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Request Tracker. IT Partners Conference Oliver Thomas 19 April 2005. Overview. What is RT? A Case Study RT on help.mit.edu What’s next?. Part 1: What is RT?. Request Tracker is one of several open source trouble ticket systems Feature rich and highly customizable - PowerPoint PPT Presentation
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Request Tracker
IT Partners ConferenceOliver Thomas19 April 2005
IT Partners Conference19 April 2005
Overview
1. What is RT?2. A Case Study3. RT on help.mit.edu4. What’s next?
IT Partners Conference19 April 2005
Part 1: What is RT?
• Request Tracker is one of several open source trouble ticket systems
• Feature rich and highly customizable• Active open source developer and
user community• In use at many universities and
companies
IT Partners Conference19 April 2005
What is RT?
• Several instances of RT in use at MIT• For an open source tool highly
scalable and database independent*• Commercial support and custom
development available• Several add-on components
– RTFM, a simple knowledge base– RTIR, an incident response system
IT Partners Conference19 April 2005
What is RT?
• Some unexpected feature gaps– Customer management and meta data– Lack of integrated reporting– No workflow management system*
• Not highly optimized; large instances require tuning
• Limitations of a web interface compared to a thick client
IT Partners Conference19 April 2005
Part 2: A Case Study
• Matlab license renewal requests processed via RT
• Successful example of (partial) process automation
• Almost entirely done through user-side scrip(t)ing
IT Partners Conference19 April 2005
Matlab Workflow
• Pre-processing1. Client fills out a web form for Matlab and Tool
Boxes2. Server script parses e-mail & generates license
file to pass to RT3. RT creates ticket and using scrips and
templates populates custom fields including license file and PLP fields
4. RT also creates a “refers to” link based on requisition number to SAPweb
5. Ticket is kept in “internal” queue not visible to customer
IT Partners Conference19 April 2005
Matlab Workflow
• Verification (manual)– VSLS staff verify req and order– Windows license/PLP generated at Mathworks if
necessary– Same for license for older version
• Order delivery– VSLS staff change subject from "order" to "license”– Move the ticket to the “Completed”– Triggers RT to send out custom e-mail with license
info– “Completed” queue is accessible to customers
IT Partners Conference19 April 2005
Matlab Workflow
• Post-processing– Using saved search, generate an Excel
spreadsheet containing critical data for SAP uploads
– A few manual steps to clean up extra fields and add SAP-related tags
– Submit spreadsheet for upload to SAP to release requisitions
– Using the update multiple tickets feature, annotate tickets
– After confirmation that file was successfully uploaded close ticket and update history
IT Partners Conference19 April 2005
Part 3: RT on help.mit.edu
• Developed extensive additions to RT 3.2 to make RT more useful in a mixed phone and email environment
• Additions to customizations, per-queue options, and diverse “queue space”
• Additions to RTFM• Many mods incorporated into RT 3.4
IT Partners Conference19 April 2005
MIT RT Screen Shots• Home Page• Search Builder• Search Results
(Queue Listing)• Ticket Display• Side-by-side Display• Ticket Reply/Comment• Queue Configuration• Queue Configuration
(Custom Fields)• User Configuration
IT Partners Conference19 April 2005
What’s Next?
• MIT RT queue administrator and developer workshops
• Richer and better integrated documentation and training
• Casetracker migrations for current Casetracker users
• Better and integrated reporting• An internal knowledge base
IT Partners Conference19 April 2005
Request Tracker
• MIT RT Project Notebook:web.mit.edu/tooltime
• Contact information:[email protected]
• Best Practical Solutions:www.bestpractical.com
• Other ticket tracking tools:web.mit.edu/tooltime/others
The End.
