Polar Help Desk 5 – Source code license

Polar Help Desk Professional Source Code License Agreement

This document describes the terms under which Polar grants the access to source code for the Polar Help Desk Professional. In particular, the licensees accepting the terms of this agreement understand that they may NOT use the provided source code, or knowledge of the source code, in any manner to develop and/or distribute products competing with Polar Help Desk itself.

1. DEFINITIONS

The following definitions apply and are used throughout this document.

1a. Licensees – Individuals and their associated organizations being granted access to source code under the terms of this agreement – such individuals includes the undersigned parties other than staff of Polar.

1b. Source code – Lines of programming code, documentation, and comments written in C# or other computer programming language prior to compilation. All such source code is deemed to be highly confidential information of Polar. In particular this license refers to the source code for the Polar Help Desk and such modifications to the source code as may be made by the licensees or as may be provided to the licensees through any future updates.

1c. Compiled software – Software resulting from the compilation of source code. In particular this license refers to the source code for the Polar Help Desk, and any compiled software generated from such source code or modifications to such source code whether such modifications are made by Polar or by the Licensees.

1d. Component software – Software such as DLL’s, or other compiled software files providing functions and functionality which may be dynamically linked and called into use by another software application, and which provides specific functionality to such application. Also any Source or Object file libraries which may be linked and compiled into a standalone executable software.

1e. Design Time Support files – Files necessary for the use of the compiled software within an application development environment. In particular this license refers to the following design time support files: any licensing files which may be necessary to support the code or other component software derived from the source code, within a development environment.

1e. Design Time Support Licensing Scheme – Algorithms and Techniques used to enforce design time licensing for the use of the compiled software within an application development environment.

2. CONDITIONS OF LICENSING AND ACCESS

The following general terms and conditions are agreed to with respect to the licensing of source code.

2a. Both the source code and the Design Time Support Licensing Scheme provided under the terms of this agreement are considered confidential and proprietary information belonging in whole to Polar. It is provided under the specific terms of this license agreement to the licensees and may not be redistributed, or provided in whole or in part in any way or form to any other parties than those specifically granted access by Polar and who sign agreement to these terms below. It especially may not be given to or discussed with independent consultants or other individuals not employed under full time contract with the firms represented by undersigned individuals unless such individuals also sign their agreement to these terms and are specifically approved in writing by Polar.

2b. Breach of the terms of this contract immediately terminates right of access by all undersigned licensees and their associated organizations, to the source code in any form.

2c. Polar represents and warrants that it has full and sufficient right to grant the rights and licenses under this agreement and that it has no knowledge of any intellectual property rights of other parties that would be infringed through this agreement.

3. LIABILITIES AND OBLIGATIONS OF POLAR

3a. Upon receipt of this signed agreement and payment according to the terms defined below, Polar will provide full source code of the Polar Help Desk. Polar warrants that this is the same source code used to produce the most recent update of the Polar Help Desk product.

3b. The following limitations apply to the liabilities and obligations of Polar:

3b1. By granting this license for access to source code, Polar in no way promises or other obligates itself to provide support for the source code either in terms of documentation, telephone support or agreement to make modifications, except when permitted in other agreement.

3b2. By granting this license for access to source code, Polar in no way assumes any liability for damage to software, systems or data from the use of the source code or any derivative compiled software. The undersigned licensees agree that they are solely responsible for such liabilities and will not hold Polar liable for any resultant effects of the use of the compiled software, nor will the licensees allow to be passed on any such liability from their customers or users of their own customizations of the compiled software.

4. OBLIGATIONS OF LICENSEES

The following obligations are accepted by the licensees in exchange for access to the source code and associated rights as defined and limited under the terms of this agreement:

4a. Licensee will make a one time non-refundable advance payment to Polar.

4b. Licensees will take due precautions to prevent the unauthorized access to the source code, the Design Time Support Licensing Scheme, and any associated information based on the source code (including but not limited to design approach and algorithms). Licensees recognize that protection of the source code, Design Time Support Licensing Scheme, and associated information is considered critical to Polar’s business interests and that unauthorized access may cause significant financial harm which may not be fully calculable and for which Licensees will accept responsibility.

