[KLUG Members] Trouble ticket browser based applications

[Adam Tauno Williams]

> Looking at the earlier thread for content management systems, I have a
> request for comments on the relative success or failure of what people
> are using for something a little different.  I am interested in the
> possibility of content, but am more interested in the possibility of
> trouble ticket processing.  Is anyone using anything for this purpose?
> If I am looking for both, should I be using two different packages??
> There are four members of our IT team here and we do not currently use
> an application to track all of our issues.  We are looking for a way
> that we can track completion of requests of our users.

We use OpenGroupware.  Possibly a bit of an overkill solution,  but the
project management aspects are very nice - tasks can be moved between
projects, projects can contain files, projects can have notes,  notes
can be linked to calendar items (like meetings).   We tried a couple of
ticket-tracking applications as well as a few generations of a home
brewed one,  but always we ended up wanting that information tied to
something else which meant - basically, in the end - writing a really
crappy groupware application.  So we chose to not reinvent the wheel as
we there are still plenty of wheels that need inventing.

> Hoping it will
> be helpful with setting up some sort of ISO measure-ables.  

With OGo all the data is in a PostgreSQL database so you can create
reports that way if you like,

> Also helpful
> if we can read the information about an issue if a team member is
> unavailable.

You can delegate  a task to a team and a team member can accept that
task, you can delegate to a user and that user can accept or reject the
task.  You can specify members of a team as 'preffered executants' if
someone in, say the CIS dept, is probably the most suited to a
particular task (these them become assigned tasks to that user, as well
as being delegated to the team and that user can still perform an
"accept").  Once accepted the task moved to that users To-Do list. 

We create a project for each application, facility, and server and then
tasks are assigned to those projects.  Information about applications
can be stored as notes or files.  Projects can also contain links to
other projects,  so with an application on server X that application's
project contains a link to server X's project and you can wing around
inside the system very easily.

And if you want you can sync your to-do list to you Palm Pilot (and soon
any other SyncML or RIM device).