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Software Hardware Hacking

Software for Technical Support Tracking? 73

Posted by Cliff from the better-than-sticky-notes dept.
Wehesheit asks: "I work at a large department store which sells computers. As the *sole* technician I have to handle all the customer techwork (virus scanning, spyware, upgrades etc..), and for the most part I get along just fine but recently my co-workers have expressed a difficulty in 'knowing whats going on' in the techroom. I am wondering if the Slashdot community knows of any software which will enable me to track work I am doing for each customer and allow myself, and other employees, to pull it up easily while add notes such as 'bob called and said put in 512mb RAM'. Currently we use sticky notes which I'm sure everyone can imagine is not very trackable or reliable. Having incident numbers I can print off and put on machines would be excellent, so if a machine is marked done in the software my co-workers can match the number, print off the worknotes and give the customer the machine. Also, I have to be able to do this for $0 which means freeware. Any ideas?"
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Software for Technical Support Tracking? More

Software for Technical Support Tracking?

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  • IRM (Score:4, Informative)

    by WetCat ( 558132 ) on Monday May 16, 2005 @09:52AM (#12542806)
    http://www.stackworks.net/view.php/irm/index.html [stackworks.net]
    • Seems to be nice and fairly easy to implement - I'm setting it up to track hardware and (more importantly to the regulators) how often I update software.

      I'm not going to use the ticket tracker, but it's nice how they integrated that with the hardware tracker.

      Also like the looks of the knowledgebase that they have.

  • Request Tracker (Score:5, Insightful)

    by KagatoLNX ( 141673 ) <kagato@@@souja...net> on Monday May 16, 2005 @09:53AM (#12542817) Homepage
    Well, it can be ugly at times and there are certainly some rough edges, but Request Tracker will probably do the trick.

    Mind you, you'll probably need a Linux or BSD server running Apache, PHP, and an SQL engine (MySQL or PostgreSQL, we use Postgres).

    Look at http://www.bestpractical.com/rt/ [bestpractical.com].

    • Re:Request Tracker (Score:4, Insightful)

      by jgaynor ( 205453 ) <jon@nOSPAm.gaynor.org> on Monday May 16, 2005 @09:56AM (#12542852) Homepage
      Bahhh ya beat me to it. My vote goes for request tracker. We replaced Remedy (read: $15,000/yr in support costs) with RT (read: free with a good geek) and have had relatively few issues.
      • I completely agree. I was at a place the also replaced Remedy with Request Tracker. It was much simpler to use, didn't require client software (other than a web browser), and was able to process inbound emails from specially-designed web forms to open new tickets. I'm pushing to use it here at my current job.

    • Re:Request Tracker (Score:5, Informative)

      by babbage ( 61057 ) <cdevers.cis@usouthal@edu> on Monday May 16, 2005 @10:39AM (#12543303) Homepage Journal
      Well, it can be ugly at times and there are certainly some rough edges, but Request Tracker will probably do the trick.

      Mind you, you'll probably need a Linux or BSD server running Apache, PHP, and an SQL engine (MySQL or PostgreSQL, we use Postgres).

      *Ahem*. RT does not use PHP; it's a mod_perl [apache.org] (and specifically, a Mason [masonhq.com]) application.

      Quoting from RT's feature list page [bestpractical.com]:

      • RT runs great on Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris, Mac OS X and most other flavors of Unix. End users have contributed a port to Windows 2000 and Windows XP.
      • RT stores all its data inside an SQL database, so you can use Crystal Reports and similar tools to generate precise reports. Right now, you can deploy on MySQL 4, PostgreSQL 7.3 or Oracle 9i. Best Practical is working to bring support for Sybase and Informix to RT as well.
      • RT uses Apache's mod_perl interpreter or the FastCGI protocol, so you get blazing fast performance no matter what web server you choose.