4c. Licensees will take action to shield Polar from any liability associated with the use of compiled code derived from the modified source code.

4d. Licensees will take care to insure that any software derived from the source code continues to take into account the Design Time Support Licensing Scheme to insure that such derived component software is subject to the same Polar Licensing requirements when used in a design time software environment to build other applications.

5. OWNERSHIP, USAGE AND DISTRIBUTION RIGHTS

The following defines the ownership, usage, and distribution rights of the undersigned parties with respect to the source code and derivative compiled software:

5a. In granting this license, Polar retains all ownership and distribution rights to the source code and the compiled software.

5b. The licensees are granted NO rights of redistribution, internal or otherwise pertaining to the source code either as delivered to the licensees or as modified by the licensees. The licensees however, have the rights to redistribute the modified application without the source code to any licensed supplier that provides services to the franchisee network.

5c. The source code may not be used for the generation of component software, or libraries or other software, which could be used in a design time environment without the design time support files. These design time support files may not be distributed to individuals other than those having purchased a license for design time use of the compiled software products from Polar.

5d. No derivative software making use of this source code may be sold or otherwise given or distributed to third parties in such a form as it may be used in a design time environment as component software without such parties purchasing a license from Polar.

5e. Code and information pertaining to the Design Time Support Licensing Scheme may not be used except as described herein – in particular this Licensing scheme may not be used to provide license protection for other applications or components designed by Licensee. All disputes regarding this license will be subject to contract laws of the Republic of Croatia. The undersigned parties have read and understood the above terms of this agreement and indicate by their signature below their acceptance of these terms.

Full Features

Register Incidents

Register incidents via email, phone and web

Incidents can be registered in various ways: the help desk automatically downloads emails from email accounts and converts them to incidents a user receives a call about a problem or is contacted otherwise, he can create an incident manually a contact logs in to the help desk to create an incident by himself. Every time an incident is created, some incident template, predefined or chosen during incident registration, is used.

Create, edit and set incident templates

Each incident template has some predefined values set. You can set multiple incident templates to be used by members of a particular team and a particular account, and each team and account can have incident templates specific to their needs. Also, for example, you can set predefined values which will apply to: incidents created from emails downloaded from a particular email account, by setting incident template for that email account, incidents registered via web, by giving permission to view particular incident templates to contacts in general, incidents registered by contacts who are members of a particular account, or incidents created by members of a particular team, as explained above.

You can set values you often use to speed up manual incident registration. You can set which team or user a new incident will be assigned to, which service level will apply, any value can be set to be predefined. You can create as many incident templates as you need.

Integrate multiple email accounts with the help desk

Each team can have its own email account. For each email account you can set:

• incident template and contact template to be used when automatically converting emails to incidents and creating contacts,
• email automation mode to set what will exactly be done when emails are downloaded,
• POP3/IMAP settings for downloading emails, and SMTP for sending.

For example, you can set one email account for hardware support and another for software support, give them to different teams, and choose different incident templates for email-to-incident conversion such that created incidents are assigned to the team that uses this account, have specific service level chosen, etc.

Email automation modes of email-to-incident conversion

By choosing email automation mode for a particular email account you can set whether emails downloaded from that email account will be converted to incidents automatically or not, and whether a contact will be created if the email address is not in the help desk database. There are three possible email automation modes: convert emails to incidents only if the email address is of a registered contact, convert every email to incident and create a contact if needed, or simply download an email and leave it in the list of emails for users to convert them manually.

Manage Incidents

Track and manage incidents from the incidents desktop

All incidents can be monitored from the incidents desktop. It gives instant insight into incident statuses, priorities, assigned users and teams, contacts who reported them and time of their last modification. Incidents can be sorted, searched and filtered by text and by any other data they contain.

Search and filter by text, priority, status, user, contact, …

Incidents are searchable by text and by any other data incident can carry. Search engine will look for the keywords in incident titles and in complete incidents’ conversation history. You can also filter incidents by priority, status, contact who reported an incident, user or team an incident is assigned to, category, and any other incident data. Advanced filter lets you filter by many different type of data in once and save filters you often use.

