Comments on: 4.2 is released! 106+ improvements. Put them to work!

By: Cerberus Helpdesk Blog » Blog Archive » New to Cerb4? Fetch & Retrieve tutorial now revamped for latest versions

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 00:37:04 +0000

[...] I will say that we have made it clear in other places that the Google Custom Search Engine (GSE) is the recommended alternative, and Fetch & Retrieve [...]

By: Joe Geck

Joe Geck — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 21:40:22 +0000

Just to officially provide an announcement.

IMPLEMENTED — Add back Fetch&Retrieve as an optional plugin in 4.2
http://www.wgmdev.com/jira/browse/CHD-1242

Fetch & Retrieve is back in! Updating to the 4.2.1 version, now available in stable SVN, will add F&R support back as a plugin. The screenshots Jeff@WGM posted before are the best indicators of what to expect, but here’s a couple of notes from me along with a quote from the changelog.

As Jeff@WGM has mentioned this is now a plugin, which you can enable in ‘helpdesk setup’, the ‘Features & Plugins’ tab, “Cerberus Helpdesk: Fetch & Retrieve”. This works a little differently now as F&R has its own tabs in setup and research. Configuration is done from the ‘helpdesk setup’ tab, while searches can be done from the ‘research’ menu at the top.

You can also add F&R to the Support Center, just like you do with the KB module. In the ‘helpdesk setup’, ‘Community Portals’ tab, enable “F&R” and choose which topics to expose. A new main menu called ‘Search Resources’ will appear on the public portal, and allow your customers to run a search. The results appear and behave just like the internal Helpdesk F&R search does.

Quote:
* [Fetch & Retrieve] Added back Fetch & Retrieve (F&R) as an optional plugin. It adds a Configuration tab for creating topics and resources. It adds a Research tab for searching resources. It adds a Support Center module for allowing website visitors to search topics you specify in your Support Center profile. When enabled in the SC, you can also send customers to URLs like /support/resources/search?q=search+terms. If you had F&R enabled previously then your existing settings will be used.

For the rest of the changelog see this post from today:
http://www.cerb4.com/blog/2009/06/09/4_2_1_minor_fixes/

By: Jeff Standen

Jeff Standen — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 02:04:32 +0000

@Silas I agree about the internal resources. The Fetch & Retrieve plugin for 4.2 is ready to go for Monday:
http://www.quicksnapper.com/jstanden/image/cerb4-fetch-amp-retrive-config
http://www.quicksnapper.com/jstanden/image/cerb4-fetch-amp-retrieve-support-center-module

By: Silas Moeckel

Silas Moeckel — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 15:24:35 +0000

I think the big thing for F&R is it could connect to a “unpublished” KB as in no external access. I do not mind google but we have a lot of internal documentation that we want to have at the fingertips (the old provide the top results from F&R in 3.x was better though :) when working on a ticket. I think a lot of places will have internal only documentation they want there help desk people to have easy access to, bringing back suggestions as part of an on hover / on click popup would be nice as well (and not as expensive since it could be a dynamic call rather than every the old on every ticket view).

By: Jeff Standen

Jeff Standen — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 20:10:44 +0000

@Steven
Fair enough! I’ll aim to get the F&R optional plugin in the next minor milestone update for 4.2 — which may be pretty quick depending on the little issues that pop up. The Google alternative can be disabled entirely, so that shouldn’t be a problem. If you don’t critically need anything from 4.2, and missing F&R would be a big issue, then hold off a week or so on the update.

Vote+Watch this issue for the F&R plugin:
http://www.wgmdev.com/jira/browse/CHD-1242

By: Jeff Standen

Jeff Standen — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 20:03:52 +0000

@Philipp
Hey! The Support Center was the common thing people had issues with between 3.x and 4.x. That gap should be closed now. Feature-wise I can’t think of anything that we hear that often anymore — perhaps the fact 4.x doesn’t support Workstation (but now it has a proper Web-API to create new things like it).

The steps for upgrading from 3.6 to 4.2 are here:
http://wiki.cerb4.com/wiki/ImpEx:Cerb3Export

The process is easier than it looks, but it’s not as simple as running /upgrade.php in 3.6 — the code and databases are entirely different (for good reason!). If you need help with that, write in, we’d be happy to help get you upgraded.

By: Steven Blackwood

Steven Blackwood — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 20:01:59 +0000

That’d be cool, Jeff… I can handle it not being the default, but please do keep it available for those who don’t want to feed at yet another Google trough. Google has enough of my business as it is .

Thanks!

By: Jeff Standen

Jeff Standen — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 19:58:55 +0000

@Jim
Post-Parser rules in Cerb4 are the ‘Group Inbox’ filters. Pre-Parse, Mail Routing, E-mail Notifications and Group Inbox filters can scan message body content in 4.2.

By: Jeff Standen

Jeff Standen — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 19:56:46 +0000

@Steven
We have the older F&R code pulled into a plugin, but the plugin isn’t in the release. The existing settings haven’t been deleted from the DB. If there’s enough interest in keeping F&R as an option then it’s something we can do. It likely won’t be our default again, since the requirement to set up those custom search+RSS drivers caused a lot of people to never be able to use it.

By: Steven Blackwood

Steven Blackwood — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 19:06:50 +0000

You mean the old Fetch & Retrieve is just GONE? No option to enable it if we dislike the Google offering? Seriously?

F&R was my favorite feature… the one thing that pulled me away from Kayako. I’m not about to pay Google (either via fees or ads) for a basic resource collective search, so if F&R is truly gone… well, I guess I am too.