Using the help desk

Email ticketing

The step that turns SwanDesk into a real help desk: incoming email becomes tickets, and your replies go back out automatically.

How email becomes tickets

Point SwanDesk at your support mailbox and it does the rest: every new message opens a ticket, and every reply threads onto the ticket it belongs to. When a customer answers, SwanDesk trims the quoted history so the thread stays readable.

Set up incoming & outgoing

Open Settings → Email. There are two halves:

  • Incoming (IMAP) — the mailbox SwanDesk watches (host, port 993, username, password).
  • Outgoing (SMTP) — how replies and notifications are sent (host, port, username, password).

For outgoing mail, prefer the SSL port 465 if your provider offers it — it connects more reliably than 587 on some networks.

Microsoft 365 & Exchange Online

On Microsoft 365 you don’t need an app password. Choose the modern (OAuth) sign-in for the mailbox, authorize SwanDesk once, and it connects with a token — the same for sending and receiving. On-premises Exchange works over standard IMAP/SMTP.

Reply commands

Reps can work tickets without leaving their own inbox. Type a hashtag command on its own line in a reply and SwanDesk acts on it when the message comes in:

CommandWhat it does
#closeClose the ticket after this reply.
#assign nameAssign it to a rep.
#privatePost as an internal note (the customer never sees it).
#can shortcodeInsert a canned response by its shortcode.

Canned responses

Save the answers you send over and over. Give each one an optional shortcode, then drop it into a reply from the composer — or with #can shortcode straight from email. Great for password resets, “we’re looking into it,” and onboarding steps.

Delivery & safety

SwanDesk keeps email dependable and quiet:

  • Adaptive checking — it polls more often when things are busy and backs off when they’re not.
  • Durable sending — outgoing mail is queued and retried, so a brief outage doesn’t drop a reply.
  • Loop & spam guards — auto-reply loops and obvious junk are suppressed so they don’t create ticket storms.