Incident status and incident life-cycle

Status of a recently opened incident is by default set to New. Usually, when a user is assigned to an incident and starts working on it, he sets incident status to In Progress (if he needs more time), or responds and sets incident status to Waiting (if he is waiting for a response) or Resolved (if the contact needs to check whether problem is solved). When the contact who reported the incident responds, incident conversation is updated and incident status automatically set to New again. In the end, the user sets incident status to Completed or Closed.

Track time with accountable and non-accountable statuses

Time spent for resolving an incident is tracked: it flows only while the incident is in one of accountable statuses. New, In Progress and Resolved are accountable, and Waiting, Completed and Closed are non-accountable statuses. This data can be used in reports to track and manage quality of your support service. Also, the help desk monitors the amount of time an incident was in any of accountable statuses and, according to the service level chosen for that incident, escalates its priority automatically.

Incident priority automatically escalates in time

Incident priority escalates automatically, according to the service level chosen for an incident, and time that incident was in accountable status. Incident priority starts with Planning, and then escalates to Low, Medium, High, Critical and Broken SLA according to time intervals set in the service level chosen for that incident. Incident priority escalation helps you to make sure incidents are solved in time.

Work with Incidents

Incident conversation history and attachments

Complete conversation related to an incident can be followed easily. Each email sent and received updates conversation history automatically, and any picture or file sent in an email is attached to the incident the email is related to. Users and contacts can attach files by uploading them via user interface. Additionaly, every incident change can be viewed in incident history, it contains every state an incident was in since it was created and information about date and time it was modified and the user who modified it.

Incident origins, categories and closure classifications

You can choose how to categorize incidents by creating categories specific to your support service. Incident origins and closure classifications you use can also be created and modified. Lists of those will then appear in drop-down menus when editing an incident. All this incident specific data can be used when filtering incidents and saving public and private advanced filters.

Attach work orders to incidents

You can easily create tasks and assign them to teams and users. Each work order can be related to an underlying incident and assigned to a particular team and an individual user who is member of that team. For each work order you can track time, set deadline and view its full history. You can attach files to work orders and categorize them as you do with incidents.

Complete email integration

Complete conversation related to an incident can be done via help desk user interface integrated with multiple email accounts. The help desk automatically sends text a user entered in the resolution field as email and saves it in conversation history. When a contact replies, the help desk downloads email and updates incident conversation. Every incident change can also be communicated by setting it in email notification settings for each team. For example, you can choose to notify particular users and contacts when incident status has changed to New, when priority has changed to High or Critical, when incident conversation is updated, etc.

Let contacts log in and engage

Each contact can log in to the help desk and report incidents by himself, view incidents he reported and their status and conversation history any time. You can give additional permission to a particular contact or to all members of a particular account if you want to provide more data or permit additional actions to them. By default, contacts can view their incidents, filters they created and saved and personal data but, for example, you can additionally give permission to some of them to view and edit documents to have a wiki-like knowledge base, view incidents reported by any member of their account, anything that can be done via user interface can be allowed to any user and contact if needed.

Customize Email Notifications

Set notification rules by event and by team

Each team can have its own email notification settings: a set of notification rules and choices of email templates, as well as its own email account. Notifications can be sent on any incident event possible: new incident registration, incident status change and priority escalation, incident conversation update, reassignment of a user or a team. When setting the notifications, you can fine-tune who will receive notification on certain incident event and what will be communicated.

Fine-tune notification events and destinations

You can choose to notify any person related to an incident such as: the user assigned to the incident, members of his team, the contact who reported the incident. For every incident event, you can choose different destinations. For example, you could choose to notify the user an incident is assigned to on any priority escalation, but when priority escalates to High, Critical or Broken SLA to notify also every member of his team.

Choose email templates by event and by team

You can choose what will be communicated through email notifications by setting and modifying email templates. You can create as many email templates as you need, and choose for each team in email notification settings which template will be used on incident creation and which on incident status, priority or other change.

Edit email templates using scripting language

Email templates are completely customizable using simple scripting language. You can, by using string variables, choose to put incident conversation, incident status, priority and other data into email text automatically generated by the help desk and sent to destinations set in email notification settings.

