Issue Tracking Ticketing Systems? 129
An anonymous reader asks: "Our company has expanded to 5 employees, and we are looking at setting up and installing an Issue Tracking System for all employees to use throughout the company. It turns out there are many ticketing systems available in both commercial and open source solutions. We originally planned on using Request Tracker but we were unable to implement it due to the complexities of the system. For our company, we are looking for a simple to install Issue Ticketing system (preferably PHP and MySQL based to be hosted on our basic web hosting) to improve both the efficiency of our company, and improve our record keeping of all of our issues. How do you manage all of your tasks, and what software do you use, if any, to achieve this?"
We use Jira (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.atlassian.com/software/jira/ [atlassian.com]
BBH
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I'm *very* impressed with Jira as a Bugzilla replacement. We're able to track features and roadmaps without having to pester the PM.
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If I could add one thing it would be the ability to auto-open and close a simple ticket for things like password resets and printer installs.
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The only downside to Jira is that it's price tag (for business users) has risen steadily, but at l
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Enterprise level (Score:2)
Extra bonus points go to a system that is clear enough that it is possible
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TestDirector is probably a little better, but still sucky, and doesn't integrate with anything else.
MKS has a product that's supposedly integrated, but I've never figured out how to use it properly, and their source control product is fundanmentally flawed (no atomic commits - the commit gets logged, put into the DB, before the actual source is processed. If the source fails to process, it
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OMG what a pile of fetid shite, imagine a ticket system that demands ActiveX!
Better RT or Bugzilla than that loathsome junk...
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It installs an unbelievable number of ActiveX components (IE), or requires a separate extension for Mozilla/Firefox. TD behaves nothing like a WebApp. There are no standard page refreshs, but instead, it uses the ActiveX/FF plug-in and tries to feels client side software. It's similar to what AJAX tries to ac
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Daniel
trac (Score:5, Insightful)
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Compare this to JIRA, which is a much more full featured tool, yet somehow misses some of the features above that I cared most a
Seconded, trac rules (Score:2)
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Trac is not ready (Score:1)
So after looking around a bit on the net, I chose Trac and installed it on my home system to try it out.
Trac looked good. Had an interesting UI. The buzz on the net was favourable.
Took a little bit of effort to install, but then so did most other issue tracking systems.
So far so good.
I entered a few test issues. Still so far so good.
Then I tried to correct those issues. Change the issue type.
Even delete an issue.
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Whatevr you do (Score:2, Funny)
It is the most retarded piece of shit I've ever seen, and "proud to be IE only"
s/Craft/ServiceCenter/ (Score:2)
Not only is it expensive as hell, but it's also an utter turd of a program that looks and works like it was designed by retarded monkeys on crack.
get yourself a Wiki (Score:2, Interesting)
RT (Score:1)
Hire a neighbour's kid to do it for you.
OK, I agree RT takes some investment to get going. As an RT administrator myself, I think it's well worth it. And once it's there, it runs itself.
But if that's really too hard for you, use mantis.
Or M-x todo-mode
Iain.Re: (Score:1)
We use it a lot, a lot of lots.
The problem is it's slow, in fact it slows done that much sometimes that it's hardly usable, well OK, that may be the hardware...
Except that we were told that the reason it was running like absolute shite for a while was because the admin guy who normally 're-organises the database' on a regular basis was on holiday.
Sorry c
Re: RT (Score:1)
I realise that's a sample size of one, but I'm sure that's good enough for anyone.
Iain.
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trac, or otrs (Score:4, Interesting)
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I turned OTRS on where I work (250+ employees, 4 FT IT staff) and couldn't be happier with it. The reporting leaves a bit to be desired, as does the "prettyness" of the web-based UI, but the underlying workflow support is pretty solid. There is a lot of customization that can be done just from the web-UI-based configuration. As for the mail piping, we currently have it pulling from several Exchange mailboxes into specific queuees via POP3. The reporting l
We use a combination of (Score:2, Interesting)
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We saw nearly the same thing, but with rap-X [rap-x.com] and a wiki... after we started using them, we got all sorts of folks asking for access. So we turned on rap-X self-registration, so they could use it like the wiki and away they went.
--dave
Don't use Helpstar (Score:2)
I will be monitoring this discussion closely. I want to know what other people like.
Wikipedia article has a LOT of links (Score:4, Informative)
Hint : Mantis (GPL) and Cerberus Helpdesk (proprietary) are both php/Mysql based.
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And, being it's a wiki, it would be a Kind Act for someone, perhaps the poster, to add the slashdot results to the page.
--dave
Overkill? (Score:4, Insightful)
Perhaps just implement a policy that says all requests for change/work/whatever must be formally made by email. Prefix it with [TASK] or something equally dumb and you have a nice way of filtering it into a folder.
It's nice to want to spend the time and implement a flexible, sizeable solution but think of the time to maintain it down the track. For 5 employees is it really worth it? We have about 20 people doing coding/testing (and a handful of other managerial types) on site and we have 1 full time person to manage the issue tracker and source control. That's pretty much all he does (and the occasional IT fill-in when the IT guys take leave).
