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The Support Tool: Interacting with External Users (Non-team Members)
The Support Tool: Interacting with External Users (Non-team Members)
Toshi Dávila avatar
Written by Toshi Dávila
Updated over a month ago

The Assembla Support tool allows non-Team members to submit tickets directly into a space via email or Web. Whether or not your customers have an Assembla account, they can post support tickets in seconds. They can track the ticket as your developers work on it, and leave comments directly on the ticket or via email. By allowing your customers into the process without giving them accounts, you keep your space maximally efficient and secure.
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You can use custom settings and permissions to decide how involved you want your customers to be, and elect which privileges to give them. You can even write instructions and an email auto-response for customers submitting tickets to make the experience as simple and straightforward as possible.
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Installing the Support tool

To install the Support tool, go to Space Settings > Tools, and then click Add for the Support tool.
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Reviewing common scenarios

The most used scenarios for the Support tool are:

In both scenarios, you can restrict the access to other tools.
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Allowing your customers to submit support tickets without having an Assembla account

Before going forward, you must know that your customers can create support tickets only via email and not from the Assembla UI. If this procedure is acceptable, continue with the next steps.

There are two ways to create a support ticket via email:

  • By instructing them to send an email.

  • By creating a form in your website which sends an email.

In both cases, you must have the same configuration.

To configure for support ticket emails

  1. Go to Space Settings, and in the Security section, change the value in the Non-member access drop-down from None to View.
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    A warning window appears. Click Make this Space Public.
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  2. Now, on the same page, click the Security title to access the security page (.../my_space/admin/security). Scroll down at the bottom and you will find a table with all of the installed tools and three columns.
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  3. In the Public Access column, change all of the values to None for all of the tools except for Support, which has Edit permissions.

    Note: You can select the permissions you want on each tool. Just make sure to do it correctly, otherwise, your customers might have access to your data.

  4. Click Update Tool Permissions when done.

  5. Go to Space Settings, and then in the Tools section, click Settings next to Support.

  6. Scroll down, and then check the Allow anonymous posting box.

  7. Click Update.
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  8. Scroll down to the Email to Tickets section.
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  9. In the Allow email from drop-down, select one of the following options:

    • Anyone. Anyone is able to send an email to your Support tool.

    • Nobody. No one is able to send an email to your Support tool. Some clients use this setting along with the White list domains field to allow only the registered domains to send emails.

    Note: You can add an autoresponder email to your customers, which they receive when they create a support ticket.

  10. Check Always accept emails from followers.

  11. Click Update when done.

Now that you set up your Support tool, your customers can email you to your_space@support.assembla.com and a support ticket is created. Any comment you add on that support ticket sends an email to your customer. If you want to learn more about how to use emails with Assembla, please see Create and edit tickets using email.

Inviting your customers to your space and allowing them to submit support tickets

If you want to know who is submitting your support tickets and you want your customers to use Assembla, then you can invite them to your team.

To invite a user to your team

  1. Go to Space Team, and then click Add new user.

  2. In the search box, type the email address of your customer. As you type, the system suggests recognized email addresses.

  3. Click the user once found, and then select Watcher role.

  4. Click Invite New User. Your customer receives an email invitation to join your space.​

Now, to configure your space, you can follow the same steps of the first scenario in this topic, with only the following differences:

  1. On step 1, leave the Non-Member Access field as None.

  2. On step 3, look for the Watchers Access column instead of Public Access.

  3. On step 5 and forward, you can skip these steps.

Adding custom fields

If you want to manage your support tickets in a more efficient way, you can create custom fields.

Creating a custom field

To create a custom field, see Add Custom Ticket Fields.

Setting a default value

To choose a default value for a certain field

  1. Go to Tickets Settings > Ticket Fields.

  2. Scroll down to Default Ticket Values, and then set default values as appropriate.

  3. Click Update Default Values when done.​​

Choosing what fields are visible or editable

To choose what fields your customers can see and edit

  1. Go to Space Settings, and then in the Tools section, click Settings next to Support.

  2. Scroll down to Allow customers to View or Edit each field. You can hide (None) the fields or just make them visible (View), or you can allow your customers to make changes (Edit).
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Reviewing private versus public support tickets

There are two types of support tickets in Assembla: Private and Public. They are under the Permission type field inside a ticket. This field has the following options:

  • None. The ticket is not considered a support ticket and it does not appear in the Support tool but does appear in the Tickets tool.

  • Private. The ticket is considered a support ticket and only those users on the followers list can access it from the Support tool.

  • Public. The ticket is considered a support ticket and anyone can access it from the Support tool.

Public tickets is the best option when a customer wants to open a support ticket and get everyone involved. For example, incidents where the system is down or needing to know how to access to your site, etc. On the other hand, Private tickets is the best option if a customer wants to report an issue that involves private information.

Either way, you can decide how to manage your support tickets. Here are a couple scenarios:

  • Scenario A: You don't want any public tickets. You only need to set None on the Permission type field, make sure the default value is not Public, and then all of the support tickets are created as private.

  • Scenario B: You want public tickets. You need to set Edit on the Permission type field, and then add the Public Tickets tab on the Support Settings page.
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Configuring the message and fields that you want your customers to see

You can configure what you want the system to display to your users in the way of instructions. Go to Space Settings, and then in the Tools section, click Settings next to Support. Type an Instruction Message to your customers using HTML. Here is an example:
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 Please search the Support Center for a solution before posting a ticket.  Use the New Ticket button above to submit a ticket for technical support.  Include the following to expedite your ticket:
    1: Project URL and any other information that will help us troubleshoot.
    2: Screenshots and detailed steps we can use to try to reproduce your issue is also very helpful.  
    P.S: All API questions and issues should be posted at our official API Support Group: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/assembla-api-dev   If you need our help to configure your Project/Portfolio. Please create a support ticket with your requirements. We would love to help you.  Customer Support : 1.781.583.7541   Toll Free: 1.844.332.5080 (US and Canada Only) 


If you have any questions or need assistance. Please always feel free to email us at support@assembla.com. We will be happy to assist.

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