
Show HN: Full Help – Self-hosted help desk and knowledge base software - fullhelp
https://www.fullhelp.com/en?ref=hacker-news
======
zaroth
Very nice launch. I probably will buy this in the next week or two to power a
product I will be launching myself soon.

The non-recurring pricing model makes it almost too cheap, but it’s right in
the sweet spot of pulling out the corporate card and not even thinking about
it.

$129 is cheap enough for the all but the tiniest projects.

I do like the simplicity of a single price point with no tiers or feature
table, but it’s hard to shake the thought you’re leaving a lot on the table,
or almost even disqualifying yourself from someone looking for a “premium”
solution. I might suggest a $499 and $1999 version which offer merely higher
tiers of support, just to see if anyone buys it. Pick some price which feels
almost outrageous to you. At the very least it would anchor the $129.

At $129 the support should be limited to forums and self-help only.

docs.fullhelp.com - “Powered by FullHelp”.

Dogfooding doesn’t get better than this! I didn’t see an active live chat
widget though?

You should be highlighting this as your product demo effectively.

~~~
fullhelp
Hey!

Thanks for checking it out! The software can be used by multiple companies or
product simultaneously so one license may be enough. Of course, multiple
licenses can be purchased if that's necessary just so you know

For the live chat, there's a live working widget on the landing page
(fullhelp.com), it's located at the bottom right corner. From there, you are
able to initiate conversations and also browse the knowledge base site.

The software has a Restful API which is used for the dashboard. Dogfooding
there also! haha

Edit: Also, thanks for the pricing suggestions, sounds like a good approach.

------
repeek
Very cool. We are current HelpScout customers -- my biggest complaint with
HelpScout is our inability to properly gate our knowledge base behind our
application's authentication -- the only choices are private (must have
HelpScout account to access) or public URL.

I could see this being a viable alternative, but it appears to be missing a
key feature for us, analytics. As an B2B SaaS app, we have support SLAs that
mandate specific response times. HelpScout makes it easy for us to report
response times. We can also tag support themes to help focus product
development; being able to see metrics around theme frequency is very
important.

Analytics also tell us which Knowledge Base articles are most popular as well
as phrases users search so we can be sure we surface the correct article.

~~~
fullhelp
Hi!

I agree. Analytics is something that will surely be added, along with SLA
management which is also missing. Knowledgebase sites have basic analytics
which tells you how many visits, session and what are the popular articles,
collections, and categories, but nothing more at the moment.

Thanks for checking it out and your feedback!

------
jstsch
Test driving it, like it a lot! Some initial feedback:

* I sent a support request by email with two screenshots. The first screenshot did not show up in the web view (the cid: remains in the HTML source).

* A demo account with lots of dummy data might be useful for a quick glance at the product.

* Might want to add a Letsencrypt wildcard SSL domain for [https://*.demo.fullhelp.com](https://*.demo.fullhelp.com)

* Missing language string when creating an article: Title.created

* There is a non-deletable dummy note attached to a customer from a certain Peter Richards ;)

* Typo: shoirtly -> shortly

* Theming: this is quite a big feature, so understandably a bit rough right now, perhaps offer a blank template .ZIP file to get started?

* I'd like to be able to modify language strings, but perhaps this goes via the theming ZIP

Looks quite cool!

~~~
fullhelp
Hi!

Thanks for taking the time to check it out and the feedback!

For the theming feature, I was thinking of adding a way to export the
installed themes, that way the user can download the theme being used and
apply any customization and re-upload as a new custom theme.

A blank template for new designs is an excellent idea.

I've also created a small node based command-line program that syncs local
development changes to the live knowledge base portals. This helps a lot with
testing and previewing the themes. I've not released it just yet, I plan to do
so with an MIT license on GitHub. It is similar to Shopify's Themekit
([https://shopify.github.io/themekit](https://shopify.github.io/themekit)).
This is what I use to work on theme designs.

For knowledgebase language strings, you are right, that's possible at the
moment through the theme locale files.

------
scrollaway
Looks very nice.

I know you decided against selling this as a SaaS but please reconsider. That
you _are_ self-hostable is a selling point that will drive potential hosted
customers to you.

It's the same story with Gitlab: I love that it's open source and self-
hostable. I prefer they take care of the hosting for me, but it's good to know
if they go under, I can switch to the self-hosted version and there will be
very few workflow changes for my team.