      That said, RT is a fantastic tool. I've used it at the last two jobs I've worked at, and if it's not there next time I switch jobs, I expect to introduce it. It can be a bit fiddly to get installed, as it depends on a couple of dozen CPAN [cpan.org] modules, but the Wiki documentations's [bestpractical.com] generic [bestpractical.com] and specific [bestpractical.com] installation guides try to make this as painless as possible, and if you get stuck there's always the mailing lists [bestpractical.com] and paid support [bestpractical.com]. And once RT is up and running, it's stable, versatile, flexible, adaptable, and just all around a great tool for managing a collection of on-going tasks.

      If it's good enough for NASA, Merrill Lynch, DynDNS, Perl (it's the bug tracker for the Perl language), and others [bestpractical.com], then chances are it's probably good enough for you too. :-)

      • Uhhh, that was a test?

        Oops, my bad Perl.

        Being a Python programmer, I misremembered it as "one of those other P-languages that gives me maintenance headaches". :)

        That being said, again, RT can be quite functional. I've found it runs better under PostgreSQL, but never tested it with Mod_Perl (didn't know it did that).
    • Yep RT is what is used all over MTU. Can be a pain, but works well.
  • Footprints [unipress.com] is a good place to start. It is a web-based tracking system that creates incident numbers and can be updated from anywhere on the network.

    I, too, have felt the burden of post-its as a means of tracking systems.

  • Come on... (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 16, 2005 @09:57AM (#12542858)
    Also, I have to be able to do this for $0 which means freeware.

    Unless your boss is a complete idiot, you should be able to buy what is a basic necessity for carrying out your job repsonsibilities. Admittedly, your boss may well be a complete idiot.


    • Unless your boss is a complete idiot, you should be able to buy what is a basic necessity for carrying out your job repsonsibilities. Admittedly, your boss may well be a complete idiot.

      His boss isn't an idiot, he's a God-damned slave owner wannabee.

      You're not a slave, and don't let him treat you like one.

      PS: Installing an inventory/services management system is a MASSIVE undertaking. Even small- to mid-sized businesses can take upwards of a year or more to get something like that functioning smooth

      • It's pretty easy to tell somebody else to take a "Do it my way or I'm out of here" attitude. Which is why we get comments like this one every time we discuss workplace problems. But when your own job is at stake, the dangers of copping an arrogant attitude become rather more obvious.

        In the real world, you have to do a good job of justifying yourself when you want your boss to spend money. And then the boss has to actually find the money. If you can't buy everything you think you need to do your job well,

      • MASSIVE??? All he wants to do it implement something slightly more sophisticated than Post-It notes. How is that MASSIVE?? I'm tired of techies who have to define a friggin data dictionary and draw out their project in UML for such simple tasks as this one. An adhoc approach is perfectly acceptable for this kind of project.
    • Yeah, you explain to your boss you need to spend
      Remedy (read: $15,000/yr in support costs) - quoted from here [slashdot.org]
      when there's another product for free. Especially when it sounds like he's working in a small startup that barely has the business to start needing a tracking system.
  • You could probably use bugzilla (http://www.bugzilla.org/ [bugzilla.org]). It was originally meant for tracking bugs, but it is flexible enough to do what you want. Assign each computer a bug which gets a unique number and lets you add timestamped comments and attachments at will.

    -David
    • I agree on this one.

      They even have a version that can run (buggy) on Wintel equipped hardware if you don't want to putz with installs. I do however recommend any good Linux flavor install, and then bugz, mysql, php, et al. Much much more stable and reliable. Plus if you need it, the box can serve up other tasks such as a glorified workstation or be a file server... all kinds of possibilities.

      Cheers

  • RT? (Score:2)

    by BRTB ( 30272 )
    I've heard decent things about RT [bestpractical.com]. Actually, I'd probably be using it right now, except we needed more of a CALL-tracking system rather than a work-ticket tracker.

  • Well .. (Score:1)

    by torpor ( 458 )
    .. would it have been so hard to do a little google searching, perhaps a little mailarchive grepping, maybe come up with your own assessment of the scene, first?

