Volixta Support

Volixta Support is a self-hosted WordPress helpdesk and support ticket system for managing customer requests directly from your website. Keep support conversations organized, reply from a dedicated administrator inbox and offer customers a private Support Center without relying on an external helpdesk platform.

Create tickets for existing WordPress users, saved customer contacts or email-only customers. Track priorities and statuses, review previous conversations and use reusable reply templates to respond more efficiently. Customers with an account can sign in to view their ticket history, follow replies and check their support access.

Need to organize the work behind customer requests? The optional Volixta Task Manager Lite integration lets you turn support tickets into linked project tasks and track their progress directly in WordPress.

Since version 1.1.0, Volixta Support also includes optional guest tickets. Visitors can contact your support team without registering and follow an individual request through a private, expiring email link. You can enable account registration separately, allowing customers to bring eligible previous guest tickets into their account after email verification.

Manage support access through local products and flexible plans with ticket allowances, expiration dates and automatic quota renewals. Assign plans manually, based on WordPress user roles or through optional WooCommerce purchases. Products that do not require a plan can remain available for unrestricted support.

Choose between Standard, Immersive and Focus interface designs for the administrator workspace and customer portal independently. The same visual approach extends to responsive support forms and branded HTML email notifications.

Volixta Support includes hosting SMTP, customizable sender details, encrypted ticket attachments with configurable upload permissions and a guided setup wizard. Guest forms can be protected with configurable consent checkboxes, rate limits, a honeypot and optional Cloudflare Turnstile. Support tickets, customer records and plans remain in your WordPress installation.

WordPress helpdesk and ticket management

Work through customer requests from a dedicated inbox instead of scattered emails. The ticket workspace brings conversations, customer details and support actions together.

• Create tickets for WordPress accounts, manually saved contacts and customers identified by email.
• Search and filter requests by status, priority, customer email and keywords.
• Set ticket priorities to Low, Medium or Urgent.
• Read complete conversations, reply to customers and send email notifications.
• Open Customer History in a dedicated dialog from the ticket header, including older and closed tickets, with pagination.
• Create, edit and insert reusable reply templates for common questions.
• Associate each request with a local support product.
• Attach supported files when creating or replying to tickets. Review sent and received files in the ticket header Files dialog, or delete saved files when necessary.
• Edit your own administrator messages, close resolved requests and remove tickets when necessary.
• Use a responsive workspace on desktop, tablet or mobile.

Optional Volixta Task Manager Lite integration

Turn customer support tickets into actionable project tasks. Connect Volixta Task Manager Lite with Volixta Support to organize customer requests alongside your website projects, development work and everyday tasks.

With both plugins installed and active, you can:

• Create project tasks directly from support tickets.
• Automatically carry over ticket subjects and priorities.
• Link tasks to their original support tickets for easy reference.
• Organize support-related work using customizable Kanban boards.
• Set deadlines, manage checklists and track task progress.
• Reopen existing linked tasks without creating duplicates.
• Navigate between support tickets and their related tasks.

Keep support conversations and project work connected. Customer communication stays in Volixta Support, while task planning and progress tracking take place in Volixta Task Manager Lite.

The integration does not automatically synchronize ticket statuses, messages or attachments.

Volixta Task Manager Lite is optional. Volixta Support works independently without it.

Customers and manual contacts

The Customers area brings together account holders and people who have contacted your support team without registering.

• Customers with plans: Review customer accounts and their support-plan assignments.
• Customers with tickets: Find customers who have submitted support requests, including guest contacts.
• Added manually: Keep a directory of contacts entered by your team.

You can add or edit a manual contact, open a ticket on their behalf, link an existing WordPress account or optionally create a new one. Accounts created through this workflow use the Subscriber role. Removing a manual contact does not delete their tickets or a connected WordPress account. Contact details are synchronized where appropriate when an associated account changes.

Private customer support portal

Give signed-in customers a dedicated Support Center using:

[volixta_support_portal]

Customers can submit tickets for products available to them, review previous requests, follow conversations, read support replies and send responses. When private attachments are enabled and permitted, they can attach supported files and view saved sent and received files in the ticket Files dialog. They can also check assigned plans, covered products, remaining ticket allowances, expiration and renewal information. When WooCommerce is enabled, eligible support plans may be available to purchase from the portal.

The private portal uses WordPress authentication and verifies ticket ownership. A customer cannot open another account’s conversations simply by knowing a ticket number.