~~~
fullhelp
Hey!

I will be considering it, you are right. Some people just don't want to bother
with the technical stuff that comes with managing servers and/or installing
the software. I'll definitively consider a SaaS version.

Thanks!

~~~
dominicr
Something to consider is that often I'll test drive a product with a few
people on the cheapest possible plan, or free trial, for a month or two before
rolling it out. Being able to do that really quickly, without setting up
hosting, is a big benefit. If a customer can jump in straight away for a month
long trial it might increase sales.

Also, I'm not in the market for this right now but I keep a list of products
I've seen and liked. The need to sign up for your demo stopped me looking at
it. Consider if you can remove that crucial barrier to people seeing your app.
Something like read only, a preset user, or generate an account automatically
with a disposible email address.

------
0XAFFE
Looks nice, maybe you can add an existing account to your demo-system, so that
I do not need to register myself an account.

Edit: And maybe point out, that the Documentation
([https://docs.fullhelp.com/](https://docs.fullhelp.com/)) is actually the
software you are presenting. I did not realize that immediately.

~~~
fullhelp
Hey!

You are right, a demo account will be great! I'll be working on it, thanks!

------
PakG1
Congrats, new help desk options are always cool. I can see this being great
for web-based businesses, which I suppose is the target from what I can see.
For my needs, I unfortunately need help desk software for a corporate
environment. That means I need asset management integrated into the help desk
software.

We are currently setting up GLPI + OCS Inventory NG because we couldn't find
any other options that had good asset management. That being said, GLPI is
_clunky_. It's not my first choice, but I couldn't find many options out there
that integrated asset management.

I feel like as more and more web-based businesses grow, traditional help desk
requirements are being left behind (perhaps helped by some organizations going
BYOD). Bit jealous of all the people who need help desk software but don't
need integrated asset management.

~~~
fullhelp
Thank you!

The software is focused on web-based businesses at the moment, mainly because
it makes it simpler. However, I'm always open to suggestions. I'm not familiar
with the asset management part, but I will definitively check it out and see
if this is something that can be added, either built-in or as separate add-on
or application. Just like you, there are other people that may benefit from
it, especially when you say there aren't many options with a good integration.

------
usaphp
Great product. Do you not worry about someone copying your code and selling it
as a saas? I am selling premium Wordpress plugins and it’s incredible how many
people try to purchase my plugin and then offer it as a saas

~~~
fullhelp
Hey!

It's always a concern for me. I'm looking for ways to detect such cases and
that way terminate the licenses, which will prevent the user from downloading
any release. Another approach that may work (just an idea), is to secure the
documentation and allow access to it to logged in users with one valid license
at least, but this has some disadvantages like the affected user experience.