Manage Users and Teams

Organize users and teams

Each incident is assigned to a particular team, and can be later assigned to a named user who is a member of that team. For each team a particular email account can be set, email notification settings chosen and particular templates given. Each team can provide team specific permission to its members to create, view, edit and delete resources such as incidents, documents, contacts and any other data in the help desk database.

Multiple email accounts and team notification settings

Each Team can have its own email account and email notification rules. You can choose for each team who will be notified on a specific incident event by choosing its email notification rules, and what will be communicated in emails by choosing email templates. Also, by setting incident and contact template for the email account of a particular team, you can choose predefined values an incident and a contact will have when automatically created from an email downloaded from that email account.

Fine-tune types of teams with roles and permissions

Each team is in at least one role. Role is a set of permissions to create, view, modify and delete resources, and users are granted permission to view or do anything according to roles their team is in. In this way, you can create many types of teams, and have many types of users. Every action that can be done via user interface can be permitted or not: you can completely fine-tune who can create, view, edit and delete any specific data you have.

Manage Contacts and Accounts

Organize contacts and accounts

Each incident is reported by a contact, a member of some account. Each account can have multiple service level agreements set, one for each service, which then apply to all incidents opened by its members according to service incident is requesting. Each account can have its own roles and permissions, for example, members of one account can be given access and right to edit knowledge base, or anything else you find fitting.

Manage Service Level Agreements for each account

You can set which service level will apply to incidents requesting a particular service and reported by a member of a particular account by setting Service Level Agreements for that account. Service level is a set of rules: you can set working hours and holidays, and fine-tune time intervals for escalating incident priority.

Give more access to contacts with roles and permissions

Contacts can be given access and permission to anything you find fitting, there is no difference between what can be allowed to contacts and what to users. Each contact is granted permission to create, view, modify and delete resources according to roles his account is in. You can fine-tune permissions in this way and build many types of contacts and accounts, as you can with users and teams. Everything that can be done via help desk user interface can be allowed or not.

Manage Service Level Agreements

Define services and service levels

You can set different services, each incident is a request for a particular service. Each incident has also a choice of a particular service level. You can fine-tune during which hours the time will be tracked, and how fast support department should respond and solve an incident.

Set working hours and automatic escalation time intervals

By creating and modifying service levels, for each service level you set:

• operational hours: this allows you to set working hours, time to resolve an incident will be tracked only during those hours
• working days and annual holidays
• time interval for each priority: when an incident reaches escalation time for a particular priority, its priority is automatically increased

Time for resolving and incident is tracked only while the incident is in one of accountable statuses.

Offer many different Service Level Agreements

Each Service Level Agreement is a choice of a service level for a particular service. Service levels can be fine-tuned so that you can offer many different support options to your customers. Once you set Service Level Agreements for a particular account, you are sure that for every incident reported by a member of that account the time is tracked, and priority is escalated, notifications sent and incident solved on time.

Integration with Existing User Accounts

Active Directory integration

You can import your users from the Active Directory. You are able to import Active Directory users as Contacts or Users and synchronize the data of already imported users. Once you import your accounts from the Active Directory the help desk will be able to detect your user profile and you will be logged automatically using NTLM. You can read more at How to Configure Active Directory Integration.

Import user accounts from a file

If you have user accounts stored in a file you can easily import them to the help desk database. Import procedure also allows you to map and customize the data from your file while it is being imported to the database.

JSON RESTful Web API

Integrate any system with the help desk

API enables you to integrate any application with the help desk, including web applications. It allows you to connect to the help desk using HTTP protocols and perform any task you could perform via user interface. Everything that can be done via user interface is and can be simply done using one of four HTTP methods on URI resources you see in URL address bar.

RESTful design and JSON representations

Four HTTP methods (POST, GET, PUT and DELETE) provide simplicity of use and design. Resources are modelled using JSON, a very simple and efficient way of representing data structure. Abundance comes from plethora of different URI resources and their hierarchy. RESTful design provides statelessness, cacheability, client-server uniform interface and layered systems.

