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Contact for User Assistance

1 Description

At the time being, ILIAS is not offering any possibility to contact the administrator of an installation and to ask for support or assistance. Several users are using the link to the ILIAS project (powered by ILIAS) instead.

Possible solutions for an easy user assistance could be:

1. Offering an e-mail address in the footer of each ILIAS page to contact a dedicated administrator or a helpdesk mailinglist. User click on this link which opens their mail programme and send the request or question. This address would be administrated in Administration > General Settings > Contact Information. It should also support e-mail syntax to add a pre-defined subject or mail body.
2. Offering a contact form in the footer where users can add their requrest or question within ILIAS. This message is handled like a usual ILIAS mail and delivered to the defined users. These users have to be administrated in Administration > General Settings > Contact Information, too.

2 Additional Information

• Idea / concept: Kunkel, Matthias [mkunkel]
• Funding: Required
• Development: Feature is to be developed by tbd

3 Discussion

HL (4.1.11): It would be also very helpful if Learning-Module-Admins - or SCORM-Modul-Admins could generate a Feedback-form for each learning-module. So users can then send feedback, and the authors/responsables does get this form - with a direct link to the page the feedback "come from".

You see a quite good example of such a feedback-form: Click the link "Fehler melden" in the following Module: Morphomed

JF 10 Jan 2011: We prefer the first simple e-mail/footer solution that links a "Help Desk" link in the footer.

Cognos AG MARCH 2011: The Cognos AG is interested in this feature and is consider to finance a part. Please contact Patrick Leitinger pleitinger (at) cognos-ag.de

Matthias Kunkel, 11 Mar 2011: There is also another client who requires a support page concept in ILIAS. It is still quite a simple idea but offers some more possibilities then the simple footer link concept:

• There is one general support page for the whole installtion. If the support concept is enabled, a link to this page is presented (as fallback) on all screens
• Exception: local support pages can be created for categories (and their content). If a user is within a category with a local support page, she/he is redirected to the category's support page (instead of the default page).

Therefore, ILIAS has always to detect from where a support request is coming from. The support page will be a standard "page editor" page where text or links or whatsorever can be placed. The link to the support page might be placed in the footer or header (discussion necessary).

• Advantage of this concept: ILIAS can offer multilingual support if categories are used for different communities / countries. Or departments within a bigger institution can offer specific support for their clients that need help in the department's category (or in the content of the department).

Kunkel, Matthias [mkunkel], June 11, 2015: A simple solution - a link "Contact Administration" - has already been implemented with ILIAS 4.2 as a usability bugfix. Nevertheless, I keep the page open if someone is interested to give funding for a more sophisticated solution.

4 Follow-up