Request form, optionally per topic
Your customers submit a request without signing in, with up to five attachments. For each category you offer in the portal there is a fixed link, for example for repairs, which you put in your email signature or on your website. Skipper recognises the customer by the email domain, and the sender receives a confirmation with the ticket number.
The form does not ask for a phone number and is only available in German. If you change the short name of a category, the old link no longer works. A hidden field and a limit on requests per IP address protect against spam; there is no captcha. There is no widget for embedding either, and a form of your own on your website can only be connected through a server of your own.
Status page with history and reply box
On the status page, the customer sees the status of their ticket, the history without internal notes and the attachments to download. If they reply there with text and files, a closed ticket reopens. Your replies appear there as coming from the support team, and if your team has acknowledged a message with an emoji, the customer sees it underneath, without names.
Priority, assignee and booked time remain hidden, and the customer cannot close or rate a ticket. They cannot react with an emoji themselves, and a reaction from your team does not send them an email. You add the status page link to your confirmation email yourself; the default template does not include it.
Sign-in with a code and company view
For the overview of their tickets, split into open and closed, your customers sign in with a six-digit code they receive by email. The code is valid for ten minutes, and the sign-in lasts 30 days from last use. For each contact you decide whether they see their own tickets, all of their company’s tickets or nothing, and revoking access ends the sign-in immediately. Status page links from earlier emails are only blocked by mandatory sign-in.
Skipper sends the code only via Microsoft 365. By default, every contact with an email address can sign in and sees their own tickets. The company view shows all of the company’s tickets, including those created internally.
Confidential content only in the portal
In portal mode, a reply only sends a notice by email, to all recipients in To and Cc. The reply and its attachments are on the status page. If you also switch on mandatory sign-in, the status page link becomes real access control: the customer signs in with their code and only sees tickets from their own scope.
Both settings apply to all customers together and are off by default.
Your logo, your legal pages
At the top of the portal is your logo or your company name, at the bottom “© year company name” with links to your legal notice and your privacy policy. You maintain both texts in Skipper, starting from a German template that you complete and have reviewed by a lawyer. Details such as address and managing directors are filled in from your company data via placeholders, and you can upload your own favicon.
The portal does not carry only your brand: the name Skipper remains visible, for example in the title of the browser tab. Your brand colour does not change the colours of the portal.
What the customer sees
With “Open customer view”, your team sees the status page of a ticket as the customer sees it, read-only. This helps, for example, when a customer calls and asks about progress.
Besides their tickets, the customer finds the public area of your wiki with guides in the portal. The portal does not show invoices, service records, contracts or devices.