requester
that doesn't exist ticket will not be sent>
E-mail address of the Customer
<Desired subject here>
[check] Mails a copy of the e-mail to the customer
[check] Checking this will make it so the customer
doesn't get an autoresponse as if they sent an e-
mail to the Helpdesk. Because in reality you're
sending it on behalf of them
 6
Teamwork

Teamwork Modes
The Teamwork system operates in two modes: Quick Assign and Monitor Mode. The Quick assign mode is set up to
make ticket assignment as simple as possible. This allows the helpdesk to choose which tickets the agent flags,
eliminating digging and duplicate replies. The monitor mode allows your managers to watch all ticket activity in the
helpdesk as it takes place.

Quick Assign
The quick assign option allows your agents to pull work from the teams that they are in, without any chance of the
ticket being assigned to more than one person. An agent can choose from which teams to pull work from, and the
amount of tickets that they want to pull. Once the ticket is assigned, no other agents will be assigned those tickets
unless the agent releases them.

My Flagged Tickets
This mode lists tickets which have your agent's flag on them. You are the only one who can view these tickets
through the teamwork mode, but others will still be able to search for these tickets using search if they have the
correct permissions. The flagging system is in place in order to multiple agents responding to the same ticket. To
release these tickets from this mode you must release the ticket either when you reply to the ticket or by clicking the
“release ticket” option

Previewing Ticket Content

The My Flagged Tickets section allows your agents to preview the latest response to any item on a ticket list. Rather
than opening each ticket independently, this time-saver allows agents to get an idea of what is needed based on the
customer's latest reply. A reply can be sent, or workflow can be adjusted, all without leaving the ticket list!
Replying and Commenting
The Ticket Reply process can now be started directly from a list of tickets-- no page reload is necessary!

Monitor

Managers and agents can now keep an eye on helpdesk activity by switching into Monitor Mode inside Teamwork.
This mode will automatically list helpdesk events in real-time. If you have a low-volume helpdesk, it's a great way to
peek at the helpdesk occasionally while performing other duties.
 7
Advanced Configuration

Importing E-mail
Cerberus Helpdesk comes with two features that allow you to import e-mail into your system. One allows you to retry
e-mail messages that failed to parse. The other import option allows you take an e-mail message source and import
the entire e-mail into the helpdesk by pasting the source into a text box. This means that if a message fails because it
did not have a correct To: address, you can change the To: address and the e-mail will parse.

Failed Messages
E-mail messages can fail to parse for a number of reasons. Some of these reasons are invalid header formats, e-mail
messages that do not match up with queues configured in the helpdesk (usually spam), and SLA settings can
sometimes cause certain mail to fail. Cerberus has a built in option that allows you to view the failed e-mail message
source, a reason why the e-mail failed, and also the ability to try to re-parse the e-mail.

Configuration → E-mail Parser → Failed Messages

All e-mail that the php parser has rejected will show up in this area.

Included is a quick summary of the e-mail message:

From, Subject, Why? (reason for rejection), To:

The view message source will show the actual message source as it was parsed into Cerberus Helpdesk.
From here you can determine why it was rejected and choose to Retry, Delete, or Ignore this message.

Import Raw Message

The import raw e-mail feature inside of Cerberus Helpdesk allows the raw message source of an e-mail to be inserted
directly into
After viewing the source from the view message source inside the Failed Message.
You can copy and paste the message source into the Import Raw Header menu option (configuration --> E-mail /
Parser --> Import Raw Message) and press the “Parse” button. This makes it possible to manually edit header
information so that e-mails with non-standard headers can still be imported into the helpdesk.
 8
Cerberus Workstation

Workstation & Cerberus 3.0

We've bundled both Cerberus 3.0 and Cerberus Workstation for customers. To get Workstation set up, you'll need to
first check how many Workstation users your license is valid for. This can be seen in the configuration menu.
Configuration → License →

Cerberus Helpdesk™ - Web Edition

Licensed to: WebGroupMedia LLC.
License ID:
Cerberus Workstation™ - Desktop Edition
Max. Users: 10
Expires: 2006-12-31
Cerbmail™ - High-Volume E-mail Gateway/Parser
Enabled: Yes

Looks like we're setup for 10 Users for Workstation which will expire: 31 Dec 2006.

