Welcome to HelpCanvas
HelpCanvas is a modern customer support platform built for teams of all sizes. Whether you are a small startup fielding your first support requests or an established company managing thousands of tickets per day, HelpCanvas provides the tools you need to deliver exceptional customer experiences.
This guide walks you through everything you need to know to get up and running, from setting up your workspace to handling your first customer inquiry. We have designed the onboarding process to be as smooth as possible, but this article serves as your reference companion along the way.
Step 1: Setting Up Your Workspace
Your workspace is the home base for your entire support operation. It contains your team members, inboxes, knowledge base, and all customer conversations. When you first sign up, a default workspace is created using your company name. You can rename it at any time under Settings > General.
A few key things to configure right away:
- Workspace name and timezone: Set these accurately so timestamps throughout the app reflect your local time and reports are calculated correctly.
- Default language: This controls the language used in system-generated messages such as CSAT surveys and chatbot fallback responses.
- Business hours: Define when your team is available. This affects SLA calculations and automatic out-of-office replies.
Step 2: Inviting Your Team
Support is a team sport. Head to Settings > Team to invite your colleagues. Each person you invite will receive an email with a link to set up their account and join your workspace.
There are three roles available:
- Agent: Can view and reply to tickets, handle chat conversations, and read the knowledge base. This is the default role for most support staff.
- Admin: Has full access to workspace settings, billing, and team management. Assign this role sparingly.
- KB Author: Can create and publish knowledge base articles but does not have access to tickets or conversations. Ideal for technical writers and documentation specialists.
Your plan determines how many agents you can add. Free plans support up to 5 agents, Pro plans up to 15, and Business plans have no limit.
Step 3: Connecting an Email Channel
The most common way customers reach support is via email. HelpCanvas converts every incoming email into a ticket automatically. To connect your support inbox, go to Settings > Email Channels and click Add Channel.
You have two inbound options:
- Email forwarding: Set up a forwarding rule in your existing email provider (Gmail, Outlook, etc.) to forward messages to your unique HelpCanvas address. This is the quickest option and requires no DNS changes.
- IMAP polling: Connect HelpCanvas directly to your mailbox using IMAP credentials. Messages are checked every minute.
For outbound replies, you can use our shared sending infrastructure (replies come from reply@helpcanvas.com) or configure a custom SMTP server so replies appear to come from your own domain.
Step 4: Exploring the Inbox
The shared inbox is where your team collaborates on tickets. By default, all incoming tickets land in the All Tickets view. You can filter by status (open, pending, resolved), assignee, label, and more. Use saved views to create shortcuts to your most frequently used filters.
Within a ticket, you can:
- Reply publicly (visible to the customer) or leave a private note (visible only to your team)
- Assign the ticket to a specific agent
- Add labels for categorization and reporting
- Set the priority (low, medium, high, urgent)
- Link related tickets
- View the full conversation history
Step 5: Building Your Knowledge Base
A well-maintained knowledge base reduces ticket volume significantly by empowering customers to find answers on their own. HelpCanvas ships with a built-in knowledge base that is publicly accessible and indexed by search engines.
To create your first article, navigate to Knowledge Base in the sidebar, select your knowledge base, and click New Article. The editor supports rich formatting including headings, bold and italic text, lists, code blocks, images, and tables.
Organize your articles into categories and subcategories to make navigation intuitive. Articles can be saved as drafts and reviewed before publishing. You can also schedule articles to publish at a future date and time.
Step 6: Enabling the AI Chatbot
The AI chatbot can handle common questions automatically, freeing your team to focus on complex issues. The chatbot is trained on your knowledge base articles and can escalate conversations to a live agent when needed.
To set up the chatbot, go to Settings > Chatbot. You will find a visual editor for designing conversation flows, a testing sandbox, and settings for controlling escalation behavior.
Once configured, install the chat widget on your website by copying the embed snippet and pasting it before the closing </body> tag of your HTML. The widget is fully customizable — you can change the color, position, welcome message, and more.
What to Explore Next
Now that you have the basics covered, here are some areas worth exploring:
- Automation rules: Automate repetitive tasks like routing tickets to the right team, sending acknowledgment emails, and closing resolved tickets.
- SLA policies: Set response time targets and get alerted before a breach occurs.
- Reports: Track ticket volume, response times, resolution rates, and customer satisfaction scores.
- Integrations: Connect HelpCanvas to Slack for notifications, Zapier for workflow automation, and more.
If you get stuck at any point, this knowledge base is your first stop. If you cannot find the answer here, use the chat widget to reach our support team directly.