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Quickstart (Cloud)

Create an opendesk account and workspace, connect a mailbox, add live chat to your site, invite your team and answer your first ticket.

The hosted service runs at app.opendesk.sh. It is the same code as the self-hosted install, operated for you, so there is nothing to install. Plan for about ten minutes.

  1. Create your account

    Open app.opendesk.sh/register.

    1. Sign up with a provider, such as Google or Microsoft, and skip the password.
    2. Or fill in your name, work email and a password of 12 to 128 characters. Known breached passwords are refused; the bar under the field shows how strong yours is.
    3. Create account.

  2. Name your workspace

    A workspace holds your team’s tickets, contacts, mailboxes, help center and settings. You become its owner. The name sets your help center’s address, and you can rename it later.

    1. Workspace name: your company or your support team, such as Margin.
    2. Your help center: the public address of your knowledge base, from the name.
    3. Continue.

  3. Connect a mailbox

    Type the address your customers write to. opendesk looks up who hosts it and offers the right way to connect. Mail sent to the address becomes tickets, and your replies go out from the same address.

    1. Name the mailbox for your team, such as Care, and type its email address.
    2. opendesk shows the provider it found and the ways to connect, with the right one picked. Gmail and Google Workspace connect with an app password, and Microsoft 365 with Microsoft sign-in or by forwarding. Forwarding works with any provider, and Other IMAP and SMTP takes any mail server.
    3. Continue, and follow the steps for that way in.
    4. Skip for now opens the inbox; add a mailbox later in Settings, under Mailboxes.

    See Connect a mailbox for each way in.

  4. Add live chat to your site

    Open Settings, then Brands and widgets, pick your brand and open its widget. Copy the script tag under Install and paste it before </body> on every page that should show the widget.

    1. Brands and widgets, under Channels in the settings menu.
    2. Install: the script tag to copy, with its copy button, and the widget key.

    To the right of these settings, a live preview shows the real widget with your unsaved changes. See Live chat widget.

  5. Invite your team

    Open Settings, then Members, and click Invite people.

    1. Email addresses: type or paste several, separated by commas or spaces.
    2. Role: Admin manages settings, mailboxes and members, Agent works tickets, contacts and articles, Viewer reads everything and changes nothing.
    3. Send invitations. Each person gets an email with a link that expires after 7 days.

    See Teams and roles to group people into teams.

  6. Answer your first ticket

    Send an email to your support address, or start a chat on your site. It appears in the inbox within moments. Open it, write a reply and click Send: the customer receives it from your address.

    See Inbox and tickets for replies, notes, status and assignment.

Next steps

Section titled “Next steps”

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