While we're talking about change management...
What are people using for ticket tracking for support issues. Is it all
remedy or what do people like to use.
Feel free to answer off list:).
Scott
WebTTS with quite a few modifications.
If you know Perl or have an inhouse Perl Expert then I highly reccomend it.
We have modified the script to the point that you can query tickets (we
ported to run the ticketing system of a Postgresql database running on
FreeBSD-source available to anyone that wants it (just e-mail me)) based on
a great number of statements. We have also added pages to the system and
have devided the system into different groups. For example;
From the main screen you can select to open a ticket with our Applications
Development team, The help-Desk, our telcom group, or The Network group
(well just one member there - ME!), or The Security group (oh, wait that's
me too...LOL).
I am further able to query our IP addressing system (North Star) from the
WebTTS search screen, or vice versa. This is helpfull for when looking at
entries for a particular IP address (I can pull the tickets and the North
Star info at the same time). This is nice!
Gerardo Gregory
After trying various different applications from various vendors (free and
non free), I've come to the conclusion that the best product is one you
write yourself.
So I wrote my own 
Written in PHP and uses MySQL as a backend. It's fairly scalable abd works
well. I'm not keen on sharing the source code because I want to encourage
others to write it for themselves.
My reasoning is that there are somethign that are good shared, and others
that only serve to stale personal ideas.
Just take your time and write something that suits *your* needs.
Avleen Wrote:
"It's fairly scalable abd works
well. I'm not keen on sharing the source code because I want to encourage
others to write it for themselves."
Avleen,
I am just writing to just voice a suggestion, not looking for an
argument or make it sound like a negative critique. You should re-consider
your choices for not providing the Source-Code, as not one single individual
posseses all of the intuition or capabilities in this world. This is why
Open-Source is a great thing, individuals begin to take an active step in
the development process. What might be a good application can be developed
into an awesome application. I am a true and firm believer in open source,
and although I do not expect everyone in this world to agree with this set
mentality, I always try to at least share my view.
Ticketing, Inventory, and Monitoring, tasks almost every individual that
subscribes to this list on a daily basis interacts with via applications,
logfiles, etc. Add to this all the data that these tasks compile for the
administrator's through logs, and finally the archiving of this compiled
data, and you will see that analyzing and tracking become a major task.
Thus applications (scripts, etc.) that interact with databases come into
play. Now we can either purchase, build or modify. The choices for which
one of these is performed lies within a great and wide scope that I do not
even want to detour to (Economical, Corporate Policies, Politics, Technical
Knowledge of Employees, etc.). The point I want to get at is that Open
Source benefits greatly those who choose to build or modify (and obviously
you built it yourself, Kudos!). Individual developers can spend their time
adding, improving, and porting, thus benefitting you and the whole community
as a whole. It is not bad to attempt to encourage individuals to learn how
to build their own applications, srcipts, programs, etc., and if this is
your goal, then in my opinion you are not helping but hurting those that
choose to develop.
We do not all share the same level of knowledge, and sometimes it is
more helpfull to show those interested or in learning stages (I am
permanently stuck in this one) how the clock actually works, instead of
telling us about the clock but then deny us the marvelous thing it is.
If you want to encourage us (us is an everyone else in this world) to
write it ourselves, then you will accomplish this task far easier by
sharing. In doing so you will; 1. Inspire some to add new things; 2.
Educate others on how you did it; 3. Expose your application to endless
possabilities; 4. Benefit us all!
Remmember; sharing is teahing, and teaching is learning.
Well that last line was actually from my fortune cookie (had chinesse
for dinner)...LOL
Gerardo Gregory
I am just writing to just voice a suggestion, not looking for an
argument or make it sound like a negative critique. You should re-consider
your choices for not providing the Source-Code, as not one single individual
posseses all of the intuition or capabilities in this world. This is why
Open-Source is a great thing, individuals begin to take an active step in
the development process. What might be a good application can be developed
into an awesome application. I am a true and firm believer in open source,
and although I do not expect everyone in this world to agree with this set
mentality, I always try to at least share my view.
A discussion is the exchange of knowledge. And arguement is the exchange
of ignorance. Let's discuss.
I suppose I could release the source code. It wouldn't do any harm,
especially if it would help others.
I too believe that Open Source has it's benefits, but I'm firmly against
the believe that everything should be open sourced (as some believe).
And while I'd normally accept that it's a good things for many people to
get together to make a good application great, and a great application
amazing, sometimes having an amazing application isn't the point.
When I wrote my little ticket tracker (which *isn't* great) I wanted only
a few things from it; I needed to be able to track incoming bugs and
comments on those tickets. Maybe some email functions too. That's all.
I don't want it to do *ANYTHING* else and I don't see why it should. I
want it to do only what I need and nothing else. Others are free to do
most of what they like with their programs, but OS isn't the best solution
every time.
That's the original point behind my statement. While OS is a good thing,
it's not always the best thing. Sometimes you just want an application to
do a few specific things and nothing more at all, ever.