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Obligatory joelonsoftware link [joelonsoftware.com].
Iain.
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I can say from anecdotal experience that you could not be more totally wrong, at least for some cases. Mantis provided a way for us to keep track of what was needed to be done, who needed to do it, and how important it was to do it - without crawling through our email folders and manually trying to compute what our priorities should be. It was even better for when we needed to deal with outside collaborator
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Think about it, if you were a single employee and had a minimum of 30 different issues to keep track of at any time, don't you think that keeping them in a ticket system would be a lot easier than basic email?
I understand your point about using email filtering, but tha
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Well, maybe they hope to grow, and would like a good system in place for formally tracking things now. Otherwise, they're gonna have some crappy, homegrown, ad-hoc system which in a few years when they are a bigger organization is going to fall apart completely.
It's way easier to do this stuff up-front, than try to add it in later when everyone is used to whatever way you've been doing it.
Cheers
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I think it depends on the nature of your work, but in my experience having a proper task tracking is essential for any team working on a complex software product.
I work in an organisation with 3 developers and we have 1400 tickets in our task tracker. It would be a nightmare to coordinate it all via email.
The system tracks all bugs, enhancements, nice to haves etc.
It gives you a lot of piece of mind knowing that everything is in there and will not fall through the
Fogbugz (Score:2, Interesting)
http://www.fogcreek.com/FogBugz/ [fogcreek.com]
Its not an PHP/MySQL solution, but that was not an important parameter for us.
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Mantis (Score:3, Informative)
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I have implemented Mantis at three different organizations and getting ready to deploy a fourth. It's easy to setup and easy to customize.
Bugzilla? (Score:4, Funny)
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Indeed. Bugzilla meets the criteria of being mysql and php. The template system is easy enough to cut out the bits you don't want and add custom fields to keep track of whatever.
If nothing else it is a good place to start since its a download away.
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I know I'm asking for it... (Score:3, Informative)
It's easy to install and is extendable.
No, it's not open source. But it's free as in it don't cost nothing (beyond the server license, that is.)
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Tracking Systems (Score:5, Informative)
My team just finished evaluating issue trackers, and the final three that we came up with were Bugzilla [bugzilla.org], Trac [edgewall.org] and Mantis [http] for both technical and political reasons (Mantis is used elsewhere in the company but that's not saying much since we're so big).
We ended up deciding on Trac because of its wonderful integration with SVN, we are using a lot of python in other areas of our team and it is pretty well documented, there is a great wealth of easy to install (but not always well written) plugins [trac-hacks.org] and other than some quirks with the ClearSiler package [clearsilver.net] it is no harder to install than any of the other packages we evaluated. If you use the subversion repository (which can be used for more than code), it is really easy to make links to other tickets, specific documents inside the repository and specific revisions.
However, Trac requires [edgewall.org] Python (you'll probably want 2.5 as the next release will require it) and either mod_python or fastCGI with a compatible webserver in addition to a subversion repository. Depending on what database you choose (SQLite3 is the default but you can also use Postgre and MySQL but the MySQL support isn't perfect yet) you will have to install the appropriate Python bindings for it and if you install the current stable release you will also need ClearSilver (but make sure you check the Trac Wiki before you install as people seem to have trouble unless they use specific versions of ClearSilver).
If you are serious about using only MySQL and PHP, I would suggest Mantis. It certainly isn't the prettiest thing out there but it does work and does meet your required dependancies. However, if you can swing the extra dependancies I would suggest Trac. Good luck!Roundup (Score:2)
OnTime & TodoList (Score:1)
ServiceDesk (Score:2)
Issue tracking may be mandatory (Score:2, Interesting)
A whiteboard or a wiki would encounter a large amount of scrutiny while trying to explain to a DER (designated engineering representative) how the highest priority issue on the whiteboard got replaced by your five year old w
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What's your five-year old doing at work unsupervised?
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Definitely Mantis. (Score:2)
TrackIt (Score:1)
I built my own (Score:2)
Basically, a bit of thought showed that the absolute basics we needed were not that fancy. A way to add a ticket. A way to see that there were new tickets. A way to mark yourself as dealing with a ticket. A way for the manager to see all the tickets.
So I knocked something together in
Got to second Trac (Score:1)
I'm in a similar situation (albeit we have about 30 employees) and I'm trying to convince everybody that we should use Trac [edgewall.org]. Its Python-based and can use SQLite, PostgreSQL or (experimental) MySQL. It also integrates nicely with a Version Control System (with Subversion preferred), has a built in Wiki system, reporting (with custom queries), timeline, roadmap of releases and search functions for when it starts getting a bit bigger.
At the moment we have an in-house solution which I'm responsible for mainta
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Easy to deploy and backup.
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FrontRange HEAT (Score:1)
Service Center (Score:1)
Don't use Service Center (Score:2)
Heed his warning! stay away from ServiceCenter! (Score:2)
I figured we were one of the last companies in the world with that piece of shit software.