Workstation Configuration
In order to take advantage of Workstation, some configuration items need to be set up inside of Cerberus 3.0:
Configuration → Cerberus Helpdesk™ → Workstation™ → License → Pick the agents you want to give
Workstation access to.→ “Save”

It is possible to make it so that only certain IPs can connect through the Workstation application.
This is set up through the following steps:
Configuration → Cerberus Helpdesk™ → Workstation™ → Settings → Valid IP Masks: “your IP #, e.g.
192.168.1.105”

Okay! You should be ready to start using Cerberus 3.0 and Workstation.
 Appendix A:
Cronjob / Scheduled Task

The External Cronjob

Creating an external cronjob allows for the helpdesk to parse e-mail even if no-one is actively browsing the helpdesk.
This is ideal if you are not always going to be actively checking the helpdesk for new tickets. Notifications can be set
up to allow the helpdesk to send you an e-mail whenever a ticket comes is parsed.

Parser Paths
First, make sure you know the location of your cron.php file.
http://localhost/cerberus-gui/cron.php
Once paths are verified you'll need to disable the internal scheduled task in Cerberus.

Configuration --> Cerberus Helpdesk™ --> Scheduled Tasks --> Timer3:

<Switch to External Timer>

Under tasks:
Click on the 'title' of your scheduled task name and set Enabled to True

Accessing the crontab.

Shell/Console: If you have root or shell access to your server the quickest option to access the crontab is by
running the crontab -e command when logged in as a user with permission to run the parser.
Control Panel: If you have a standard web hosting account, your hosting provider may have provided access
to a web-based control panel (Cpanel, Plesk, etc.) Many popular control panels have an option to add
cronjobs.
None of the Above: Chances are that your hosting provider may not provide the ability to use cronjobs.
If this is the case then you'll need to stick with the internal timer scheduled task in Cerberus. Please note the
browser window running Cerberus will need to remain open to run the scheduled task properly.

3 External: An external cronjob/task will run scheduled tasks. (most reliable)

Internal: Active helpdesk sessions will prompt scheduled tasks. (default)
- Requires that an agent have an active browser session with the home page of the Cerberus Admin-GUI
Manual: Clicking a button in the GUI will run scheduled tasks.
- Manually runs when user physically refreshes the home page inside a browser.
Adding the new cronjob.
Access the crontab from Step 2 and set the parser command to run every 5 minutes by adding:
*/5 * * * * lynx --dump http://localhost/cerberus-gui/cron.php
or
*/5 * * * * wget -o /dev/null “http://home/cerberus/cerberus-gui/cron.php”
~If lynx or wget isn't available try w3m or other commands that can hit a URL:

That's */54 and four more asterisks (*) separated by tabs, then the parser URL. There are no newlines, although it may
wrap in your editor/browser. To change how frequently the parser runs, simply change the 5 to another number (in
minutes).

Scheduled Task (Windows)

1. Download wget for Windows

2. Copy the wget.exe file to c:\windows\
3. Go to Start → Control Panel → Scheduled Tasks → Add Scheduled Task → Next
3. Click "Browse..." and browse to C:\windows\wget.exe → Open
4. Type "Cerberus" as the name → Daily → Next
5. Start Time: 12:00 AM → perform this task “Every Day" → Start Date: Today's Date → Next
6. Enter the username and password → Next
7. "Open advanced properties” → Finish
8. Run: C:\windows\wget.exe -q -O NUL http://yourdomain.com/cerberus-
gui/cron.php
9. On the "Schedule" tab → Advanced
10. [check]"Repeat task" → "Every:" 10 minutes, and set "Until:"Duration → "23" hours "59" minutes.
11.OK

or
1. c:\php\php.exe
2. Go to Start → Control Panel → Scheduled Tasks → Add Scheduled Task → Next
3. Click "Browse..." and browse to C:\php\php.exe → Open
4. Type "Cerberus" as the name → Daily → Next
5. Start Time: 12:00 AM → perform this task “Every Day" → Start Date: Today's Date → Next
6. Enter the username and password → Next

4 A common mistake is to only enter "5" in the first column of the crontab file. This runs the parser on the 5th minute of every hour (once per hour:
1:05, 2:05, 3:05, ....) Using */5 instead means “every 5 minutes.”
7. "Open advanced properties” → Finish
8. Run: C:\php\php.exe C:\wwwroot\inetpub\cerberus-gui\cron.php
9. On the "Schedule" tab → Advanced
10. [check]"Repeat task" → "Every:" 10 minutes, and set "Until:"Duration → "23" hours "59" minutes.
11.OK