Hi Ian, thanks for taking the time to share your feedback. I’m sorry to hear your experience with Deskpro hasn’t felt intuitive, especially when you’re only using it occasionally. Coming back to a tool infrequently can make it feel unfamiliar each time and that’s something our UX team want to work to improve.
On a couple of the points you raised, there may be some quick fixes. Notes should behave similarly to other ticket replies with an "add" button showing in the reply box. What you’re describing doesn’t sound quite right, so if you’re able to reach out to our support team (support@deskpro.com) with a screenshot or short recording, they can take a closer look.
For time tracking, you can customise your ticket view. In that “More” menu, if you select the eye icon next to “Bill” this will keep it showing as an option at the top of the view while you work on tickets. Your admins can also set the timer to start automatically, which will track time from when you open a ticket until you send your reply or add a note, so you don’t need to log it manually each time. (Here's a link to how this can be set up which you can share with an admin: https://support.deskpro.com/en-US/guides/admin-guide/billing-and-time-settings#billing-and-time-settings_enable-billing-and-time)
Deskpro is highly configurable, so it may also be worth raising this internally. Your admins might be able to adjust the setup to make things simpler for those who don’t use the system every day, and our team are always available to help answer any questions on how to improve your configuration.
Thanks again for your honest feedback. It’s really useful in helping us improve the user experience.