Develop in the language of your choice

HTTP methods are supported by any of the popular programming languages, including C#, Java, PHP, Python, .NET, Perl, and Ruby. Each method carries a specific action: POST creates a new resource, GET fetches a resource for viewing, PUT modifies a resource and DELETE deletes it. It is all you need to interact with the help desk via user interface or via some other system you have.  List of all URI resources and available HTTP methods in Polar Help Desk 5 can be found on our wiki help page at URI Resources and HTTP Methods.

Stateless, cacheable, client-server uniform interface

Programmable web is user friendly as well as machine friendly. Help desk users can jump to different pages just by intuitively changing URI, bookmark a page to get the same resource every time they open it, modify query parameters — URIs have simple syntax on their own. You can browse the help desk as administrator via web browser and get an instant insight into how API works by visiting our development demo.

Reports

Real time reports

Manage your support service by monitoring and analyzing support processes by using various reports:  contacts by registered incidents, registered incidents over time, user activity, incidents by status, completed incidents over time, etc. The reports are rendered immediately, giving the real time results. You can also analyse history data to plan your resources and improve further help desk support achievements.

Use charts to manage your support processes

Chart is generated for each report. By choosing a time period, you can isolate a particular time frame for reporting. By using trend charts, you can forecast the changes on your help desk support, notice disfunctionalities and improve your help desk and staff performance. You can also edit any of these reports if needed.

Build your own reports

You can build custom reports via help desk interface using server side and client side JavaScript. Permissions to edit and create reports can be fine-tuned. This possibility allows you to customize reporting completely to the finest detail if needed.

Customize and Use Multiple Languages

Easily edit any label in a language

Every label visible in user interface can be edited easily. You simply go to Administration > Languages, click on a particular language, edit that label and click save. In that way, you can fine-tune language you use easily via help desk user interface.

Build your own language easily

You can easily build any language you need by editing labels via user interface. You can also import and export languages in different file types. All those languages can be used at the same time by different help desk users.

Let each user and contact choose his language

Global default language is set in the help desk settings. Each team and account can choose other language for their members if needed, and additionally, each person can choose his/her preferred language. Hierarchy of language choices and easy label editing makes your help desk a multi-language web application with complete language-customization.

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Pay What you Want for 1st License

Pay what you want for your 1st license of Polar Help Desk 5.

1. Chose any amount money, in USD:

2. Click the Sumbit button and you will be taken to the secure server to complete your order.

FAQ

How many licenses I will get with this product (“Pay What you Want for 1st License”)?

One named license.

What will I get if I buy a “Software Upgrade Plan” with this “Pay What you Want for 1st License” product?
With the Software Upgrade Plan, you are assured of obtaining all the new versions of the product for a period of 12 months. It includes both minor and major releases.
You can buy “Software Upgrade Plan renewal” for $50/year/licence,  here.

Can I try Polar Help Desk 5 before I buy it?

Yes. Fully functional version of Polar Help Desk 5 is installed here. You can also download Polar Help Desk 5 – 30 Day Free Trial with one named license from our web site.

How do you deliver your products?

Polar software products are only available via ESD (Electronic Software Download).

How can I report a bug in application or an error in documentation?

Please submit bug reports, documentation errors, and feature requests at support@polarsoftware.com. Our software engineers review these reports and do their best to address these requests in the next product release cycle.

How do I enter new license key?
Once you have obtained the new key, here is what you need to do to enter new key:

1. Log in to your helpdesk as administrator
2. Go to Administration > Licenses, enter new license key and save it.

Our company uses Polar Help Desk 4. Can we upgrade to Polar Help Desk 5 when we buy  “Pay What you Want for 1st License”?
No. You need a minimum of one Named License if you want to make upgrade. With upgrade you can  transfer you data from Polar Help Desk 4 to Polar Help Desk 5.  Please check the current pricing list here.  More detail upgrade instruction is to be found here on our wiki help.

Are the named support licenses transferable?

Yes, the named licenses are transferable; you can add or remove users from named users list anytime.

I have one named license. Does this mean that I can have one support person and as many service users as I need?

Yes, you can have unlimited number of customers — users that are ‘only’ service desk users and do not fall under the 1 named user in the license. They can be in multiple accounts and roles, for example one role will give them permissions to see incidents of their accounts and not only their own, other to see or edit some part of knowledge base, etc.

Can I purchase an additional license?

