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 Post subject: Ticketing / Helpdesk
PostPosted: Thu Jun 26, 2008 8:11 am 
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Location: Brisbane, Australia
Am thinking _maybe_ when OAv2 is done, I will attempt a HelpDesk / Ticketing module.

I will have to account for usage other than "internal" use, though. For example, I will need to account for "external" facing applications, that allows "customers" to log in, and input their issue. They should also be able to view their issues, too. And view their PC details. I worry about security when doing this, and maybe will split it in such a way, so you only need the ticketing system on the external facing site (machine) and the rest of the app lives inside the firewall... Anyway, I can worry about that.

So, my questions to you are:
Does anyone have a suitable DB schema we could use for a HelpDesk module ?
What specific fields do you think we would need ?
Do most of you want people to be able to log their own HelpDesk tickets, or would you rather the IT staff do it ? Just wondering how your workflow goes.
Do you have "escalation" levels and corresponding people being notified ?
What reports would you need ?

That should start the discussion.
Any input appreciated.

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 Post subject: Re: Ticketing / Helpdesk
PostPosted: Fri Jun 27, 2008 1:05 am 
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Location: Scotland
We operate a system, whereby users can log their problems, this is done entirely using email, or by phoning the problem in. The system does not allow them to check the status of their issue (it would if we spent a LOT more money on it :roll: )

The basic fields are fairly obvious.

User Details (email address, ties in with user database, could also tie in with LDAP and/or OA audited user details)
System Details ( in our case ties in with OA details)
Problem Details (Large free text field)
Solution Details ( Ditto, but for reporting reasons we stick everything related to the solution also in the problem details field)
Engineer Details (the person assigned to fix the issue)
Log time, cleared time, assigned time and a few other "hours" related fields for costing (which we don't use).

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[size=85]OA Server: Windows XP/ XAMPP, Mandriva/Apache, Ubuntu
Auditing: 300+ Wstns, 20+ Srvrs, Thin clients, Linux boxes, Routers, etc
OS's: Windows XP , W2K Srvr, W2K3 Srvr, W2K8, Vista, Windows 7, Linuxes (and a Mac at home)
LDAP: Active Directory[/size]


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 Post subject: Re: Ticketing / Helpdesk
PostPosted: Fri Jun 27, 2008 2:13 pm 
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Joined: Fri Jun 06, 2008 3:02 pm
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Location: Singapore
i am using kayoko esupport suite wish it can to talk to it :)

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Support Open-Audit : [url]http://www.open-audit.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=2990#p13523[/url]


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 Post subject: Re: Ticketing / Helpdesk
PostPosted: Fri Jun 27, 2008 5:34 pm 
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I think I may have made this suggestion before, but here goes anyway.. Most helpdesk systems allow users to submit tickets via email.. with this in mind, we could add a button that says something like "Report an issue with this equipment", this would log selected details of the machine, including a link back to the machines full details in OA, in an email, and allow you to add notes etc.

This could then be sent to ANY helpdesk system which had the ability to deal with support issues logged by email. This would include any future Open-Audit helpdesk system, since I would assume that the ability to deal with requests by email would be a requirement of such a system.

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Andrew

[size=85]OA Server: Windows XP/ XAMPP, Mandriva/Apache, Ubuntu
Auditing: 300+ Wstns, 20+ Srvrs, Thin clients, Linux boxes, Routers, etc
OS's: Windows XP , W2K Srvr, W2K3 Srvr, W2K8, Vista, Windows 7, Linuxes (and a Mac at home)
LDAP: Active Directory[/size]


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 Post subject: Re: Ticketing / Helpdesk
PostPosted: Fri Jun 27, 2008 8:12 pm 
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So do you mean a script, that runs (after the user clicks a link), gets the PC details, and allows the user to add a "problem", and then emails the data ?

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 Post subject: Re: Ticketing / Helpdesk
PostPosted: Fri Jun 27, 2008 9:33 pm 
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[quote="Mark"]So do you mean a script, that runs (after the user clicks a link), gets the PC details, and allows the user to add a "problem", and then emails the data ?


Either a script run from the local browser (too unreliable IMHO), or more likely a web form that does things from the web server.

