The CodebaseHQ Blog

Since we launched Codebase we've been struggling to find a support system which matched the way we work. We started off just using a shared Gmail apps account, this worked very well with the initial low volume of tickets we received. As more e-mail came in we moved over to Zendesk which, to be fair is a very nice piece of software but we jumped ship when they introduced new pricing as we didn't want to be forced to pay for lots of features we would never be using. After this, we moved over to Tender (which we had previous used) and have been using it for about 3 months now but it's simply lacks many features we need and, as we're bringing a few new products online in the next months, would start costing us a fortune to subscribe for separate accounts for each app.

So we did what most developers do in this situation... we've made our own "communication system". We're calling it a communication system simply because it'll start handling all e-mail and enquiries we receive rather than just support requests. One of the key differences between Tender & our new system is that we can assign tickets to individual members of staff when they are created - one of our team will immediately task ownership of an enquiry and is responsible for it. If anyone is more interested in the actual details, feel free to ask and we'll post more about it but I wouldn't want to bore you with the details!

Our new support system is fully integrated into our new central management system, Sum. The screenshot above is the first public glimpse of it, as above, if anyone is interested in more details, just ask!

The new system will be going live in the next few days and all outstanding Tender tickets will be imported over. We're not expecting any interruption to our support services :)

We've had stickers sitting around the office for a month or two now and it's about time we got on and let you guys get your hands on them. We experimented with demand for these this morning on twitter and were amazed at the number of requests we received so had to quickly improve our process.

So, if you'd like some stickers and you're an account administrator, just login to your Codebase account, click on 'My Account' in the top right and then select 'Request some stickers'. We'll then just ask you to confirm your address (you can change it if needed).

If you don't have a Codebase account and you'd still like some stickers, feel free to drop us an email to support@codebasehq.com and we'll see what we can do for you.

We love stickers but don't have nearly enough so if you'd like to send us some - we'd love to receive them and stick them on our fridge. Our address can be found in the footer of the page :)

For those of you who would like to get some free subscription time, we're introducing our affiliate scheme which rewards you with free days on your Codebase subscription in exchange for converting users to use Codebase themselves. See full details on our new affiliate scheme page.

We're pleased to say we've added some print stylesheets to a few areas of Codebase to help you print off information straight from the web interface. We've started by adding styles for the ticket list, ticket view page and all wiki pages.

If you have any other pages you'd like to be easily able to print, feel free to make a suggestion over on our uservoice pages.

9 weeks ago we started the initial work on developing a new billing system, Sum, and after some sporadic development, we're very pleased to announce that we've just deployed the finished product and moved all Codebase billing over to it.

The change is mostly for our benefit as it gives the flexibility to generate reports for all our applications from one interface as well as monitoring our financials in real time.

If you already have added your payment card & address to your Codebase account, it's unlikely you'll even notice the change. Having said that, the new system does introduce some new features which account owners will be able to take advantage of:

• PDF invoices - you can download PDF invoices for any invoice raised on your account (including ones generated before we moved). We've also included a URL in your invoice notification email allowing you to download it.

• Pay for your Codebase subscription on a quarterly, biannual or annual basis in addition to the default monthly timescale. If you decide not to pay monthly, you can settle your invoices using Paypal directly from the new system.

In the next few weeks we'll be allowing companies from the EU to apply for VAT-free billing which allows you to receive your Codebase subscription without VAT included by default.