To purchase an additional named license please follow the link and place your order for the Polar Help Desk 5 one named license. We will then send you a new license key that you should use to have all your licenses activated.

What’s New in Polar Help Desk 5.0

We have built Polar Help Desk 5 with focus on beautiful RESTful design, integration with email accounts and other systems, and customization of everything we found customizable including roles and permissions, notifications, languages and reports.

1. Better Email Integration
2. RESTful Web API
3. Powerful Roles and Permissions
4. Custom Reports
5. Custom and Preferred Languages

Better Email Integration

Integrate with multiple email accounts

Emails are automatically downloaded to the help desk and replies are sent when an incident is saved. You can set different email accounts for different teams. Each account can have its own settings and email automation mode.

Automate email-to-incident conversion

Choose between different modes of email automation for each email account: you can leave emails in the email list or convert them automatically to incidents; additionally, you can choose to automatically create a contact if the email address is not in the help desk database.

Fine-tune email notifications

Choose different notification rules for different teams, send emails automatically to multiple email addresses, choose who gets notified on each status change, priority change, conversation change and newly opened incidents.

Customize email templates

Email templates can be customized using simple scripting language. You can fine-tune email templates for different teams and different events.

Manage email flow

Each incident contains complete conversation between the contact who reported it and the assigned user. Incident status changes from waiting to new as soon as the contact replies. Incidents can be sorted and filtered by status, priority, a contact who reported an incident, a user assigned to an incident, a team and an account — any data an incident contains. You can use advanced filters and save your own filters.

RESTful Web API

Integrate any system with the help desk

API enables you to integrate any application with the help desk, including web applications. It allows you to connect to the help desk using HTTP protocols and perform any task you could perform via user interface.

State-of-the-art RESTful Design

Four HTTP Methods (POST, GET, PUT and DELETE) provide simplicity of use and design, and abundance is provided with different URI resources. Resource Oriented Architecture provides statelessness, cacheability, uniform interface between client and server and layered systems.

Four HTTP Methods simplicity of design

URIs are of two types: a group URI (eg. /incidents is a list of all incidents) and an individual URI (eg. /incident/3 is one individual incident). Each method carries a specific action: POST creates a new resource, GET gets a resource for viewing, PUT modifies a resource and DELETE deletes it. It is all you need to interact with the help desk via user interface or via some other system you have.

Stateless, cacheable, client-server uniform interface

Programmable web is user friendly as well as machine friendly. Help desk users can jump to different pages just by intuitively changing URI, bookmark a page to get the same resource every time the open it, modify query parameters — URIs have a simple syntax on their own.

Powerful Roles and Permissions

Fine-tune permissions

URI Resources and HTTP Methods are used in roles customization: you can give permissions to all members of a particular team or account to create, view, save and delete resources. For example, you can give members of the junior support team permission to GET /incident/{ID} but not to PUT /incident/{ID} — they will be able to see each incident but not to edit it and save it.

Create and edit roles

Each role can be completely customized — for each method and each resource permissions can be changed. You can create your custom roles and build any user, contact, team and account type in that way.

Manage teams and accounts

Permissions are granted to users and contacts by a membership in a particular team or account according to the role that team or account is in. Each user can be in multiple teams and each contact in multiple accounts. For example, user can be a member of a particular support team to view and solve incidents assigned to that team, and later, when he gets promoted to a manager, you just add him to the managers team to grant him additional permissions.

Custom Reports

Manage support processes using reports

Manage your support service by monitoring and analyzing support processes. Different types of reports are included: contacts by registered incidents, registered incidents over time, user activity, incidents by status, completed incidents over time, etc. You can edit any of these reports if needed easily.

Build your own reports

You can easily build new reports using client and server side JavaScript. It can be done directly through help desk user interface. In that way, you can fine-tune and adapt help desk reporting to your exact needs and respond fast to change.

All the Latest Popular Web Browsers

Work via Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Safari, Internet Explorer 8

There are no browser requirements — the help desk is supported by all of the latest popular web browser. Users and contacts can use any web browser they like.

Custom and Preferred Languages

Easily edit any label

Every label visible in user interface can be edited easily. You just go to Administration > Languages, click on a particular language, edit that label and click Save. In that way, you can fine-tune the language you use simply via help desk user interface.

