I have worked in a couple of fairly large companies in my native Venezuela, in both, the support department had many complications when managing the technical problems of the users, they were solved with the use of various technologies, but above all with the start-up of a Open Source Ticket System.
Although I am not an expert in the field of support, sometimes I had to put a lot of hand into that area in one of the aforementioned companies, in the same way, I had the possibility of being a GLPI user and choosing to implement osTicket, the one that for me is the best Open Source Ticket System.
To choose to implement osTicket In a company in the container storage area, I had to analyze various tools in which the following stand out: RT (Request Tracker), OTRS: Open Ticket Request System, GLPI (Gestionnaire Libre de Parc Informático) y osTicket.
I have stayed with the latter, mainly because it allowed me to automate the sending of tickets according to the department that was responsible for solving it (And in this way we manage the support of all areas, not only the technology area). Likewise, I made sure that there was no rework, since each ticket could only be taken by one user.
It is important to note that osTicket It has the necessary functionalities to manage supports of any kind. In addition to being open source, it has a large community that allows it to offer more and better features than its competitors.
What is an Open Source Ticket System?
Los Open Source Ticket System or what in Spanish is known as Open Source Ticket System, They are free applications that allow us to manage incidents and requests for services in an organized and automated way.
Incidents and requests are received based on tickets sent by users, which are stored and delivered in various ways to the operator in charge of managing it. These tools are widely used in Call Centers, IT Department, Data Center, Telemarketing Companies, among others.
What is osTicket?
It is a web tool that allows you to manage in a transparent, easy and simple way, incidents created by users through email, web forms and telephone calls.
osTicket eis considered by many the best Open Source Ticket System today, as it has many more features and tools than most ticket systems on the market.
In the same way, the installation of osTicket is simple and its usability stands out above the other solutions. In addition, it has a powerful API that allows integrating the tool with third-party solutions.
OsTicket features
- Business rule management using SLA
- It allows you to filter the tickets according to the department to which it corresponds to solve it.
- It helps to establish workflows according to the type of ticket, making automatic responses if necessary.
- Possibility of incorporating multimedia files (photos, images, audio and videos) to the various requests.
- You can make notes on tickets about all actions taken on the topic in question.
- Capture of tickets by email, web, telephone, fax and through the API.
- Custom fields in the tickets, which allow users to request precise information.
- Rich text HTML
- Incorporation of Help Topics to solve incidents without the need to open a ticket, it also allows the creation of categories in tickets.
- Prevent multiple collaborators from answering a ticket at the same time.
- Transfer tickets between departments or assign them to team members to ensure they are handled by the correct staff.
- All applications are filed online. The user can log in using the email and ticket ID, although no registration or user is required to submit a ticket.
- Comprehensive reports that give a glimpse into the performance and functionality of the support team.
- Many more.
How to install osTicket
The 2 times that I have installed osTicket I have followed the official method that is in its repositories, which I indicate below, not without first mentioning the Requirements and some extensions that are recommended to have installed.
Requirements
- HTTP server running, preferably Apache
- PHP version 5.4 or higher, 5.6 recommended
- mysqli extension for PHP
- MySQL database version 5.0 or higher
Recommendations
- gd, gettext, imap, json, mbstring, and xml extension for PHP
- APC module enabled and configured for PHP
Installing
The easiest way to install osTicket is to clone the public repository, then create a folder on our web server and finally deploy the application. As it's shown in the following:
git clone https://github.com/osTicket/osTicket
cd osTicket
mkdir /var/www/htdocs/osticket/
php manage.php deploy --setup /var/www/htdocs/osticket/
You can then access your server's osticket oagina to install and configure the application, as required. You can also get new updates and deploy it (from the folder in which you cloned the repository), by performing the following commands
git pull
php manage.php deploy -v /var/www/htdocs/osticket/The application is also available for installation in the famous tool Softaculous.
I highly recommend this application and if you have the need to manage incidents more appropriately, surely this tool will help you quickly and easily.