HappyFox is a powerhouse in the help desk software category.
It's easy to use, offers one of the most well-thought-out interfaces available, and has just about all of the help desk functionality you could need.
One downside to HappyFox is that its pricing isn't as competitive as it once was—the entry-level Mighty plan runs $29 a month, which is roughly twice the starting point for paid tiers with Freshdesk and Zoho Desk, both of which also offer a free service level.
Despite its cost, HappyFox is an easy pick for our Editors' Choice designation, which it shares with Freshdesk, Vivantio Pro, and Zoho Desk.
Setup and Getting Started
The process of creating your own HappyFox instance requires providing basic information such as the administrator's name, email address, phone number, company name, and an account name.
Once the email address is confirmed, you will receive a link to your HappyFox instance, which is based on the account name you provided.
There you can set up your initial username and password.
Getting HappyFox ready to host your help desk tickets is a similar process to rival solutions.
Once your instance is created, your first priority is to configure HappyFox for email interaction with customers.
Email support is set up out of the box with system-generated email addresses for incoming and outgoing messages, but HappyFox offers the ability to use email addresses within your own domain in order to simplify things for customers and present a more professional image.
Custom settings for email addresses and SMTP server details can be configured within individual categories in order to differentiate between requests for things like technical support, sales, or general inquiries.
Within categories, you have a host of options for how tickets are handled, including how an agent's time spent should be updated and whether an email response from a customer will reopen a completed ticket.
Categories also support three variations on round-robin assignments: standard round-robin, one based on active agents, and one which load-balances across active agents.
Branding is one of those features that has varying levels of value depending on your business.
While HappyFox supports only the basics internally (custom color options and a logo), the customer portal can be heavily customized using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, though the user's ticket view stops at the custom colors and logo.
Ticket Management
Incoming tickets can be initiated in a variety of ways.
Users or staff can create tickets directly, allowing for key fields to be filled out from the start.
Email traffic to one or more designated addresses can also be converted automatically into tickets and categorized based on the address targeted.
Once an email has been converted to a ticket it must be assigned a proper status, but this process can be automated through a variety of tools that are no more complex than email rules.
HappyFox also supports social media integration using Twitter and Facebook integrations, though this functionality isn't as sophisticated as what Zoho Desk and Freshdesk offer.
Overall, HappyFox functions similarly to other ticket management systems, mainly by setting priorities, categories, and assignments and tracking status changes.
These elements let you assign work to the proper team or individual and divide workloads between team members.
The primary ticket view is customizable via various queues, which are customized filters you use frequently.
The layout of the ticket view can be switched between a Card view that features a number of easy-to-access buttons, a more compact Table view that cuts back on the buttons but lets you see more tickets and select which fields are displayed, and a Kanban view that visually delineates between tickets grouped by priority, assignee, due date, or status.
HappyFox also offers features such as the ability to pin tickets, see a quick ticket preview, and subscribe to tickets in order to receive real-time notifications about updates to a ticket you aren't directly managing.
Like Zoho Desk, Freshdesk, and Freshservice, HappyFox provides collision monitoring to alert you when another agent is viewing or responding to a ticket.
HappyFox has significantly expanded its automation capabilities since the last time we peeked under the hood.
Round-robin assignments can now be based on which agents are active when the ticket comes in, or even load-balanced across active agents.
Each round-robin configuration can be set to consider specific users and even to weigh user limits in order to tune the assignments.
Smart rules enable you to perform specific actions when certain conditions are met—a feature which is available across the board in the help desk category at this point, as Zoho Desk, Freshdesk and Freshservice, and ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus all offer similar functionality.
HappyFox does allow you to associate smart rules to a work schedule and category, which gives a little extra flexibility when building out complex rule sets.
SLA management in HappyFox begins with an objective including a target percentage and uses conditions to identify which tickets should be evaluated against the SLA.
The SLA can be configured to send a notification when the SLA is breached, and SLAs can be associated to work schedules in order to calculate times using business hours or days.
Other automation tools include canned actions (similar to macros in Zoho Desk), providing a toolset to trigger a canned response to a customer as well as ticket updates without requiring the agent to perform several tasks manually.
Agents can use ticket templates to pre-populate ticket details and create notification emails, a handy feature for tasks that occur frequently.
Scheduled tickets can be used to generate a boilerplate ticket automatically on one or multiple schedules.
HappyFox has begun offering some basic asset management functionality for Enterprise and Enterprise Plus customers.
Unlike the higher-level services in our roundup such as Freshservice and ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus, both of which provide automated asset creation using scanner software (or other methods), assets must be created manually or imported using a CSV file.
Customer Self-Service
HappyFox provides a self-service channel with tools that let you build and maintain a fully branded knowledge base in which customers can find answers to popular questions without having to create a ticket.
The knowledge base feature also lets you know which articles are the most popular and allows customers to mark articles as helpful.
This can potentially identify areas in which additional information should be provided in order to cut down on customer service calls.