    *sigh*

    but, to answer your question, theres' this:

    OTRS [otrs.org] .. seems like the aforementioned skils have disappeared in the modern internet, alas ...
  • a spreadsheet or database program
    a barcode generator (there's a bunch online, just use the almighty google)
    a cue cat (see ebay)
    your own system of numbering

  • Fogbugz - Not Free But Good (Score:4, Informative)

    by justanyone ( 308934 ) on Monday May 16, 2005 @10:02AM (#12542921) Homepage Journal

    Fogbugz (by Fog Creek Software) (at http://fogbugz.com/ [fogbugz.com]) is Excellent! We use it for our 5 person development team.

    I know it's not free, but it is absolutely a wonderful product. It handles bug tracking in all its complexity with as much or as little info as you want to provide, and displays status quickly and easily.

    It is $99 per user, though, so I'm not sure this is your cup of tea. If you want to have your management pony up for the ability to see your status better, this is one option.

    Of course, open source means cheaper, but it may not mean better; I'm open to all those who disagree if they'd like to point out another competing open source product that has similar or better functionality... ?

  • Keep it simple (Score:3, Insightful)

    by fm6 ( 162816 ) on Monday May 16, 2005 @10:03AM (#12542927) Homepage Journal
    You're one overworked guy, so forget about a proper trouble-tracking system -- you don't have time to take care of it. You just need a set of web pages that you and the people you support can browse and edit without a lot of hassle. In other words, a Wiki [wiki.org]
  • There are quite a few projects to do ticketing, but what I'd really like to see is something that can handle both ad hoc kinds of calls to bug tracking and project releases. Something that was like xplanner and bugzilla and CRM combined.

    In a small business, people tend to wear multiple hats, and this would be really helpful. Most of what I've seen out there tends to focus on one small area or another.

  • Email. Seriously (Score:3, Insightful)

    by benhaha ( 456005 ) on Monday May 16, 2005 @10:06AM (#12542958)
    This is what I do. All telephone messages I take for other people become email messages.

    If it's something that other people need to know about, I email them.

    If it's something I need to know about, I send myself an email. When it is done, I mark it as read, so the unread count acts as the Todo count.

    Cheers,
    Ben
    • "If it's something that other people need to know about, I email them." This only works if others use email that way. Some of the managers I work with get 100s of emails per day. They may or may not read something in the next 3 days.
    • Even in standalone mode, it will give you a calendar, tracking, alerts, and areas to clip notes or attachments.

      With 2000+ and an Exchange server, you can assign tasks to other people.

      • It ain't gonna be a $0 solution anymore once you bring in Exchange.

        And the accompanying backup software will set you back some more. (ya, I know, python > config files > exmerge, doing that: ain't cheap either).

        Forget Bugzilla. You need some skills to set it up.

        Fogbugz is for a team, and a manager. This guy runs solo, the others are not his managers.

        A wiki might be good, but the best solution in my opinion is a simple webserver (even, gasp! Personal Web Server) and a set of text files or simple ht
        • Your best option depends on the resources you have available. If you have a PHP/MySQL capable web server Mantis [mantisbt.org] can be a lifesaver. Simpler to set up than Buzilla, more structured than a Wiki. I don't recommend the 1.XX releases yet, get the latest of the downlevel (0.19.2 as I write this). Although there will be some nice features in the next release, it is still in Alpha.

          If it probably a hair more than a single person needs, but it allows all of the things you described to be done. The other idea (using

  • Eventum (Score:3, Informative)

    by mdaitc ( 619734 ) on Monday May 16, 2005 @10:06AM (#12542961)
    Have a look at Eventum http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/other/eventum/featu res.html/ [mysql.com]. It's made by MySQL and can be used for support ticketing, software development. I use it in my small IT department for myself and the other tech/admin for support ticketing and it works well. I've used keystone quite a bit in the past, and much prefer this!