Build your own language

You can easily build any language you need by editing the labels via user interface. For example, give a permission to person who translates English to Spanish to view and edit URI /language/Spanish. This person will not be able to see incidents or other data, he/she will just translate every label and click save. You can also import and export languages in different file types.

Let each user and contact choose a language

Global default language is set in the help desk settings. Each team and account can choose other language for their members if needed, and additionally, each person can choose preferred language. If preferred language is not set, language of the team or account applies, if that is not set either, the default language applies.

Rebranding of Polar Help Desk 5

What is rebranding of Polar Help Desk 5?

Rebranding means assigning the entire right to the product to your company a non-exclusive basis. You would be able to market this help desk under your own trademark as if it was a software developed by your company.

Why rebranding?

• If you want to start your own software company – you can start with a finished, reliable product and continue building your own software products around it.

• If you have your own customer support (or other compatible) software products – you can enhance your offer with a help desk software and provide more complete solution to your clients.

What’s the cost?

One time fee of US$ 150,000 includes:

• Product with its full source code
• Rights to modify any part of the source code
• Rights to put your brand on the product and sell it or host as you find it fitting without any limitation
• Right to distribute the source code with the product

Cost justification for purchasing vs developing help desk software

Rebranding of Polar Help Desk 5 enables you to have your own help desk software product without spending years on developing it. It took us about 4 years to get this help desk product developed, polished and stabilized. You have the opportunity to start off with the stabile, reliable product.

What does it take to develop a similar help desk software?

1. For the initial release with basic help desk functionality: 5 experienced software architects fully engaged in the product development
2. ~10 testers
3. 4 years

Now, calculate only the expense of your development team and it will show that the cost of rebranding Polar Help Desk 5 is justified.

Get the details

• To evaluate the product try it online or download the 30 Day Free Trial version
• More info on product’s source code
• Contact our Sales

FAQ

What kind of rights do I receive with this agreement?

We would assign you the entire right to the respective product on a non-exclusive basis. This means assigning you the entire right, title and interest in Product and associated documentation. You are allowed to put your brand (your trademark) to this software product and distribute it further on the market.

Does this mean that I do not need to buy any user licenses from you, I can sell them and keep all the money myself?

Correct. You do not need to buy any additional licenses. After you pay the one-time fee there are absolutely no royalties or other fees you should pay to Polar as you distribute or host the software to your customers.
This means you can sell, assign, re-assign the licenses to your clients as you find it appropriate. Your sales choices are not restricted in any way, which means you can set your own price for the software and keep all the profits.

Am I allowed to change the source code to make the software look like integral part of my product line?

You are allowed to modify any part of the source code.

Will I receive the source code of the product’s future updates?

No. The license covers only the current version of the software as it is; future updates are not included.
Your company, as well as Polar, are entitled to create their own enhancements and future versions of Product, and neither party shall have rights to the other party’s modifications to the code.

Do you provide support for the source code?

No, we do not provide technical support for the source code.

What about technical support for my clients?

You are solely responsible for the support to your clients.

Download Polar Help Desk 5.0

By downloading 30 Day Trial Polar Help Desk 5 you get:

• unlimited number of users, contacts, incidents, workorders, teams, accounts, documents, …
• no limitations in functionality

Source code with unlimited technicians

Product Polar Help Desk Source Code now includes:

• Product Polar Help Desk
  
• Unlimited technician license: there is no limit to the number of technicians (support representatives) in your help desk system.
• Complete source code: you are allowed to make any modifications. You can add or remove features, create web services, connect to third party systems, etc.
• Price: $3000 US

About the product architecture

Polar Help Desk design is based on a 3-layer architecture:

1. Presentation Layer
2. Business Layer
3. Data Layer

Presentation Layer

Presentation Layer is the top layer that takes care of presenting Business Data to users and offering a way to manipulate this data, to perform Business Processes. It utilizes Polar Help Desk’s powerful REST based API to present AJAX based HTML User Interface.

Presentation Layer is separated into server side and client side code. Server side handles all the security critical data processing and data storage while client side provides data management and the user interface.