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Andrew

[size=85]OA Server: Windows XP/ XAMPP, Mandriva/Apache, Ubuntu
Auditing: 300+ Wstns, 20+ Srvrs, Thin clients, Linux boxes, Routers, etc
OS's: Windows XP , W2K Srvr, W2K3 Srvr, W2K8, Vista, Windows 7, Linuxes (and a Mac at home)
LDAP: Active Directory[/size]


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 Post subject: Re: Ticketing / Helpdesk
PostPosted: Fri Jun 27, 2008 10:29 pm 
We use a hacked up version of Libreum Help Desk [url]http://www.liberum.org/[/url]. It is a GPL web based solution, unfortunately it is designed for IIS and is an ASP based solution, but the database structure may give you some ideas. It allows users to submit tickets, as well as update and track the status of their requests. It emails the users (and the rep assigned) when new tickets are created, modified, resolved, and/or closed.


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 Post subject: Re: Ticketing / Helpdesk
PostPosted: Sat Jul 05, 2008 3:12 am 
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Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
The only problem that I see with email is while it's easy for users to send an email often issues sent via email are more difficult to track so the IT support/helpdesk people end up creating separate tickets for the issues anyways which is kind of redundant. I'm more a fan of having users fill out a simple web-based form and then having the support technicians refine/edit the ticket and add any additional info (internal priority versus user priority, clearer and more technical description of the problem etc).

Perhaps one area where email could be used is in sending out status updates to the user for an open issue. Such a email notification system could also be used to send email alerts to technicians (i.e. "you have a new ticket assigned to you") or to managers (i.e. a new ticket with a critical priority has been submitted).

I would prefer that these email alerts supplement the ability for the user to view the status of their open tickets in Open Audit (as Mark mentions). This would probably involve some form of authentication so maybe we could use the existing LDAP support somehow....perhaps with an additional table in the database specifying which role certain LDAP users have (i.e. everyone is assumed to be a standard user unless their account is listed in this table as a technician, manager, administrator etc).

This way everyone who is logged in would have their own "dashboard" view depending on their role. For users it might be a list of their current open tickets and the status of them. For technicians it would be a list of all open tickets that are assigned to them (and optionally below that on the same page in a separate table a list of all open tickets (we might want to have scroll bars for these lists) ). For a Manager it might be similar to the Technician's view with a list of tickets assigned to them (stuff that has been escalated usually), a separate list of open tickets, and then a third list of 'Critical' items such as tickets that have been open for a long time, ones that have a critical priority, or unassigned tickets that need to be assigned.

Currently I have a search feature that allows me to list tickets created within a certain period of time (a drop down field with: last day, week, month, year options) or a date range (i.e. between Jan 1, 2008 and June 29, 2008) as well as by status (all tickets including closed ones or only open tickets)

Reporting functionality for an Admin user / manager would also be useful. Perhaps we could have some general stats (average ticket completion time for the last month for example) as well as some pre-canned reports or charts ( like a pie chart of ticket volume by category and subcategory). I think that the best way to do this would be with a series of drop-down fields similar to the Ad-Hoc queries page in Winventory. This is kind of a nice-to-have feature though and could be implemented later after the main ticketing system features are in place.

As an example some of the categories I've got in my existing system (which is basically just an extension of what Mark started for Winventory) include:

Main Category -> Subcategory
PC Hardware -> Install Component, Replace Component, Repair, Deploy, Upgrade, Move, Purchase
Network hardware -> Install, Repair, Upgrade, Move, Connectivity Issue
Misc Hardware -> Install, Repair, Upgrade, Move
Software -> Install, Repair, Patch, Upgrade, Researching Solution
Printer -> Install, Repair, Paper Jam, Replace Cartridge
Phone -> Install, Repair, Move, Connectivity Issue
Virus/Spyware -> Infected, Removed/Deleted, Researching Solution

What I currently do is display the Categories in one drop-down field and then depending on what category is selected a second drop-down field is populated with the appropriate subcategories for that Category. Third and possibly forth drop-down fields are populated based on the Categories and Subcategories selected. For example if the Software category is selected the third drop-down field contains a list of Software from the Software table (With an "Other" option in the drop-down list that is provided just in case that particular software isn't listed in the Software table) and the forth drop-down field contains a list of PC names from Open Audit so we can tell which machine it applies to. If the Printers category is selected a list of printers appears in the third drop down menu. If the Misc Hardware Category is selected a list of devices from the "other" table appears in the third drop down menu

In this way it is easy for people to quickly categorize issues with a minimum of typing. Since in many cases they are selecting from existing information that is already in the database this cuts down on the amount of form validation that is needed. The categories and subcategories are also useful for getting statistics later.

