Most helpdesk trouble starts with a simple question: how does the customer get back to their own ticket? Helpie’s answer is a portal page that asks nothing of them — no account, no password, no “please register to continue”. They submit a ticket, get an email, and click a link. That’s the whole ceremony.
This page covers the portal page itself, the WooCommerce My Account tab, and how the sign-in-without-a-password part works.
—
Setting It Up
Create a page (most stores call it “Support”) and add the shortcode:
[helpie_portal]That page now renders two things side by side:
- Submit a new ticket — name, email, subject, “How can we help?”, and an optional field for attachment links. Helpie doesn’t accept file uploads — customers paste links to screenshots or files instead (Google Drive, Dropbox, an image host). Links stay useful; upload folders full of strangers’ files don’t.
- Look up an existing ticket — ticket ID plus the email it was submitted with. Helpie doesn’t open the ticket then and there; it emails a fresh magic link to the address the ticket was raised with. Someone who knows a ticket ID but not the mailbox gets nowhere.
The whole portal lives behind one feature toggle — Customer helpdesk portal, under Tracksies > Settings > Features — so you can run Helpie chat-only with the portal switched off, and nothing customer-facing renders.
—
How Customers Get Back In
When a ticket is created, the confirmation email carries a magic link — a secure, single-use sign-in button. Clicking it opens the ticket, where the customer can read the conversation and reply. No password was ever set, and none is needed.
A few honest details about how those links behave:
- Each link works once. After it’s clicked, the same URL is dead — if the email is forwarded around later, the link in it opens nothing.
- Links expire after 7 days. Every email Helpie sends about the ticket carries a fresh one, so an active conversation always has a live link in the latest message.
- A click starts a short browsing session (about an hour), so the customer can read and reply without re-clicking constantly.
- When a link has been used or expired, the portal says so plainly and offers the fallback: look up the ticket with its ID and email, and a fresh link arrives by email. Nobody gets stranded.
- The lookup response is deliberately vague. Whether or not the details matched, the portal says the same thing: if they match a ticket, a link is on its way. That’s so the form can’t be used to work out which ticket IDs or email addresses exist.
Customers with an account on your site have it even easier: signed in, the portal pre-fills their details and they can see all their tickets in one place, no links needed.
Customers can also skip the website entirely and just reply to the email — replies thread back onto the ticket. That’s covered in Helpdesk Emails.
—
With WooCommerce: the My Account Tab
When WooCommerce is active, Helpie adds a Support tab to My Account (just above Log out). Logged-in customers see their ticket list there, can open any ticket, reply, and submit new ones — same forms, familiar surroundings.
The portal page also gives logged-out customers a gentle nudge on WooCommerce sites: an invitation to log in first, so your team can see their order history when handling the ticket. It’s a suggestion, not a gate — guests can still submit.
Without WooCommerce
Nothing above depends on having a store. The [helpie_portal] page is the complete customer experience on its own — submit, look up, magic-link sign-in, replies. If you’re a service business running Helpie on a brochure site, this is your whole front door, and it’s not a reduced version of anything.
—
What Customers See (and Don’t)
The customer’s ticket view shows the public conversation: their messages, your team’s replies, and any AI assistant messages. It never shows internal notes or private agent messages — those stay on your side of the counter, no matter how the customer signed in. More on the boundaries in Privacy & Personal Information.
—
Common Questions
Does the customer need a WordPress account?
No. Guests submit tickets with just a name and email, and get back in via magic links or the ID + email lookup. An account makes things more convenient (all tickets in one list) but is never required.
Can I change how the portal looks?
Colours, corner rounding, and shadows follow your site-wide settings in Tracksies > Designer — see Styling with the Designer.
What happens if someone guesses a ticket ID?
Nothing useful. Viewing a ticket requires a valid magic-link session or being logged in as the ticket’s owner. The lookup form doesn’t open anything either — it sends a link to the address the ticket was raised with, so a correct guess only ever mails the real customer. An ID alone opens nothing.
Can customers submit a ticket from the chat widget too?
Yes — when the chat can’t resolve something it offers to create a ticket, which behaves exactly like one submitted through the portal. See Chat Widget.