A legal notice is always an option.

~~~
RobAley
Don't block access to the docs. I always go through the docs first before
purchasing software, it cuts through the marketing messages and helps me
understand if the software does exactly what I need. No available docs = no
purchase.

------
fullhelp
Re-post as suggested by a moderator due to problem with account and post
visibility.

I'm Gerardo, a web developer based in Puerto Rico.

Full Help is a self-hosted help desk and multi-knowledge base software created
for small businesses and freelancers.

The backstory:

I was using Help Scout and Zoho Desk before considering creating something
like Full Help. Both services are excellent, the problem with Zoho Desk is
that it is more focused on large businesses, with complex requirements.

I gave a try to Help Scout, and I was impressed. It was simple and perfect for
companies of all sizes. My main issue with Help Scout was the pricing and the
limitations of each plan, especially on the lower ones. It was expensive (and
still is for me).

Another problem for me with Help Scout was the lack of customizability on the
docs sites. The only way I was able to customize the look and feel of the
knowledge base sites was through custom CSS and JavaScript. I wanted to get my
hands dirty with my own HTML and site structure, but that wasn't possible at
that moment (and still isn't I think).

I then started considering creating my own help desk, something small (yeah
right); something that could give me the flexibility I wanted and at the same
time, lower the costs.

I started working on a knowledge base management system in my free time that
allowed me to create several knowledge base sites that I needed for multiple
projects and products. I finished it in two months or so, can't remember
exactly. It worked and got the job done.

I was using a regular email account for customer conversations and the
knowledge base system for customer documentation, etc.

I was missing the integration I had between the knowledge base content and
customer conversations. With Zoho Desk and Help Scout, I was able to quickly
search the docs and insert a link into the email/chat message, along with
other useful features. Also, I was considering selling it as a hosted service
at that time, and for me, the knowledge base system alone wasn't enough for a
commercial business app.

Then started the second stage, creating a "simple" communication management
system. Something that could receive and send emails and could be integrated
with the knowledge bases.

I started working on it by first designing a flexible and scalable database
structure for the conversations feature. I wanted something that could allow
the possibility of adding other conversations channels in the future.

The conversations section was finished, and everything was working as I
initially wanted. It was receiving and sending emails (powered by Mailgun),
and I had the integration between conversations and help content. Good!

Remember when I said, "something that could receive and send emails"? The
other guys had live chats, something trendy these days. It wasn't smart to
release a cloud help desk solution without live chat support, right? I added
the live chat and while I was on it, developed a widget where customers could
chat with support agents, and browse the knowledge base content from within
the same widget, without leaving the main website.

But, wait! This is a cloud business solution, we need teams! I rolled a full
team feature with role-based permissions and an invitation system. (currently,
only "Account owner" role is present on the software; more roles coming
soon!).

In conclusion, the small knowledge base system turned out into a big
application with lots of useful features created to provide a full help desk
software that's focused on small businesses and freelancers.

There are lots of other useful features planned, like more conversations
channels, Single Sign-On, Integration with third-parties, and many more.

The software is a single page application. The UI is powered by a versioned
Restful API. The API can be used for integrating the help desk with existing
software, without hacking the core.

About the codebase:

It was developed with Laravel 5.7 using the Test Driven Development approach
(Can't live without unit and integration tests!). The codebase follows today's
standards. I'm a fan of thin controllers and thin models, so the logic is
mostly split between service classes, presenters, and models (when necessary).

Anyone that understands the Laravel framework will be comfortable working with
the code.

As I've mentioned before, my initial plans for Full Help was to launch a small
cloud-based help desk service, mainly focused on Puerto Rico and other Latin
countries. I decided to release it as a self-hosted solution because of the
lack of good options along with the cloud space being crowded.

Regarding the distribution/sale method:

I opted to go with a custom made checkout system mainly because of the
flexibility and better brand integration/control. There's also an affiliate
program which is currently private, with plans on opening it to the public in
the future.

The checkout requires an account registration (which some people don't like,
unfortunately). This is for better license management (like renewals) and to
give the user access to all his orders and invoices. I have plans on adding an
app store (not anytime soon) where the user can purchase knowledge base themes
and other extensions or services.

What are your thoughts, comments or suggestions? Any feedback regarding the
software itself, landing page, pricing or anything is much appreciated.

Thanks for your time!

~~~
vbsteven
Very Nice! Congrats on launching. I'm definitely checking this out soon for
support in my freelance gigs.

I like the pricing model, I'm intending to do something similar with my next
product. Selfhosted, pay once, use forever, optionally renew after 1 year for
updates. I wish more software was like this. Only I'm also adding a SaaS
option for people that don't want to bother with hosting.

You seem to have written the licensing/checkout/renewal yourself. How much
time did you spend on it? I'm working on solving exactly this problem with my
product and I would love to have a chat about your experience/problems
regarding this.

~~~
fullhelp
Thank you!

It's a good pricing model which benefits both ends. A SaaS option for people
that don't want to bother with technical stuff is a good idea.

I've created the checkout/licensing and renewal myself because of the
flexibility and not depending on other external companies. The licensing
system is quite simple, the software doesn't ask for license verification at
the moment. The system will allow the downloads based on the license the user
selects. The license system is integrated with BitBucket. On each release
BitBucket sends a POST request to a secure endpoint with a prepared ZIP file
containing the app files. On each release, a new entry is created on the
licensing system indicating the version and other details. Licenses are tied
to the major release version number (e.g., "1" in v1.2.0). When v2.0.0 is
released, new licenses are tied to the v2. Users will only have access to
minor and patches releases until a renewal is made. That's a brief description
of how the system works.

For the checkout, I've created two Laravel packages (currently private) for
sale statements (quotes, orders, invoices, etc) and another package for the
affiliate program. I'll be releasing them with MIT license on GitHub.

Sure! Feel free to send me a PM on Twitter @gerardojbaez or an email to
g[at]gerardobaez.com. I'll be happy to help.

