SupportPal Docs

Brands

Streamline your support across multiple brands (companies) within a single installation of SupportPal.

Contents

Key Features

Searching for Brands

Table sorting

By default the table is sorted alphabetically. Once the table has loaded you're able to change the sort column by clicking the up/down arrows:

This action is only temporary and will disappear once the page has been reloaded.

Filtering the table

It's possible to filter Brands based on their name, and whether they're enabled or not:

  1. Visit Settings -> Core -> Brands and click "Filter Results".
  2. Search terms:
    1. Name - It is possible to search for partial names. For example, you could find "ACME Software" by searching for "soft" or "ware".
    2. Enabled - Whether the brand is enabled or not.
  3. The table will be filtered automatically as you enter search terms.

Creating or Updating a Brand

Server Setup

In order to create a new brand, you must point your your brand domain to your SupportPal installation.

If you're using one of the below control panels please jump to their specific guides:

Otherwise the easiest way to achieve this is to create a CNAME record. For example, if your help desk is locked to https://support.supportpal.com/ and your new brand operates under https://www.support.mybrand.com/ then your CNAME record would look like: 

support.mybrand.com. 3600  IN      CNAME   support.supportpal.com.

For more information on how to create a CNAME DNS record, please speak to your hosting provider or domain registrar.

cPanel

If you use cPanel to manage your websites, some additional setup is required beyond creating a CNAME record.

Same cPanel Account

If your brand and SupportPal installation share the same cPanel account, follow the below steps:

  1. Create CNAME record as instructed above
  2. Add your brand domain as an "Addon Domain"
  3. Register a sub-domain (within cPanel) for the addon domain, for example: support.mybrand.com
Different cPanel Accounts

If your brand and SupportPal installation are on separate cPanel accounts but share the same physical server, the configuration becomes slightly more complex. Ultimately, we need to create an Apache vHost that routes the brand domain to the SupportPal installation on the other cPanel account.

Method 1 (requires root access to WHM)

The easiest method to achieve this (recommended by cPanel Support), requires root access to WHM:

  1. Create CNAME record as instructed above
  2. Login to WHM as root and browse to Home » Service Configuration » Apache Configuration » Include Editor
  3. Select All Versions for Pre VirtualHost Include
  4. Edit and enter the below VirtualHost into the input box. We recommend to cross-reference the below with other VirtualHost's in /usr/local/apache/conf/httpd.conf, as depending on your server setup there may be additional configuration required - see additional <ifmodule> blocks. You may also want to add another VirtualHost for SSL.

<VirtualHost IP_ADDRESS:80>
  ServerName BRAND_DOMAIN
  ServerAlias www.BRAND_DOMAIN
  DocumentRoot DOCUMENT_ROOT
  ServerAdmin webmaster@BRAND_DOMAIN
 
  #################################################
  # Configuration below depends on your server
  # setup, and was copied from other VirtualHosts
  # in /usr/local/apache/conf/httpd.conf
  #
  # Edit USER_NAME with your cPanel user name.
  #################################################

  ## User USER_NAME # Needed for Cpanel::ApacheConf
  <ifmodule userdir_module="">
    <ifmodule !mpm_itk.c="">
      <ifmodule !ruid2_module="">
        UserDir enabled USER_NAME
      </ifmodule>
    </ifmodule>
  </ifmodule>

  # Enable backwards compatible Server Side Include expression parser for Apache versions >= 2.4.
  # To selectively use the newer Apache 2.4 expression parser, disable SSILegacyExprParser in
  # the user's .htaccess file. For more information, please read:
  # http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.4/mod/mod_include.html#ssilegacyexprparser
  <ifmodule include_module="">
    <directory "="" home="" USER_NAME="" public_html"="">
      SSILegacyExprParser On
    </directory>
  </ifmodule>

  <ifmodule suphp_module="">
    suPHP_UserGroup USER_NAME USER_NAME
  </ifmodule>

  <ifmodule suexec_module="">
    <ifmodule !mod_ruid2.c="">
      SuexecUserGroup USER_NAME USER_NAME
    </ifmodule>
  </ifmodule>

  <ifmodule ruid2_module="">
    RMode config
    RUidGid USER_NAME USER_NAME
  </ifmodule>

  <ifmodule mpm_itk.c="">
    # For more information on MPM ITK, please read:
    # <a href="http://mpm-itk.sesse.net/">http://mpm-itk.sesse.net/</a>
    AssignUserID USER_NAME USER_NAME
  </ifmodule>
</VirtualHost>
Method 2

This method is experimental and is known to have issues with SSL, however does not require any special permissions to the cPanel server:

  1. Create CNAME record as instructed above
  2. Register a sub-domain for your brand domain (within cPanel), for example: support.mybrand.com
  3. Create a Trusted Proxy within SupportPal for your brand's server IP address
  4. Browse to the "Document Root" of the newly created sub-domain and create a .htaccess with the following contents, replacing YOUR.DEFAULT.BRAND with your default brand URL.

