OTRS: Open Source Ticket Request System - More about OTRS
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A few more things should be said about the OTRS product, and then we can also present the company, OTRS AG, because they have two other interesting issue tracking and user servicing tools, both open source and free; they also offer ITIL compliant consulting services. OTRS, the ticket request system, is also ITIL compliant.
The web interface of OSTR is written in XHTML and JavaScript (if enabled). But the latter can be disabled for security reasons. OSTR has a custom templating system: DTL (Dynamic Template Language). This aids the fashion through which output is displayed. There’s an additional extension to the product; it’s called ((OTRS-Manager)).
The double parenthesis between which the name of each product is delimited is the style for OTRS products, but in written material it is usually omitted. The graphical interface adds increased functionality that is split into three major user groups: managers, dispatchers, and supporters. Each of them has different roles, access, and of course features. This extension also improves the way data is reported.
Active Service Providing support is added and comes right out of the box. The same goes for calendar, scheduling, organizing meetings, and working time, which can be useful for time-based calculations (SLA). The users are split into three main categories by definition: administrators, agents, and customers. The first group has full access; they can change system settings, delete tickets, change their status, and so forth.
Agents are users that are usually part of the staff of the specific departments. These persons answer, provide solutions, and handle the issues regarding the inbound tickets. They don’t have full access to the entire ticketing system; each just belongs to his or her division or department (e.g.; sales, billing, IT helpdesk, etc.).
Users from the last group, customers, are the ones that have the necessary rights (if enabled, for example with anonymous access) to post trouble tickets. Each user group has a different web interface. Admins have the most complex user interface (UI) with lots of functions and options. Agents can do their everyday job of solving issues through their UI (also via e-mail). Customers can create and monitor their own tickets from the UI.
Finally, there are free live demos that you can try out of OTRS. You can check them out at the official page—here. It’s quite interesting to see for yourself how it looks and how you can work with OTRS. But basically, the truth is that everything is customizable and “skinnable.” The beauty of OSTR lies in its core architecture and impressively extensive list of features and capabilities.
As promised earlier, let’s take a moment to introduce the OSTR AG Company itself as well as their other two OSTR-related products. OSTR are experts in best-practice-based help desks and in delivering ITIL-compliant IT service management solutions. Besides OSTR, the ticket request system, there’s OTRS::ITSM and SIRIOS. Both are, of course, open source and totally free.
OTRS::ITSM, apparently, is the very first open source ITIL compliant IT service management solution on the software marketplace. ITSM stands for IT Service Management. The product in itself contains the three major requirements: incident management, problem management, and configuration management. This makes the software into the most complete ITSM solution at the moment. Best of all, it’s free!
SIRIOS stands for System for Incident Response in Operational Security. In short, this incident processing system was designed for emergency response teams (CERT). Both SIRIOS and ITSM are based on the ITSM ticketing system. That’s the framework and core architecture on which they both work. For more information, just head over to the official site and read the FAQ. And, of course, don’t miss the full OSTR Manual.
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