~~~
arcdigital
I see you even built in a coupon system. Any chance you have a coupon for us
on HN? :)

~~~
fullhelp
Sure! Use "hackernews" for a 23% off :-D

------
veb
Super super awesome launch! I love your landing page, and have been looking
for something _exactly_ like this for a product I am launching soon.

I'll be in touch! Great stuff.

~~~
fullhelp
Thank you! Feel free to reach out to gerardo[at]fullhelp or
support[at]fullhelp.com anytime you want.

~~~
veb
Sweet! Thank you. :)

------
tjbiddle
Looks fantastic! If you had integration with a phone number (And tell me what
calls I missed + voicemails left), analytics on all tickets and calls, and on
the support button integration for my website - if it had live chat, leave a
message, and suggested articles from my public knowledge base, and added
1-click deployments to AWS/DigitalOcean/etc. - Then I would switch from
ZenDesk

~~~
fullhelp
Thank you!

Those are all great suggestions! Some of them are already present, like the
live chat, leave a message (the same as live chat which fallbacks to email if
the user gets disconnected) and article suggestions from a knowledge base
(manually configured with JavaScript).

All the other suggestions are great and will definitively consider them.

Edit: I suggest to sign up to the newsletter at fullhelp.com to keep up to
date on releases. :-D

Thanks!

------
fmos
Looks great and really uncomplicated. The demo works flawlessly, including
receiving email attachments. Good job!

Love the readability and content of the license terms as well. In particular
the parts on software modifications.

One feature that is a show-stopper for our workflow is the possibility of
shared drafts, i.e. where an email response can be prepared and stored by one
person and later reviewed, perhaps completed, and sent by someone else. Do you
think this is something that you might consider adding in the foreseeable
future?

edit: btw, might serve as a differentiation over Zammad
[https://github.com/zammad/zammad/issues/629](https://github.com/zammad/zammad/issues/629)

~~~
fullhelp
Hi! Thank you! :-D

The license is based on DuetApp's
([https://duetapp.com/](https://duetapp.com/)) version. I liked its simplicity
and asked the creator if it would be OK with him to use his license as a
starting point.

Shared drafts sound like an interesting feature and one that seems easy to
implement on Full Help. I've added it to my Trello board. Thanks!

------
pxtail
Your project looks very promising. I'm not sure if this feature doesn't exist
or I cannot find it anywhere on demo account, but: what's missing for me is
fine grained ACL/permissions management.

In our company we are using
[https://www.bookstackapp.com/](https://www.bookstackapp.com/) as knowledge
base solution for multiple clients/projects (separate installation for each).
Main requirement is to be able to control which user or group can access
particular document or group of documents. Is it possible to achieve something
like this using your project?

~~~
fullhelp
Thank you!

There are role-based permissions implemented, but they are only for team
members on the help desk.

ACL/permission for knowledge base sites is not present at the moment but may
be a good addition for a future release. I have added it to the Trello board.

------
tmikaeld
I really like the Knowledgebase feature, which is currently missing from our
Zammad setup (also open source helpdesk).

I'm guessing it's based on PHP/SQL since you mention Wordpress?

What are your roadmap for the software?