    From the page: Eventum is a user-friendly and flexible issue tracking system that can be used by a support department to track incoming technical support requests, or by a software development team to quickly organize tasks and bugs. Eventum is used by the MySQL AB Technical Support team, and has allowed us to dramatically improve our response times.

  • Is Remedy [remedy.com]. It allows call tracking, call histroy (on a per system, per user, and per location basis), classification of calls, etc. It takes a bit of work to optimize the setup, but once it's up it's great. I've dealt with bad setups and good, and when done correctly, it's great. When done poorly, it's a bit painful to enter calls, but a good form layout will really fix that.
    • There's one little problem. License costs.

      Remedy works great when you can make the modifications to the forms yourself.
      • Right, I really just ignored the last sentence of the original post. I mean, as another poster [slashdot.org] said,

        Unless your boss is a complete idiot, you should be able to buy what is a basic necessity for carrying out your job repsonsibilities.

        Remedy is a pricey solution, and from what I've read some of the other options I've seen posted might be a better fit, but still. Not being allowed to buy an essential tool for good help desk operation is a prescription for a bad help desk.

        • Right, I really just ignored the last sentence of the original post.

          So, you decided to be of no help? As another poster [slashdot.org] said, in the real world you sometimes have to live within boundaries that you don't like. The question says that this person works at a department store and is the only technical support person. Clearly tech support is a very ancillary piece of the big picture and one that needs to be done as under the radar as possible. Advice like yours is of no value. I haven't priced Remedy rec

          • Are you trying to troll? If so, fine, I'll bite. Remedy doesn't have to be expensive. They have solutions for small businesses, it's not necessarily a $15,000/year. And really, their small business solution costs (IIRC) about $800, which may seem like a lot but when meausred against the cost of lost productivity (like a lost post-it note, losing track of what computer needed the RAM upgrade, etc) it really balances out.

            Still, RT looks very good, as do some of the other options. I'm just used to dealin

  • Freshmeat (Score:3, Informative)

    by Sandman1971 ( 516283 ) on Monday May 16, 2005 @10:15AM (#12543075) Homepage Journal
    Very easy to find something free.

    just go to Freshmeat [freshmeat.net] and search for stuff like tracking system [freshmeat.net] or ticket tracking [freshmeat.net], go thru the list, and try out the one that seems to fit your needs the best.
  • You not only have to use a software for keeping track of stuff, but change the way you work. You have to issue a ticket for every request your customers make, and keep detailed info on every ticket you attend; once the ticket gets done, you have to print it out and lend it to your customer for a signature, and store those on individual expedients. That way, you keep a database-driven knowledge base of every curtomer, ticket and technical stuff related so you can make searches with many parameters, and also
  • It was the last thing I wrote at my last job (rewrote an existing application - RPG4 and AS/400) and the first thing I did at this one 9 years ago.

    I originally rewrote it in Access (single user app - worked fine) and have since rewrote in PHP with a PostgreSQL backend.

    Pretty slick and does what I need it to do.

  • While it's really meant to be a frontend to a subversion repository, Trac [edgewall.com] may just do all the things you want. It is a combined Wiki and request tracker (and subversion repository viewer). The nice part is you can use wiki markup everywhere. I use the wiki part to document random things about the IT infrastructure (like, how the backups are performed, where certain files are stored, what all the star-codes for the phone system are, etc). You can also write a page saying "this was added while fixing bug #23"

  • IRM (Score:1)

    by sysbot ( 238421 )
    Great inventory and support software. http://www.stackworks.net/view.php/irm/ [stackworks.net]

    Use it at previous work places.

  • Better way to search (Score:3, Informative)

    by lilmouse ( 310335 ) on Monday May 16, 2005 @11:49AM (#12544033)
    I was using Google to search for this sort of thing. A pain in the friggen mouse. Much better search engine is dmoz.org [dmoz.org]. There are **many** products out there that can do what you want.

    Another way to search is to go on sourceforge and look for CRM (Customer Relation Management) in the Enterprise part...