Account registration can be enabled from the portal settings. New customers receive an email with a secure link to set their password. Registration requires acceptance of the site’s published privacy policy. A customer who previously submitted guest tickets can request to attach eligible older tickets after confirming their email and latest guest ticket number.

Guest tickets without registration

Guest access is separate from the private customer portal and can be switched on only when needed. Add the public form to a published page with:

[volixta_support_guest_ticket]

The setup wizard can create this page or let you select an existing one. You can also use the shortcode in an Elementor Shortcode widget.

• Visitors choose an available support product, enter their contact details and submit a ticket.
• A confirmation appears after a successful submission.
• The guest receives a private email link to view and reply to that ticket only.
• Guest links expire and do not provide access to a customer account or full ticket history.
• An email address already linked to a WordPress account must use the sign-in flow instead.
• Authorized administrators can review guest ticket details and recorded consent responses.

Guest tickets are limited to active support products that have no plan association. A product linked to any support plan is not offered to guests, even when that plan is inactive. This keeps plan-restricted support separate from unrestricted guest requests.

Guest consent and anti-spam protection

Configure up to three optional guest-form consent checkboxes. Each has its own enabled/required setting, label and optional link text and URL. You can link to the site’s privacy policy and review the submitted answers in the ticket administration screen.

Public form protection can include a honeypot field, a minimum time before submission, request rate limits and Cloudflare Turnstile, which is optional and disabled by default. Turnstile tokens are validated with Cloudflare on the server. The form handles challenge expiration, timeouts and errors, and adapts its appearance to the selected interface palette.

External service disclosure: When an administrator enables Turnstile, the plugin loads JavaScript from https://challenges.cloudflare.com/turnstile/v0/api.js and sends challenge tokens to https://challenges.cloudflare.com/turnstile/v0/siteverify. Cloudflare may process visitor IP addresses, browser/device information and challenge-related data. A Cloudflare account and site/secret keys are required. Review the Cloudflare Privacy Policy and Cloudflare Terms before enabling it.

Support products, plans and ticket quotas

Create local support products to organize requests independently of WooCommerce products. Use support plans when a product requires an entitlement or ticket allowance.

• Allow unrestricted ticket submissions for eligible products not linked to any plan.
• Protect products associated with a support plan, including inactive plans.
• Set limited or unlimited ticket allowances.
• Choose plan durations in days, weeks, months or years, or create plans without an expiration date.
• Configure automatic quota renewal on daily, weekly, monthly, yearly or custom intervals.
• Disable automatic resets when you prefer to manage allowances manually.
• Cover several support products under one plan with a shared ticket quota.
• Assign plans to individual WordPress users or automatically based on user roles.
• Apply role assignments to existing customers, new customers or both.
• Track plan assignments, expiration, purchase records and access status.

Eligibility and quotas are checked on the server when a ticket is created. A product with no plan association can remain unrestricted; linking it to a plan changes its access requirements.

Optional WooCommerce integration

You do not need WooCommerce to run the helpdesk or use local support plans. Install WooCommerce only if you want to sell plans through your site.

• Link a WooCommerce product to a local support plan.
• Grant or extend support access when eligible orders reach Processing or Completed.
• Account for repeat purchases and quantities without discarding valid entitlements.
• Track orders and the support-plan access they provide.
• Revoke only the entitlement contributed by a cancelled, failed or refunded order.
• Show customers their purchased plan information and relevant order links.
• Offer direct add-to-cart actions for supported simple products in the private portal.

WooCommerce products used for purchases and local support products used for ticket selection remain separate.

Interface designs and email branding

The administrator workspace and the customer portal each have three independently configurable palettes:

• Standard: A light layout for everyday support management.
• Immersive: A dark blue workspace with prominent accents.
• Focus: A dark graphite interface designed around ticket content.

Design changes do not modify customer records or access permissions. The layouts work across common screen sizes, including guest submission and registration forms.

Notification emails use responsive HTML templates and styling that follows the selected palette. Depending on site configuration, emails can include your WordPress logo or favicon. The sender name is editable and falls back to the site title when no custom name is set.

Email notifications, reply templates and hosting SMTP

Use the default WordPress mail system or configure the plugin’s built-in SMTP connection to your hosting mailbox.

• Set a sender name and email address.
• Configure SMTP host, port, TLS/STARTTLS or SSL/SMTPS.
• Use mailbox authentication when required.
• Send a test email from plugin settings.
• Limit the SMTP connection to Volixta Support emails by default.
• Optionally route other WordPress email through the same SMTP connection.
• Keep frequently used answers in reusable reply templates.