Main client side modules are:

1. Web Pages – Displays requested content and accepts user input. Web pages rely on clean HTML and CSS to outline the page and Javascript to populate, display and collect the data.
2. Javascript Code – Contains underlying services and libraries that support the client side. Services primarily manage data transfer and processing while libraries provide user interface elements such as Grids, Filters, Menus, etc.

Main server side modules are:

1. HTTP Handlers – When page is loaded, it sends out AJAX request to fetch appropriate data. This request is accepted by a HTTP handler. HTTP handler will then check user credentials and if appropriate permissions exist, return requested data.
2. REST Resources – Business Layer data is not sent to the client in its raw form. Instead, it is first converted into a resource and then sent to the client via HTTP handler.
3. Instancing – For hosting purposes, Polar Help Desk supports multiple databases. What this means is, one Polar Help Desk web application can host multiple help desks. When a new database is created, another instance is added to the web application. This new instance can be accessed using unique URL you define for it. For example: http://site/company1, http://site/company2, etc.

Business Layer

Business Layer is the middle layer. This is where Business Processes, Business Rules and Business Logic are implemented and where all Business Data is defined. Functionality of this layer is mainly used from the Presentation Layer.

Primary examples of business processes are:

1. Email automation and notification rules.
2. Incident propagation and Service Level Agreements.
3. User synchronization, roles and work hours.

Data Layer

Data Layer is the bottom layer. Its purpose is to manage the data storage and provide the upper layers with the ability to store and retrieve data. Functionality of Data Layer is mainly used from the Business Layer.

All data is exposed as C# objects and managed through Entity Data Model. For example, each data type in Polar Help Desk has a C# object of type Entity that represents it. These objects are User entity, Incident entity, etc.

When data is read from a database, it is first mapped into appropriate entity object and then used by the Business Layer. If object was modified and needs to be stored, entity is simply mapped back to the database.

NHibernate library is used provide object-relational mapping.

Requirements

Polar Help Desk is a Microsoft .NET 3.5 based product written in C#. Minimum requirements are Windows 2003 with IIS 6 or Windows XP with IIS 5.1 and Microsoft SQL Express 2008. Both 32 and 64 bit versions of Windows are supported.

Development Environment

Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 SP1

Libraries and Components

1. NHibernate: a port of Hibernate Core for Java to the .NET Framework. It handles persisting plain .NET objects to and from an underlying relational database.
2. NHibernate.Search: is an extension to NHibernate that allows you to utilize Lucene.NET, a full text search engine as your query engine, instead of putting additional load on the database itself.
3. Lucene.NET: is a high-performance, full-featured text search engine library written entirely in Java. It is a technology suitable for nearly any application that requires full-text search, especially cross-platform.
4. Spring.NET: is used in Polar Help Desk to provide Inversion of Control (dependency injection) pattern implementation.
5. StringTemplate.NET

All libraries are open source and come with full source code. They are licensed under BSD, Apache and LGPL licenses and as such allow you full freedom to use and modify them.

API/REST

Polar Help Desk API uses REST (Representational State Transfer) based architecture over HTTP protocol. Any application that can send and receive data using HTTP protocol can connect to Polar Help Desk API. This allows for you to easily integrate Polar Help Desk with any system on your company network.

Polar Help Desk API is fully featured. Any action that can be performed through the user interface can also be performed through the API.

FAQ about the source code

Do we get support when we encounter problem or issue when working with the source code?

We do not provide support for source code.

What could we expect of source code, is it an API or SDK version with an compiled kernel?

We deliver the complete source code and you are allowed to make any modifications: create web services, connect to third party’s systems, add or remove features.

Where can I find the source code license agreement?

General License Agreement on Access to Polar Help Desk Source Code.

Are there third party licenses that we have to purchase separately?

There are no additional licenses that need to be purchased. Additionally, all libraries used by Polar Help Desk are available as open source. You can download and modify them to suit your needs.

How many companies use this product?

Polar Help Desk has been on the market for 9 years and it has been implemented in more than 1000 companies world wide. Polar Help Desk  Free has been downloaded and used in more than 50000 companies.

Its robust architecture has been developed and improved for 10 years by a team of 7 experienced developers and a large team of support personnel.