The biggest problem with SC is that it's so obviously bad that it's impossible to describe how badly it sucks because you are automatically calling everybody who had anything with buying it complete idiots.
Just to give outsiders an idea of how bad SC is on the scale of things sorted by suckage:
Websphere PHP open leg fracture Windows Staffware Exchange SC
Drop me a line (Score:2)
FACETS - internal application (Score:2)
Aside from saying that I like it, I'm not sure how I could show you anything. If you're interested in seeing some of it, I could dig into the FACETS Development team and ask if there is a public version.
harryk
Eventum (Score:2)
Vtiger CRM (Score:1)
Go for Mantis, not Trac (Score:2)
mark
Wait, what? (Score:2)
Just find the installation instructions and start working, it took me about half a day, including other tasks and lunch to get trac going the first time.
CVSTrac (Score:2)
We use CVSTrac [cvstrac.org], and it serves our purposes very well. It's not PHP/MySQL, it's SQLite [sqlite.org]-based, and is written in C, but to me, that just makes it easier to support -- there is one native process, so just one point of failure, no DB servers to monitor (yet, the data is available in a SQL DB), no web servers to configure (though you can set it up with an external webserver if you wish).
It is free, well-documented and is actively developed. It was written by the same guy [wikipedia.org] who wrote SQLite [sqlite.org].
It is also se
Cerberus Helpdesk (Score:2)
If you're looking at using it for tech/customer support and sales issues, take a look at Cerberus Helpdesk. [cerberusweb.com] It's a commercial offering, but at work we decided on it because it has a number of features that we found convenient (great e-mail integration, bayesian spam filtering, built-in knowledgebase management, etc.) which I was unable to find matched in any [fF]ree offerings. A 3-seat commercial license i
Cerberus Helpdesk Considered Harmful (Score:1)
Pros: Excellent email integration (even does the Right Thing with In-Reply-To and References headers!). Significantly easier to install and manage than RT. F
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/Mikael
AgileTrack (Score:1)
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One Or Zero (Score:2)
Anyhoo... http://www [oneorzero.com]
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SupportTrio (Score:1)
There are so much out there (Score:2)
-I also have used and implemented BugZilla, it's somewhat pointed at the developers, but good enough for anything else.
-Sharepoint does have an issue tracker implemented, but DON'T USE IT. It's awful, I am currently building a custom issue tracker through Sharepoint and I have to modify just about everything from fields to forms.
-I also used OCS-NG in combination with GLPI. It's pretty simple and has a l
Why is RT too "complex"? (Score:2)
The great thing about RT, in my opinion, is its flexibility. Unfortunately, that leads to a certain amount of complexity, but you really can do just about anything with it.
GNATS (Score:1)
The classic is GNATS [gnu.org].
Or roll your own. We needed to be able to integrate ours with our bespoke messaging system, and it didn't take long to knock out something from scratch in PHP and PostgreSQL. We're about the same size as your group.
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I was able to bang out a system for a company of about 50 in just a couple weeks, and it's be
Further Info from Submitter (Score:1)
I asked this question. Sorry for not being able to write to the thread but it was posted up on Slashdot throughout the night. I tried to get to the point in my summary but I can see that it wasn't really enough info.
Some history: My job is to do all of the computer work for our company. This ranges from a 40 page catalog I designed from scratch, online buying website, computer and network tech support, computer training, artwork, and a whole bunch of other things. Before I came here 4 years
Hiveminder! (Score:2)
I was going to suggest Hiveminder [hiveminder.com]. I've recently started using it for tracking issues at work as well as home. It has lots of features that can be used to support GTD methodologies. It's also usable via e-mail, although I haven't really taken the time to see how useful the e-mail interface is.
Hiveminder also supports tagging, multiple groups (with different sets of people), and the creation of unassigned tasks for a group (which can be claimed by a member) or assigning tasks at creation. Tasks can hav
Why is issue tracking so hard? (Score:1)
Custome Ticketing Alternative (Score:1)
remote clustering, intergration (Score:2)
Ideally it would also be integrable with other CRM
Easy in concept, hard in practice (Score:1)
You'll notice there are ton of packages listed above, and about 90% of them say "Avoid x! It's terrible!"
This is because ticketing systems are really easy in concept - user calls, take down issue, follow up with it - but very hard in practice. For instance, how do you handle taking down which user this issue affects? Drop-down box? (that's usually guess #1 for most packages). Bzzzzt. Try that with more than 50 users. Text field? Bzzzzzzzt. One day you'll have an incident for William Clinton, one day anoth
Tracking Systems - Squishlist.com (Score:1)
Menturio (Score:1)
Help Desk or Source Database? (Score:1)
Trac and JIRA are the best i've used (Score:2)
JIRA is a very slick commercial issue tracker. Everything is configurable, including tickets workflows - so you can use it
RT isn't particularly complex... (Score:2)
You apt-get install and set up your MTA to send mail to it, and you're basically done.
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