Some will understand that, some won't.
Ticketing, Inventory, and Monitoring, tasks almost every individual that
subscribes to this list on a daily basis interacts with via applications,
logfiles, etc. Add to this all the data that these tasks compile for the
administrator's through logs, and finally the archiving of this compiled
data, and you will see that analyzing and tracking become a major task.
Again, it depends on *your* requirements. Heh, mine was "track the slow
inflow of bugs for the IRC daemon and related services". All I needed to
do was have a web form that could take input, add comments and that's it.
No analyzing, no compiling, just logging and tracking one issue at a time.
It is not bad to attempt to encourage individuals to learn how
to build their own applications, srcipts, programs, etc., and if this is
your goal, then in my opinion you are not helping but hurting those that
choose to develop.
Partial agreement on this point. Sometimes I find it helpful to look at
other code. Sometimes I find that looking at other code stifles my
creative process and I just end up copying someone else's work. I don't
like it when the latter happens, so I encourage others to do things for
themselves as much as possible and only provide hints to answers rather
than stepping stones to answers.
We do not all share the same level of knowledge, and sometimes it is
more helpfull to show those interested or in learning stages (I am
permanently stuck in this one) how the clock actually works, instead of
telling us about the clock but then deny us the marvelous thing it is.
And sometimes it's good for people to just pick up a book and spend a few
days (or weeks) reading and learning, rather than just expecting the
answer on a plate. You'll only have to do that once or twice. Spend some
time and do it right.
I could tell you that a clock uses cogs, springs, arms, pendulms, etc, or
I could say "I have a requirement for a device to measure time. Go make me
one". The latter is much more likely to make you research things for
yourself and to maybe even come up with a novel way to measure time. What
would you gain from learning exactly how a clock works, if all you want to
do is make a better clock?
A better approach would be to analyze the problems you're tackling and
solve those.
If you want to encourage us (us is an everyone else in this world) to
write it ourselves, then you will accomplish this task far easier by
sharing. In doing so you will; 1. Inspire some to add new things; 2.
Educate others on how you did it; 3. Expose your application to endless
possabilities; 4. Benefit us all!
Remmember; sharing is teahing, and teaching is learning.
But you missed the point (which I explained better this time around).
I don't want my application expanded, improved, imprised, etc.
It's perfect just as it is. When a new requirement comes up for me, *then*
i'll add to it, but that's all.
Oh and you're badly mistakign two different kinds of learning.
On the one hand it you're learning about a static system that doesn't
change (eg, a law of physics[1]) then sure it's good to learn and share as
much as possible.
On the other hand if you're talking about design and inspiration, well
that comes from within and is something that you need to work on based on
your own requirements, not someone else's.
Sharing is good, but sharing everythigng is bad (your audience won't learn
anything new themselves).
[1] maybe a bad example. the laws themselves don't 'change', we just
adjust them according to observations and experiementation.
* ggregory@affinitas.net (gg) [Thu 08 Aug 2002, 10:25 CEST]:
I am further able to query our IP addressing system (North Star) from the
WebTTS search screen, or vice versa. This is helpfull for when looking at
entries for a particular IP address (I can pull the tickets and the North
Star info at the same time). This is nice!
This was a new name for me (NorthStar) so I looked it up. Its homepage is
http://www.brownkid.net/NorthStar/
and looks pretty interesting. It can store information about locations
and display them in relation to each other ("Qworst Colo" in "Eugene" in
"Oregon" in "United States" in "Available Locations," for example) and
store a lot of data about devices via templates.
Take care,
-- Niels.
Deskpro does a great job. Not only do we use it for ticket tracking, we've
hacked it to become our entire interface for support reps, as we've
integrated all of our admin functions into it. In addition, we use it in
conjunction with netsaint to display customers/circuits that are down, as
well as keep track of lots of information about leased line and colocation
customers, pending sales orders, all kinds of stuff. Very easy to extend.
Andy
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Andy Dills 301-682-9972
Xecunet, LLC www.xecu.net
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Dialup * Webhosting * E-Commerce * High-Speed Access
I strongly recommend RT, which has the advantage of being both Open Source,
and having several available support options.
- Dan
I have had a great experience with an extremely funny sounding product.
Double Choco Latte is one of the better (I won't say best, they all have
strong and weak points.) ticketing systems out there. Once the new code
is finished with the contact management, it will be 10x better.
Derek
You may wish to consider providing closed source to the users (yes, this
isn't as silly as it sounds). They get a copy of the source, but they're
not allowed to distribute it further, and if you like you can even make
it a requirement that you get a copy of any local mods/improvements.
I've even seen a number of packages that were quite anal-retentive on
this, and for a very good reason - the authors wanted to make *sure* that
they had a list of every user of the program so they could notify the
users when bug fixes and updates came along, because they didn't want
their reputations being soiled by people who installed old copies they
got from a friend.