HappyFox even supports segregated internal and external knowledge base systems.
This makes it easy to maintain a source of information that is available only to your staff and not to customers, which can be critical for maintaining IP and other security concerns.
The company also offers multi-brand user portals which lets companies create individual and distinct knowledge bases for all of the brands they manage.
In addition to knowledge base features, HappyFox offers forums which can be organized by category.
Forum categories can be made public, limited to customers (requiring a logon), or limited only to agents.
The service lags a bit behind Freshdesk and Zoho Desk in this area, as it doesn't offer any gamification capabilities, which can encourage customer and agent participation, or search engine optimization (SEO), which helps customers find a useful forum post before even reaching the portal.
The knowledge base does offer a couple of SEO features—article titles are search-engine-friendly and the title is added to a page's meta information—but this is limited compared to what you find in Zoho Desk.
Reporting and Analysis
An important resource for any ticket management system is the ability to gain insight from the valuable data captured in each ticket.
Monitoring the performance of your staff, what sort of tickets are being reported, and even which customers have increased support needs are all key factors that you can use to manage your business more efficiently.
There are some situations, for example, in which response times have SLA implications, such as a maximum time window before problems are automatically escalated to a more expensive resource or possible financial penalties go into effect.
For scenarios such as these, performance analytics are critical.
HappyFox provides a couple of options to gain insight into your tickets.
A customizable dashboard lets you see how tickets are flowing, even letting you drill into active tickets by status or priority.
A reporting system lets you filter your result set, view lifecycle reports, or schedule reports.
The report engine is easy to use and lets you create reusable, custom reports and widgets that fit the specific needs of your business.
At this writing HappyFox still offers its legacy reporting system, which hasn't been significantly updated in a few years.
The good news is that a much-improved modern reporting system is currently available in beta form (only about half of the report categories are available at presstime) and updates both the dashboard view and the standard reporting tools.
This may not be a big deal for small teams simply looking to get a leg up in their ticket management, but for businesses with SLAs to monitor and agent performance metrics to judge, it represents a strong push to catch up with Zoho Desk and Freshdesk.
Integrations and Connections
At one time HappyFox was the only game in town in terms of easy integration with third-party apps, but as web applications have matured, so too have alternatives.
HappyFox still offers integration with a number of customer relationship management (CRM) solutions and single sign-on (SSO) providers, but is uncompetitive in categories like analytics, chat, and SMS.
The first two are limited to one option each, although numerous solutions are available and in use by potential customers.
SMS gateways are also ubiquitous online, but HappyFox made the decision to remove its former support for these and offer only an internal SMS option.
While these limitations are surmountable using the HappyFox API, this requires additional effort on your part and limited support from HappyFox.
It would be fair to assume that the company has made these changes in response to customer demand (or lack thereof), and many possible integrations may be completely irrelevant for small help desk teams, but when competing solutions offer such functionality at lower price points, it doesn't look good.
Pricing and Plans
HappyFox offers four pricing tiers ranging from $29 to $89 per user per month when paid annually (add $10 monthly per user regardless of price level if paying monthly).
The company touts its $49 Fantastic tier as the best value, bolstering the $29 Mighty tier with agent collision detection, round-robin assignment, SLA management, automatic time tracking, and key integration features such as phone, remote desktop, and e-commerce.
Fantastic also adds custom ticket queues, the ability to send satisfaction surveys, SLA breach alerts, and SMS capabilities.
The Enterprise tier ups the per-user price to $69 monthly and includes a gamut of advanced features such as task management, asset management, scheduled tickets, and support for custom fields in reports.
The $89 Enterprise Plus tier supports agent scripting and offers personalized support with a customer success manager.
A Top Performer
HappyFox is a formidable contender in the help desk arena, hitting the sweet spot across multiple categories including a comprehensive feature set and ease of use.
Its ticket management capabilities are second to none, including both manual interaction and automation tools.
It's worth noting, however, that the field has narrowed.
HappyFox lags behind Freshdesk and Zoho Desk in a couple of key areas (specifically pricing and integrations), making buyers' decision that much harder.
Nevertheless, HappyFox has ranked as an Editors' Choice since we first evaluated the category, and while the competition has closed the gap, we feel it still deserves the distinction.
For larger companies looking for enterprise-class features and full support for the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) set of standards and best practices, check out Freshservice or Vivantio Pro (Starts at $48.00 per use, per month at Vivantio) (our other Editors' Choice winner).
The Bottom Line
HappyFox has few equals when it comes to managing tickets, but it can be pricey and doesn't offer as many integration options as the competition.
Even so, it's a no-brainer for a help desk Editors' Choice award.
HappyFox Specs
Asset Management | Yes |
Tickets From Social Media | Yes |
Remote Control | No |
Knowledge Base | Yes |
Self-Service Portal | Yes |
Smartphone Apps | No |
Support Widget | Yes |
Live Chat | Yes |
Chatbot Support | No |
Custom Reporting | Yes |