Dear Specificians,
As of August 16th, we have officially migrated the bulk of our Specify help desk activities from email-based interaction to a new ticketing system (BoldDesk), which we are referring to as the Specify Help Desk.
This change aims to help us respond faster, collaborate more effectively, track issues reliably, and enhance overall support quality.
Meet the Specify Help Desk team
| Grant Fitzsimmons – Technical Support Manager Grant supports consortium members through webinars, training materials, documentation, and workshops. He provides technical assistance to the hundreds of collections in the SCC and serves as a liaison between the community and the development team. He has been a member of the SCC team since 2021. |
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| Theresa Miller – Membership & Fulfillment Officer Theresa manages the membership operation, including onboarding new members, preparing quotes for services and data conversions, and coordinating workshops, events, and outreach. She has been working with the SCC team for over 15 years. |
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| Bhumika Gupta – Support Assistant Bhumika is an undergraduate student at the University of Kansas who actively supports the users of Specify software around the world. She joined the SCC team in 2025. |
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| Andy Bentley – Specify Usability Lead Andy is the collection manager of the University of Kansas Biodiversity Institute Ichthyology collection together with being their Bioinformatics manager in charge of databases and data publishing. He has been a usability lead for the SCC for over a decade. |
When should I use it?
If your question is one that is likely to be asked by other users and the response will help others in the community, post to the Speciforum. If it is hyper-specific or related to private data, security, account recovery, or billing, please create a private ticket on the Specify Help Desk.
How do I use it?
To open a private ticket, you can do one of two things:
- Send an email to support@specifysoftware.org
- Create an account or sign in to the Specify Help Desk and fill out the new ticket form
What account do I use?
Your account for the Specify Help Desk portal is completely separate from your account in Specify and your account on this site (the Speciforum). If you do not yet have an account, you can create one on the Specify Help Desk portal directly.
Create a New Ticket
This can be done either by email or from the Specify Help Desk site.
- Click on Create Ticket
- Fill out the form
- Click Create to submit
See All Tickets
You can see all current and previous tickets, the current status, and they can be searched and exported at any time. Accounts that were CC’d on your message can see all tickets they were included on by clicking on the “Tickets I’m CC’d On” above the table view.
That’s it! If you prefer, you can continue interacting with our support team via email as you did before. This change simply allows us to track requests from different individuals at a single institution more effectively. It helps us manage our time, prioritize better, improve response times, and collaborate with our entire team.