SMTP passwords are stored encrypted with key material derived from WordPress security salts. Plaintext credentials are not returned in administrator settings responses. TLS certificate verification remains enabled. Gmail or Microsoft OAuth and external transactional-email APIs are not required for the built-in hosting SMTP connection.

Optional private ticket attachments

Administrators can attach supported images, PDFs, TXT, CSV, ZIP and common Office documents when creating tickets or replying. Under Settings > Portal & access > Private file storage, enable encrypted retention, separately allow uploads by signed-in customers and guests, and choose permitted file extensions. When enabled and permitted for their category, customers and guests can upload one optional file when creating a ticket or replying. Server-side extension and MIME checks apply, together with the server upload limits and a maximum size of 10 MB per file. Guest links cannot download stored attachments; authorized administrators can access them from the ticket.

Private retention is optional. When enabled, the plugin uses randomized filenames, customer- and ticket-specific storage folders and AES-256-GCM encryption. Administrators can review, download and delete saved incoming and outgoing attachments from the ticket Files dialog or customer file profile. Signed-in customers can review authorized files from their own ticket Files dialogs. Downloads require the applicable ticket permission and a valid security nonce; administrative deletion requires separate permission and nonce checks.

Retained files are stored under uploads/volixta_support_files. The plugin installs a deny-all .htaccess rule for Apache and LiteSpeed; Nginx administrators must configure the additional access-denial rule shown in the plugin settings. Files are not intended to be served directly from the uploads directory.

Since version 1.1.0, newly retained files use a stable encryption key, and the plugin provides a migration tool for older attachments encrypted with keys derived from WordPress salts. Existing attachments remain readable while the original salts are available. Complete the migration and verify downloads before rotating your WordPress salts. Keep backups of the stable file key as well.

When private retention is disabled, administrators can still send supported attachments with outgoing ticket emails without keeping a permanent copy on the server.

Salt rotation and encrypted SMTP credentials

New private files (VXSENC02) use a stable file key, but the stored SMTP password currently uses the WordPress AUTH_KEY / SECURE_AUTH_KEY salts. If rotating WordPress salts, make a secure backup of the original values first and re-enter the SMTP password in Volixta Support settings afterwards. Salt rotation may also invalidate expiring guest ticket links, which can be reissued.

Guided setup wizard

The eight-step wizard (Design, Email, Products, Plan, Customer, Portal, Files and Ready) helps configure the initial helpdesk without requiring a separate manual setup for each feature:

• Select administrator and customer interface palettes.
• Configure the email sender and optional SMTP connection.
• Add support products and choose whether to create a support plan.
• Configure initial customer access and plan assignment.
• Enable or leave disabled guest tickets and customer registration.
• Create or select a published guest page, with shortcode support, and configure optional Turnstile keys and other public-form protections.
• In the Files step, enable or disable encrypted file retention, set separate customer and guest upload permissions, and choose allowed extensions.
• Review the setup summary and finish.

Advanced settings remain available from the WordPress administrator dashboard after setup.

Security and uninstall

Volixta Support uses WordPress authentication and capability checks for protected actions, nonce verification, ticket ownership validation and server-side checks for support eligibility and quotas. Public guest ticket links are limited to the corresponding conversation and expire automatically. Public forms can have additional anti-spam controls.

Private support pages and guest ticket URLs should be excluded from full-page and CDN caching. The plugin sends no-store headers for sensitive content, but upstream caches may respond before WordPress runs. Do not publish private ticket links.

Optional retained attachments are encrypted and require authorized downloads. SMTP passwords are also encrypted. Keep the site’s WordPress salts and the plugin’s stable file key backed up securely. For encrypted file storage on Nginx, use the access-denial rule shown in settings.

Uninstalling Volixta Support permanently deletes its dedicated support tables, settings, tickets, messages, customer contact records, reply templates, support products, plans, assignments and retained private attachments. It does not remove site user accounts, WooCommerce orders or manually selected and customized pages. Back up the information you want to keep before deleting the plugin.

Localization

Text domain: volixta-support
Load path: /languages

What’s Next

Other tools from Volixta:

• Volixta Booking — Booking, services, staff, customers, payments and locations for WordPress.
• Volixta Analytics Lite — Privacy-focused visitor and traffic insights.
• Volixta SSL & Security Headers — SSL and essential HTTP …