In my system the user's name is automatically entered into the ticket based on their LDAP login but can later be edited with a drop-down list of ldap users. There is an "Assigned To" drop down field with a list of technicians and managers. The status field is also a drop-down list with the following options: New, Assigned, Escalated, Awaiting more info, Closed/Completed.

I have a history feature that lists all of the actions performed for that ticket (i.e. if the ticket was edited and who it was edit by, if the status was changed, if the priority was changed, if the person assigned to the ticket was changed etc) along with the date and time for each event. There is also a log of comments for the ticket so in addition to the description more details or updates on the issues can be added later (I suppose that this could also be done by just editing the long description field). (Please see the attached screenshot for an example).

I've just done a new setup of Open Audit so my existing ticketing system is somewhat broken at the moment. I'll see if I can get it working again so I can post some more screenshots of it.


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OA Helpdesk1.png
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 Post subject: Re: Ticketing / Helpdesk
PostPosted: Fri Jul 18, 2008 5:00 pm 
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I'm using Hesk as an helpdesk system. ([url]http://www.phpjunkyard.com/free-helpdesk-software.php[/url])
It's completely free and it's php/mysql driven.

You can assign administrators to specific categories and the administrators receive a message when a new ticket is created.
Unfortunatly there is no connection to OA, but you can specify manual fields so the creator of the ticked can fill in those special fields which can relate to OA (eg. username, computername, software, etc.)

Maybe this is something you can use.

// Edwin.


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 Post subject: Re: Ticketing / Helpdesk
PostPosted: Wed Jul 23, 2008 6:01 am 
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Joined: Fri Aug 25, 2006 12:59 am
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Location: Northeast Pennsylvania
We use Cerberus at the moment. At first, it was awesome and then we decided to update it... What a mistake! It is now a PITA to navigate and find tickets, and they did away with the time tracking features! Make sure you add some kind of time tracking with the tickets. This allows the customer to get an accurate "billable" time.

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 Post subject: Re: Ticketing / Helpdesk
PostPosted: Sat Aug 30, 2008 11:51 pm 
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Would be nice if OpenAudit followed something along the lines of another open soure ticketing system called OTRS. Either way, any ticketing system with a link to the hardware/software database would be great!!!


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 Post subject: Re: Ticketing / Helpdesk
PostPosted: Wed Oct 01, 2008 1:50 am 
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I am currently trying GLPI ( http://glpi-project.org/?lang=en ) system and it works but the scanning mudules provided by OCSNG ( ihttp://www.ocsinventory-ng.org/ ) it's not functioning correctly.

Hope this give you a good idea as to how to program your system.

Thanks


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 Post subject: Re: Ticketing / Helpdesk
PostPosted: Wed Oct 08, 2008 2:13 am 
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I've used Request Tracker (a.k.a. RT) from Best Practical (http://www.bestpractical.com/) from years and at several employers. It is free, and open source (I believe). It is used by a lot of companies and Universities. They have a good sized community and lots of support. Heck, they even have an O'Reilly book.

Why reinvent the wheel when there is a top notch product dedicated to the task? Same goes for monitoring. Nagios is an excellent product. Tie into those products, or build a suite to wrap them all together.


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 Post subject: Re: Ticketing / Helpdesk
PostPosted: Thu Oct 09, 2008 8:59 pm 
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Joined: Sat Oct 04, 2008 1:29 am
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Location: Raleigh, NC
We use BridgeTrak (http://www.helpdesksoftware.com).
It includes very powerful tickets tracking abilites as well as web portal for customers and issues escalation like you were looking for.

By the way, I just got an email saying that you can win BridgeTrak at "The Value of Help Desk Service in Today’s Economy" webinar:
http://dl.scriptlogic.com/landing/bridg ... rvice.aspx


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 Post subject: Re: Ticketing / Helpdesk
PostPosted: Sat Nov 01, 2008 11:04 pm 
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Joined: Fri Nov 16, 2007 1:32 am
Posts: 73
Location: Dallas,Texas
I would not burden OA with a ticketing system.

For the people that already have ticketing systems, it can only complicate things.

I would say use the projects out there like GLPI, and create plugins for those systems to interface with eachother. In the end you draw more people to your project.

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