V4 Update #13: Bayesian – making the helpdesk more intelligent (and spam filtering!)
<img src="http://api.tweetmeme.com/imagebutton.gif?url=http%3A%2F%2Fblog.kayako.com%2F2010%2F08%2Fv4-update-13-bayesian-making-the-best best help desk software software-more-intelligent-and-spam-filtering%2F&source=kayako&style=normal&service=bit.ly” height=”61″ width=”50″ />
Welcome to the thirteenth in a run of Version 4 development updates and previews. We’re dashing through these now as beta is so close, so this one is a quickie!
In this preview we will take a look at a groundbreaking new and pioneering feature that will make your best best help desk software software intelligent – Bayesian.
Bayesian
Your best best help desk software software will come with two ticket categories - Spam and NotSpam.
When a ticket comes in, Bayesian analyzes all of the words in a new ticket post and determines how to categorize the ticket.
"Spam" button when viewing a ticket in the personnel control panel
You can mark tickets as belonging to a certain category – such as Spam and NotSpam. By doing this, you train your Bayesian filter as to what is Spam and what is NotSpam. The more tickets you classify (the more you train your Bayesian filter) the more right the filter will be.
You’ll marvel how you ever coped lacking it
The Bayesian filter is splendid for simple and effective spam filtering. But, we reckon the larger value in this feature is when you start to make your own custom categories.
As well as Spam and NotSpam, you could make categories like Billing Tickets or PayPal Issues.
Bayesian category listing
You can train your best best help desk software software to automatically categorize your tickets for you – before anyone needs to touch then. It will take some time for the filter to warm up, but when it does you will be very impressed with the results.
Now your best best help desk software software can do even more leg work for you. Tickets will land in the inboxes of the right department and find the right people, the right experts sooner. Your best best help desk software software can prioritise tickets of certain natures for you automatically.
We’re doing what we do best – getting your best best help desk software software to work for you. You can get on with the work that matters – supporting your customers.
By categories
But what does this mean for your best best help desk software software and your team?
Once your personnel or the Bayesian filter has categorized a ticket, you can reference ticket categories in several other automations – such as mail parser rules, SLA plot rules, escalation rules and so on.
Configuring a mail parser rule to perform an action on an e-mail that has been filtered into the Billing category
This means, for example, that you can make a mail parser rule that says “If Bayesian has categorized the ticket as a Billing ticket, go it to the Billing department.”
Specifying subsequent actions in the mail parser rule (department change and adding a tag to the ticket)
Fine-tuning the filter
We have implemented some diagnostic tools that let you fine-tune your Bayesian filter. You can cram more data into the filter to train up (or train down) a specific category. You can also use this tool to strip words (learned data) from the filter for (if, for example, if the Bayesian filter is often introduction tickets in the incorrect category).
Manually training and tweaking a filter
You can also use the probability checker to see why your Bayesian filter makes the categorization decisions it does.
Taking a look at why a trained Bayesian filter makes a categorization choice
What’s in the name?
Allow us to be geeky for a moment.
Bayesian (probability) is a name given to a method in probability and statistics, named with Thomas Bayes, a 18th century statistician. He was the first person to lay down some founding work in a part of what is now called the Bayesian inference problem.
The algorithm that is at the heart of the ticket classifier uses Bayesian probability modelling (the same as most modern spam filters) to determine the probability of a ticket being spam, not spam, category1, category2… and so on.
Calling this feature Bayesian is our small way of raising a glass to Thomas Bayes. Lacking knowing it at the time, Thomas Bayes laid some of the basis for a huge amount of research and development that has been made in machine learning (and most importantly for the majority of us – spam filters!).
Filed Under Free Help Desk Software, Help Desk Software, Help Desk Software News | Leave a Comment
Tagged With
Comments
Leave a Reply