Service desk should be given more prominence in the UI

Description

The Service Desk is a valuable but underused feature. This is, in part, because it is not necessarily a feature our users are aware of or fully understand.

Proposal

In order to make this feature more visible, it should be given its own UI underneath Issues and its own link in the sidebar.

  1. In the first iteration, when you click on the Service desk link in the navigation, it goes to a version of the issues page, with the author filter set to the GitLab Support Bot. It defaults to the open tab. So it will show all open Service desk issues. This is a special version of the issues page because the search filter is locked to filtering the author to the GitLab Support Bot. However, you can search/filter by other elements. Just the author filter is locked.

  2. Be sure to remove the x in the author filter, since it's locked. Also, you cannot remove the author filter with any other interaction. You can't backspace/delete it with your keyboard.

  3. There is some explanatory text at the top of the page, with a mailto link, a link to project settings, and a link to the Service desk docs.

Screen_Shot_2017-07-30_at_7.17.52_PM

service-desk

Design

  • Copy:
**Use Service desk to connect with your users (e.g. to offer customer support) through email right inside GitLab.** 
Have your users email incoming+victorwu/acme-lawncare-ios@gitlab.com. Those emails automatically become 
issues (with the comments becoming the email conversation) listed here. [Read more]

GitLab issue tracker on

  • Show Service desk navigation element. Also:
SD off SD on
Non-empty state (i.e. At least one result in search+filters) service-desk-non-empty-off service-desk-non-empty-on
Empty state (i.e no results in search+filters) service-desk-empty-off service-desk-empty-on

GitLab issue tracker off

  • Do not show Service desk navigation element.

SVG: graphic-service-desk.svg

Documentation blurb

Overview

Giving Service desk a dedicated space in the UI will increase awareness while making it easier for users to take full advantage of this feature. GitLab admins will see a clear path to creating a support workflow.

Use cases

Link to Service desk details: https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/service_desk.html

Feature checklist

Make sure these are completed before closing the issue, with a link to the relevant commit.

Edited by Coung Ngo