# For some reason DirectoryIndex and RewriteRule don't work well together, when using
# DirectoryIndex index.php
# and the proxy RewriteRule, this causes a redirect to the specified URL.
#
# The below emulates DirectoryIndex by forcing everything to index.php
DirectoryIndex disabled

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} /$
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}index.php -f
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ $1index.php  [L]

# Dynamically detect the base URL.
# http://stackoverflow.com/questions/21062290/set-rewritebase-to-the-current-folder-path-dynamically
# https://github.com/zendframework/zf1/blob/master/library/Zend/Tool/Project/Context/Zf/HtaccessFile.php
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI}::$1 ^(.*?/)(.*)::\2$
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ - [E=BASE:%1]

# Remove index.php from the URL on GET calls.
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_METHOD} ^GET
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^.*/index\.php
RewriteRule ^index.php/?(.*)$ %{ENV:BASE}$1 [R=301,NE,L]

# Proxy to the main brand (setup a trustedproxy.php for this to work correctly).
RewriteRule (.*) http://YOUR.DEFAULT.BRAND/$1 [P,L]

Plesk

If you use Plesk to manage your websites, a CNAME record may not be necessary, but other steps are involved:

  1. Start to create a subdomain for your brand URL, e.g. support.mybrand.com.
  2. Point the folder to the same folder as the main brand installation, e.g. /support.supportpal.com/.
  3. Finish the set up of the subdomain and give it a few minutes to process.
  4. If your DNS is hosted externally, ensure to set up an A record for the subdomain to point to the Plesk server, similar to the main domain.
  5. Check to ensure the same PHP version has been set for the subdomain as the main brand.

DirectAdmin

Ultimately our aim is to add a domain or sub-domain to the existing apache VirtualHost which controls access to SupportPal. It should simply be a case of following https://help.directadmin.com/item.php?id=3.

SupportPal Settings

General

Setting Name Description
Name The name of your brand, which appears on the help desk frontend and on all email sent by the system.
System URL Enter your system URL as should be accessed by users, the URL given is used when generating links when sending emails to users among other areas.
Enable SSL If you wish to force access to the help desk, frontend, operator panel and API, by SSL for this brand, enable this option. Please ensure that your SSL works before enabling it, as it may otherwise lead to issues with accessing the website.
Enabled Disabled brands cannot be utilised and won't count as part of the brands allowed on your license, disabling can be used to temporarily hide a brand and/or retain information. It's not possible to disable the default brand.
Operator Groups Operators in the selected groups will be able to create, update and delete (depending on role permissions) tickets and other content in this brand.

Branding

Setting Name Description
Colour Select a colour for your brand, which will be used for the colour scheme on both the frontend and operator template. Leave blank to use the default colour scheme (blue). Use the preview option to view how the colour will look.
Favicon The favicon appears in the browser tab and is used to identify your website, set this to make it visible on both the frontend and operator. For best results use a .ico file that is square and scales well from 32x32px to 310x310px.
Frontend Logo The frontend logo can be easily replace with your own logo by setting this field to a URL. If using the Enable SSL, we recommend to use a HTTPS link to ensure that secure pages work without any warnings.
Frontend Logo URL By default the logo points to the support portal (frontend home page). Set this to change where the logo links to.
Frontend Template The template shown to users on the frontend. To preview a template before making it live, you can use the template parameter, such as http://www.yourdomain.com/support/?template=new
Operator Icon The operator icon is shown in the top left of the operator panel, set this to replace it with your own icon.
Operator Template The template shown to operators in the operator panel. Can be overridden by an operator's personal settings.

Email

Setting Name Description
Default Email Address The email address that is used on most emails sent by the system, only ticket emails will use the department emails instead.
Global Email Header The entered content is prepended to all emails sent by the system. HTML is accepted and we recommend to test an outgoing email after setting this field to ensure it looks as you wish.
Global Email Footer The entered content is appended to all emails sent by the system. HTML is accepted and we recommend to test an outgoing email after setting this field to ensure it looks as you wish.
Email Method The method used for sending email by the system, defaults to the PHP mail() function. SMTP is also available and requires setting up further fields to connect with your SMTP server.

Locale

Setting Name Description
Default User Country The country that is selected by default for the country field on the register forms.
System Timezone The default timezone that the system operates in, set to the timezone that your company operates in.
Date Format The format of all dates displayed by the system.
Time Format The format of all times displayed by the system.
Default Language Set the default language for both the frontend and operator panel.
Language Dropdown If users and operators should have the option to change their language.

Deleting a Brand

Only additional (not default) brands can be deleted. To delete a brand, follow the below steps:

  1. Visit Settings -> Core -> Brand.
  2. Search for the brand you wish to delete (see Searching for Brands).
  3. Click the delete (cross) icon located on the right of the table.
  4. Check all checkboxes shown, ensuring you understand that all this related data will be removed along with the brand.
  5. Click on the button, "Yes, Delete Brand", that pops up confirming you would like to delete the brand and it will now be deleted.