    Having said all that, I'll recommend OTRS [otrs.org].

    --LWM

  • Simple, works : Mantis (Score:3, Informative)

    by BigJim.fr ( 40893 ) <jim@liotier.org> on Monday May 16, 2005 @11:51AM (#12544057) Homepage
    Very simple to deploy, simple enough so that even non-technical users feel confortable, somewhat customizable... I've deployed it twice and all users have always loved it :
    http://www.mantisbt.org/ [mantisbt.org]
  • Try out elog [midas.psi.ch].

    It's a simple web-based logging system (single stand-alone executable availabile for *nix or windoze) that you can get running in just a few minutes. We use it for tracking issues with vendors, entering changes to machines, etc.

    It's free and the opportunity cost is only an hour or so. It won't do everything but it will probably meet your needs and you can impress your coworkers by having it up and running by the end of the day.

  • A program we decided to use in a 6-person shop was the HelpDesk Issue Management [centralmanclc.com] (also known as helpmeict [sourceforge.net]). Simple to set up.
  • The best would be an open, web-based solution that let third-party hardware and software repair technicians add their own notes to it--sort of like a medical record that follows the computer through its life.
  • http://www.bugzilla.org/ [bugzilla.org] may work for you, depending on the complexity and requirements of features you need.
  • I would say try making a php script that connects to a database. I could whip one up for you in a few hours easily.
  • Use a weblog or simple file for the "what did I do today", and add links into some wiki or other, per-case/customer files for tracking the actual changes.

    Before I'd go and test a bazillion of complicated systems, I'd try the file-based approach first.
    You can do the linking in HTML.

    - Hubert
  • it's free, available here: http://bugzilla.org/ [bugzilla.org] it's not exactly designed for your specific task (it's primarily aimed at quality control / bug tracking) but shouldn't be hard to adopt for your purposes.
  • eGroupWare [egroupware.org] has a trouble ticket system that you can adapt to suit your exact need fairly readily.
  • Try DCL http://dcl.sourceforge.net/ [sourceforge.net] out. It's in use by a large group of people, is very stable. Unlike most of it's competitors it's extremely easy and fast to get setup and yet provides a very featureful interface.
  • ..is what i suggest.
  • What about running SugarCRM [sugarondemand.com]for yourself?

    You can add each customer as an account and mannage their "cases" (service calls) track tasks associated with the services calls, schedule customers and things like that. Check it out. :)

  • I would of course recommend the http://www.issuetrackerproduct.com/ [issuetrackerproduct.com] which is Open Source and thus free. The advantage with the IssueTrackerProduct is that it's written with focus on usability and simiplicity. If it's too complicated, like many of the above mentioned are, people stop using it and go back to making spreadsheets or todo lists in Word.

    The IssueTrackerProduct requires a simple installation of the Zope server which you can run either on it's own or fronted by an apache.

    One tremendous advantage
  • OCS Inventory [sourceforge.net]

    No what you asked for dirrectly but this is what we've been using to do something similar. This will tell you everything that's installed on the machine. What hardware it has, BOIS, free space etc. All in about 10 sseconds. After that is has sections for fixes, comments, changes etc.

    We looked at getting just ticket tracking (which is basically what your wanting) and realised we wanted inventory tracking more.

    What we are looking forward to is OCS Inventory [sourceforge.net] is planning to work with the G [indepnet.org]
  • I'm sure there are a bunch of fully-developed options available, and probably even some nifty free-as-in-free ones. But every x years I get hired somewhere as "the tech guy" and before long I just build a simple database app to do this. In the past I've used M*cr*s*ft Acc*ss, but next time I'll probably do it with MySQL and a PHP-based browser interface. Using a home-grown system makes it easy to include just the functionality you need and to adapt as your needs change.
  • If your a one man shop Access should be good enough set up some simple tables and forms and be done with it. You don't have time to putz around with something more complicated you don't need something real robust to track one persons work.
  • dotproject.net

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