Headless Mode and Customer Switches

Some organizations run their own support front end: their own mail system, chat widget or customer portal. For them, DevStride can stay behind the scenes, keeping the queue, SLA clocks and automations, while nothing it sends ever reaches a customer directly. That is headless mode. Three more switches close the customer portal, close the help centre, and stop status-change emails.

All four are in Settings → Service Desk, under Customer communication. Changing them needs the Manage Service Desk Settings permission (see Permissions). Each takes effect immediately.

Headless mode

With Headless mode on, DevStride sends your customers nothing. Every email it would have sent them (your replies, the "we received your request" acknowledgement, the confirm-your-address request, status updates, portal sign-in links) goes to your webhook endpoint instead, as a ready-to-send message for your own tool to deliver.

Everything else carries on as before:

• emails to your channel addresses still create tickets and add replies;
• the API keeps working;
• SLA clocks keep running;
• staff keep their notifications, internal notes and screens. Staff reply exactly as they always have; only the delivery moves.

Before you turn it on, someone with Manage Webhooks must create an enabled endpoint that receives customer.message. Without one, DevStride refuses to turn headless mode on, so customer messages can never vanish. For the same reason, while headless mode is on, DevStride won't let you delete, disable or unsubscribe the last endpoint that receives them.

Turning it on asks you to confirm. Turning it off takes effect at once, and DevStride emails customers again from the next message.

The integration side (what each message contains and how your tool confirms a customer's address) is in the partner guide: Headless Mode.

Email customers on status change

On by default. When a ticket moves to a status with a different customer-facing label (for example from In progress to Solved), the customer is told. Switch it off and they are not, whether by DevStride's email or, in headless mode, by the message to your endpoint. Replies and acknowledgements are not affected. See customer statuses.

Customer portal

On by default. Switch it off and the customer portal closes for every company:

• anyone who opens a portal link sees a plain page: This support portal is not available. Please contact the company that supports you. It shows no DevStride branding;
• customers can't sign in, and sign-in links stop working;
• emails stop including the "view your request in the portal" line;
• staff screens stop offering portal links: the Companies list shows a dash instead of each portal's link, a company's dialog has no portal preview, and saved views can't be newly shared with portal customers (views already shared keep their setting, and go dark with the portal).

Each company's portal settings are kept, so switching it back on restores everything.

Help centre

On by default. Switch it off and the help centre (your knowledge base in the portal) closes: its pages show the same not-available page, the Help center link disappears from the portal, article suggestions no longer appear while a customer writes a new request, and client spec drafts can't be opened or edited. The ticket portal itself stays open.

Customers reach the help centre through the portal, so closing the portal hides the help centre too.