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Ticket Tracking and Customer Management?
An anonymous reader writes "Like many Slashdot readers, I'm sure, I run a small side business doing IT consulting in addition to my day job. I'm looking for a good open-source ticket tracking system that I can run under Linux, preferably one that also has some customer management features. I'd like to be able to maintain a separate record for each job, along with time tracking, work logs, and information about the customer. Much of what I see on Sourceforge is, as usual, pre-pre-pre-alpha with no actual code. Does anyone have any suggestions for a project that might fit my needs?"
at least, that's what Merrill Lynch uses.
Been using RT as a ticket tracker at a few places I've worked at. Works well.
Sigs are for Terrorists.
This question has come up before, and I usually answer the same way. RT: Request Tracker is a good place to start. It is a Perl+Apache+MySQL based open source solution. The first few times you install it can be tricky. Find a good and current how-to.
I have since moved away from RT and now use an in-house designed system. But I still give it two thumbs up.
I implemented trac at my workplace as a change control and task management system. We use it for both internal projects as well as billable work, with a number of custom fields for supporting our quoting system and quality control. The built-in Wiki also doubles as our IT documentation repository, all in one easy to access location.
It is extremely extensible, and anything not readily available can be easily created. It didn't take much time to learn the class and data structures and I've modified existing plugins and written a few of my own to support our needs.
JIRA runs under Linux. It is not open source, but the cost of the application and support is well worth it. I believe it is free to use for open source projects. They also provide the full source code, which has allowed us to heavily customize the application. When I started evaluating issue tracking systems this page proved to be rather useful http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_ticket- tracking_systems.
Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest. --Denis Diderot
Definitely thumbs up for RT.
We are on a mission at the company where I work to replace all email / attachment based work management with it.
You'd be amazed how far you can push RS using the concepts of owner, status, subject line, journaling, parent child / depends on depended on by tickets, auto-notification, attachments etc. all built in.
If you think you need more structured data, you should at least see how far you can get prototyping it first in RT, using its minimal custom fields but also its custom views.
Most ERP / CRM don't have the kind of infinite flexibility of workflow you can achieve using the features listed above. They do however have structured data.
Check out Vtiger, it's a really nice CRM and also has ticketing features.
Take a look at http://www.stonekeep.com/keystone.php
:)
Opensource, non-alpha, many many users active, still being supported and worked on.
(Obdisclaimer. I wrote it.
Event Management Solutions : http://www.stonekeep.com/
wow .. all he found was "pre pre pre alpha alpha alpha"
.. RT Open source , even has commercial support if you want.Ive been using RT in many forms for at least 10 years now. I remember it back in the late 90s.
.. remedy is another that pops into my mind.
t racking_systems
the author did not do a very hard search.
First and for most
And then of course there is JIRA. This may be more for dev work. Most places ive been used RT for anything that MIGHT face the customer and the areas that had 'issues' and 'projects' that would end up closing at some time. But JIRA was used by the devs for bug tracking and coding projects.
of course there are a lot of others
Seriously though. How could you have enough experience and knowledge to run your 'side business' and never have run into either of these projects in your travels. Where have you really worked that they have not used a ticketing system ? Or perhaps you are fresh out of school. But even fresh out of school. I would think that even the dorm network operators would have used SOME sort of ticketing system that you would have been exposed to , if even from the 'customer' side.
If your google-fu is so weak as to have not found these , then I fear for your customers.
there is even a nice wiki page comparing all the products..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_issue_
RoundUp (which is Python based) is a great system..
Its self contained.. a GREAT email interface.. easy to setup and easy to extend.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_ticket- tracking_systems
eticket http://eticket.sourceforge.net/ is a newer fork of osticket that's being actively maintained. (osticket doesn't seem to be available currently.)
I read through a lot of the comments and saw so many mentions of enterprise level ticket tracking and development management. You actually asked for a ticket tracking for IT sidework. I use Mojo Helpdesk. They have a free plan, 30 day free trial for their pay plans and gives you a central location to track open issues and receive reedback from clients.
Hope this helps.
http://www.project-open.com/
It's an all in one ticket tracker, CRM, timesheet, project management (including GanttCharts), WIKI, form, full-text-search, etc. and it includes financial management. So you can create invoices directly from the time you spent on tickets and projects.
The downside: It uses TCL and AOLServer instead of PHP and Apache.
I'm currently evaluating Eventum for both IT support and generic issue tracking for service departments with no IT component. The only thing that feels beta about it is its obvious origin as a software issue tracker, but it won't require much modification to support generic issue tracking. Other than that, it is very stable, and customizable in a good way, not an evil, "I can't use this unless I completely rewrite the source code" kind of way.
I have experience with RT, and have installed it for clients who absolutely love it. But if you're an admin who finds supporting RT to be a little traumatic, you owe it to yourself to try Eventum. I was able to download and install Eventum in a typically provisioned LAMP environment in 5 minutes without any problems at all. Like RT, configuration requires a thorough understanding of the options, but I had a working evaluation system in much less time than it normally takes me to configure RT. So far, source code edits appear to be necessary only for designing more complex workflow patterns, and I'm guessing that will be integrated into the admin interface before long.
While I haven't properly evaluated email integration, Eventum is appealing because it can handle incoming mail via IMAP. I wish more issue trackers would do this, since I already have a robust email system that works great. I might as well be able to use it without rerouting support addresses through pipes, or creating complicated aliases (though it looks like Eventum supports this, as well).
I'm not done evaluating Eventum, but I didn't want its mention to go unnoticed due to its recent release and small user base. I'm looking for an issue tracker that allows technical and nontechnical support staff alike handle tickets behind the scenes without a requirement for a public interface for the client, other than the email responses we generate. Eventum has a simple but powerful search interface, graphical statistics, reports, internal FAQ, canned responses, phone logging, and time tracking, among other features. The fact that it's offered by a popular opensource software vendor, MySQL, lends hope that it will be actively developed and maintained if it becomes successful. It's so easy to install, it's worth taking a look.