I think a demo would bring a lot more sales.

~~~
fullhelp
Hey!

Yes, it's based on PHP/MySql (Laravel 5.7 to be precise).

For the roadmap, the goal is to provide a complete self-hosted help desk
solution. A complete alternative to existing cloud-based offerings.

In terms of development, there are many things still on the Trello board.
Things like Single Sign-On, Metrics, Integration with third-party apps like
Trello, Stripe, PayPal (for conversation context), enhancements to the live
chat, etc.

Thanks for checking it out!

Edit: you can checkout the demo here:
[https://demo.fullhelp.com/en/register](https://demo.fullhelp.com/en/register)

------
rahimnathwani
This looks awesome.

Please prioritise reviewing your pricing/hosting model. If you want to serve
your users well, you will want to work on this full time. Making enough money
will make it more likely you can do this.

Even if your objective is to be much cheaper than your competitors (and serve
people who can't afford them), you can still offer this as a SaaS product,
but:

\- have a lower monthly price than the competitors you mentioned (even 50%
lower)

\- charge much more for plans that include features important for large
customers, but which smaller companies can easily live without (e.g. SSO)

~~~
fullhelp
Hey! Thanks for your suggestions! I will definitively keep that in mind.

------
5_minutes
Love it! Like the fair pricing scheme and no monthly subscriptions. Keep it
going and we might move from helpscout’s overpriced bloated tool.

~~~
fullhelp
Thank you! :-D

------
whycombagator
Looks pretty decent. Was strongly considering crisp.chat but this looks
promising.

Just an FYI, after test driving the knowledge base in the demo (creating an
article etc) clicking on "View site" yields a
"NET::ERR_CERT_COMMON_NAME_INVALID" error.

I had to manually update the url to [http://](http://) in order to view the
knowledge base

~~~
fullhelp
Hi!

Thanks for checking it out. The demo domain is missing a SSL certificate for
the knowledge base sites. That's something that needs to be fixed.

------
kekub
Is it possible to write a bot using the rest api? Are webhooks available when
new requests come in? I work in a big company and our main issue from my
perspective is, that it takes up to a few hours until a ticket was dispatched
correctly. It would be easy to automate this process but our ticket system
does not offer any kind of interface.

~~~
fullhelp
Hi!

Not at the moment but both are planned. Webhooks will come first as this
facilitates, even more, the integration between other systems.

Thanks!

------
_1tan
My current employer is currently using a self-hosted instance of Zammad.org.
Might be interesting to compare the two.

~~~
fullhelp
Zammad.org looks great! It seems to be missing knowledge base portals based on
another comment. However, it looks a good solution.

~~~
aymeric
You have a healthy attitude towards competition.

~~~
somberi
I came to comment on this. Love your attitude and how you have fielded every
suggestion and criticism sportingly. Keep it up.

------
NewsAware
Neat. Would have a comment/feature request for the backlog after playing with
the demo: I will be uld have expected autosuggest behavior in both the
frontend search as well as in various admin input fields and actually waited
for suggestions to appear before realizing this isn't in there yet.

~~~
fullhelp
Hey! Thanks for checking it out and the feedback! I will make sure that future
versions have the autosuggestion behavior on search fields and any input field
on the admin side that requires it.

------
jaden
This looks great! One minor corner case I noticed: If you click "Need help?"
on the lower right with a small viewport (I had Chrome dev tools open), the
modal content and title bar gets cut off, even when scrolled to the top,
meaning you can't close the modal.

~~~
fullhelp
Thank you! The help widget isn't working that great on small viewports, you
are right. On iOS, there's also the issue of autozoom when text fields are
focused. This is something that will be addressed for the next release which
is planned for this week.

------
jppope
Really badass product. Well done. I will be buying in ~2-3 months

~~~
fullhelp
Thank you!! :-D

------
leesalminen
Awesome launch, congratulations! Looking forward to the day that we can ditch
ZenDesk and use a self hosted option.

~~~
fullhelp
Thank you! :-D

------
nvr219
I did a search in the docs for "report" and nothing showed up.

~~~
fullhelp
Hey!

I don't think that word is present on the few docs created. Try "requirements"
which should show two results:
[https://docs.fullhelp.com/en/search?query=requirements](https://docs.fullhelp.com/en/search?query=requirements)

~~~
ullarah
I may be wrong, but they are most likely asking if there is a reporting module
(KPIs?) with this product?

~~~
fullhelp
In that case, the knowledge base dashboard has several statistics
([https://imgur.com/5Z60SWl](https://imgur.com/5Z60SWl)). Help desk reports
are not present at the moment but is something that will be added
definitively.

------
zelon88
I use HESK for this purpose.

