Ticketing systems Engineer Gustavo Ramírez Siles [email protected] Engineer Gustavo Ramírez Siles [email protected] IDSCA Support Development Team IDSCA Support Development Team 2 Engineer Gustavo Ramírez Siles [email protected] IDSCA Support Development Team 1. Introduction 1.1. Problem It is required to migrate to a flexible ticketing system better than the current one, which can be easily to maintain; open source and can provide an easy way to follow and track issues through tickets. 1.2. Abstract The following document is intended to provide an alternative choice for a helpdesk and development ticketing system for ADSCA technical support department The document has the following sections: 1.3. Ticket systems This section contains the analysis of each ticket system studied. In each subsection it will contain: Summary; Software/Hardware requirements; features; screenshot; advantages and disadvantages of the ticket system been analyzed with screenshots where is needed. 1.4. Discarded systems This section has a list of system that was not included in the analysis and the reason why. 1.5. Conclusions and recommendations In this section will be a result analysis of the tickets studied 3 Engineer Gustavo Ramírez Siles [email protected] IDSCA Support Development Team Index 1. Introduction ......................................................................................................... 3 1.1. Problem ..................................................................................................................... 3 1.2. Abstract ..................................................................................................................... 3 1.3. Ticket systems ........................................................................................................... 3 1.4. Discarded systems ..................................................................................................... 3 1.5. Conclusions and recommendations ........................................................................... 3 Index ...................................................................................................................... 4 2. Ticket Systems .................................................................................................... 5 2.1. OS Ticket .................................................................................................................. 5 2.2. OTRS (Open source Ticket Request System) ........................................................... 7 2.3. RT – Request Tracker ............................................................................................... 9 3. Discarded systems ...................................................................................................... 12 3.1. SysAid ..................................................................................................................... 12 3.2. Mantis ..................................................................................................................... 12 3.3. Bugzilla ................................................................................................................... 12 4. Conclusions and recommendations .................................................................. 13 4.1. Conclusions ............................................................................................................. 13 4.2. Recommendations ................................................................................................... 13 4 Engineer Gustavo Ramírez Siles [email protected] IDSCA Support Development Team 2. Ticket Systems 2.1. OS Ticket 2.1.1. Summary osTicket is a widely-used open source support ticket system. Integrates inquiries created via email and web-based forms into a simple easy to use multi-user web interface. Easily manage, organize and archive all your support requests and responses in one place while providing your clients with accountability and responsiveness they deserve. osTicket is an attractive alternative to higher-cost and complex customer support systems; simple, lightweight, reliable, open source, and easy to setup and use. Site: http://osticket.com/ Demo page: http://www.ostickethacks.com/demo/ Download code: http://osticket.com/dl/osticket_1.6.0.tar.gz 2.1.2. Software/ Hardware Requirements • PHP 4.3+ • MySQL 4.4+ 2.1.3. Features • Inquiries created via email, phone and web-based forms into a simple easy-to-use multi-user web interface • Easy to use • Organize and archives help request • Light weight • Open Source 2.1.4. Screenshots 5 Engineer Gustavo Ramírez Siles [email protected] IDSCA Support Development Team Figure Nº1: Admin interface Figure Nº 2: Inserting a ticket More screenshots can be found at http://osticket.com/tour/. 2.1.5. Advantages/Disadvantages 2.1.5.1 Advantages • Easy to use • Easy to maintain • Lightweight • Assign tickets to a staff and/or department. 2.1.5.2. Disavantages • Escalation functionality is not directly included, even if it has notifications on overdue (http://osticket.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1975) I didn´t find an automatic re assign ticket feature on overdue tickets. • Following up is not that simple as supposed. Check this other example too: http://www.osticket.com/forums/showthread.php?p=13104. 6 Engineer Gustavo Ramírez Siles [email protected] IDSCA Support Development Team 2.2. OTRS (Open source Ticket Request System) 2.2.1 Summary OTRS is an Open source Ticket Request System with features to manage customer telephone calls and e-mails. The system is built to allow your support, sales, pre-sales, billing, internal IT, helpdesk, etc. department to react quickly to inbound inquiries. Receive 5.000 e-mails a day and still be able to handle them Site: http://otrs.org/index/ Demo page: http://otrs.org/demo/ Source code: http://otrs.org/source/ 2.2.2. Software / Hardware requirements. • GNU • Tested on Linux, Solaris, AIX, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, Mac OS 10.x and Windows. • Mysql • Perl based. 2.2.3. Features • Escalation • Reports and search by different criteria’s • Group’s permissions 2.2.4. Screenshots 7 Engineer Gustavo Ramírez Siles [email protected] IDSCA Support Development Team Figure Nº3: Admin / Agent interface Figure Nº 4: Customer Company tickets. Other screenshots can be found at http://otrs.org/screenshot/. 2.2.5 Advantage/disadvantages 2.2.5.1. Advantages • Easy to use • Widely tested means stability. 2.2.5.2. Disavantages • Depends on Perl knowledge. Still they have a good documentation on that. 8 Engineer Gustavo Ramírez Siles [email protected] IDSCA Support Development Team 2.3. RT – Request Tracker 2.3.1. Summary RT is an open source issue tracking and workflow platform which enables a group of people to intelligently and efficiently manage tasks, issues, and requests submitted by a community of users. It is widely used as an helpdesk system. The RT platform has been under development since 1996, and is used by systems administrators, customer support staffs, IT managers, developers and marketing departments at thousands of sites around the world. Written in obJect-oriented Perl, RT is a high-level, portable, platform independent system that eases collaboration within organizations and makes it easy for them to take care of their customers. RT manages key tasks such as the identification, prioritization, assignment, resolution and notification required by enterprise-critical applications including proJect management, help desk, NOC ticketing, CRM and software development. RT is used by Fortune 100 companies, government agencies, educational institutions, and development organizations worldwide. Site: http://www.bestpractical.com/index.html Demo Page: Download code: http://download.bestpractical.com/pub/rt/release/rt-3.8.7.tar.gz Signature: http://download.bestpractical.com/pub/rt/release/rt-3.8.7.tar.gz.sig 2.3.2. Software/ Hardware Requirements 2.3.3. Features Track critical data o It's easy to submit, assign, prioritize, search, escalate, and report on issues. o RT keeps track of each ticket's full history and metadata to help your organization better retain knowledge and analyze trends. o RT can track multiple proJects for multiple teams within a single installation. o RT tracks critical system metadata, including time spent per action, due dates, and estimated time to completion. o It's easy to record private comments that are not available to end-users. o RT's web interface comes complete with an intuitive "iterative" search interface that allows end users to construct complex queries by pointing and clicking within their web browsers. o Users can save and edit queries later, using their browser's "bookmarks" feature. • Convenient for end users. For instance, RT provides a simple, self-service interface that allows end users to view their own active and resolved tickets online 9 Engineer Gustavo Ramírez Siles [email protected] IDSCA Support Development Team Easy to customize Security o RT has a built-in access control system that lets administrators grant user, group, and role-based rights to users. o Users can be made members of groups for the purpose of access control. These groups are hierarchical, making it easy for administrators to manage access to the system. o Rights can be granted globally or only to specific parts of your RT system. o Users can be allowed the right to delegate rights that they have been granted. o RT can use your web server's existing authentication system or its own internal password database to grant or deny users' access to RT. Easy to install