Suggestion for decent, free, ticketing with simple needs?
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So, I am the only tech support at our company and it's pretty low key. People just call me, walk in the office, send an email when they need help. We don't use tickets, though I typically save/archive emails with work requests from the boss.
In any case, the boss finally asked me for a ticketing system to use with me. She only wants a "basic" system of assigning tickets to me with work requests, with simple sort of "pending", "in progress", "done" statuses, etc. Maybe deadline dates or whatever.
She first asked for this to be in "our cloud", which is manager-speak for "some file kept in our Box folder". I cringed, like, no, I'm not using a spreadsheet as my ticketing system!
So then I got on my Airtable account and created a DB for it there. But that doesn't really work since there is no way to use a "public" link with editing abilities, I'd have to create her an account, so that won't work well based on my toying around.There are systems like Trello which we could use for free, it has mobile apps and stuff, maybe that would work as a ticket system? But there is some "method" to using kanban and I don't want to have to teach no methodologies.
I already have an account on Freshdesk which is an actual ticketing system, but I have it set up more for public support at our ecommerce, not internal tickets.
So my question is, is there a simple and free ticket system that is super easy for the boss to use and access anywhere which is really just for tickets for me and management only? Or, if not a cloud service, something I can host on our internal server, which is also an option.
One feature that would be good is ability to make notes on the ticket by email, so neither of us have to constantly log in to it for updates and notes.
I really don't need the kitchen sink here, just something management can use to assign larger and longer-term jobs and projects. It could be anything from "replace so-and-so's printer" all the way to "build new website for X project". They just want to organize "things they want me to do in the future".
I just want anything, anything but a freaking spreadsheet in a file sync folder!
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There have been some recent threads on this topic. Perhaps you could review them using the forum's Tags feature.
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Not cloud-based, but have you checked out osTicket?
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Spiceworks online is free.
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@NerdyDad said in Suggestion for decent, free, ticketing with simple needs?:
Not cloud-based, but have you checked out osTicket?
He explained that the manager uses the term "cloud" to mean the opposite of what everyone else means: he means on-premises, non-cloud.
So osTicket is the obvious and, I think, right solution. Free, used by the community and we have a setup guide for it already!
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Cool, will take a look at osTicket and report my findings.
@scottalanmiller said in Suggestion for decent, free, ticketing with simple needs?:
we have a setup guide for it already!
Where is that?
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@guyinpv said in Suggestion for decent, free, ticketing with simple needs?:
Cool, will take a look at osTicket and report my findings.
@scottalanmiller said in Suggestion for decent, free, ticketing with simple needs?:
we have a setup guide for it already!
Where is that?
https://mangolassi.it/topic/11624/installing-osticket-1-10-on-centos-7
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OK I built up a Ubuntu box on VULTR and got osTicket running.
The first "issue" I have is that, this system is really meant to be "internal" which means I want to lock out any public/ anonymous stuff.
I've already set this up in osTicket but it's not really what I'm looking for. In other words, when you go to the default home page, there are links to submit new tickets, look up KB stuff, find a ticket, etc. I don't want any of that.
Essentially what I want is when either the boss or myself visit the site, it immediate asked for login with no other options. No home screen etc. Just go directly to the agent areas.At first I made an .htaccess basic auth password wall but this is silly because now we have to log in twice, even though it does block out anonymous access.
I wonder if osTicket has a "mode" with no public interface? Just log in directly to the admin screens. I can do this myself by jacking up the default templates but that is not the best solution.
Maybe I can tweak with some htaccess rewrites so that there is no home page and it just redirects strait to the admin login? I might try that.The interface is kind of old on this thing, a little cluttered. I wonder, do they have alternate styles/templates/themes that can be installed?
So far so good as far as testing. I need to enable all the email handling next.
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Isn't this what you want?
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I already did that. But it isn't the effect I want. If you visit the URL of the system you will see buttons for creating new tickets, looking up tickets, etc etc.
All I want is that when they visit the URL, it immediately demands a login.
Not this:
Not this either:
But just this:
There needs to be no "public" interface of any kind, just the login for employees.
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Did you try Katak? It's a fork of OSTicket.
Disclaimer: I have never used it, but I see that it exists.
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@guyinpv said in Suggestion for decent, free, ticketing with simple needs?:
Essentially what I want is when either the boss or myself visit the site, it immediate asked for login with no other options. No home screen etc. Just go directly to the agent areas.
Just put Apache level authentication in front of it, easy peasy. Or put it in a VPN, but that's generally silly.
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@guyinpv said in Suggestion for decent, free, ticketing with simple needs?:
There needs to be no "public" interface of any kind, just the login for employees.
If you are having that issue, it means that you have exposed the wrong directory in your web server, I think. Instead of pointing the web browser to the root of the install, point it to the scp directory. I think that is what you want.
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@scottalanmiller said in Suggestion for decent, free, ticketing with simple needs?:
@guyinpv said in Suggestion for decent, free, ticketing with simple needs?:
Essentially what I want is when either the boss or myself visit the site, it immediate asked for login with no other options. No home screen etc. Just go directly to the agent areas.
Just put Apache level authentication in front of it, easy peasy. Or put it in a VPN, but that's generally silly.
You know I may just do this for the experience. Maybe I'll spin up something on Vultr
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@wirestyle22 said in Suggestion for decent, free, ticketing with simple needs?:
@scottalanmiller said in Suggestion for decent, free, ticketing with simple needs?:
@guyinpv said in Suggestion for decent, free, ticketing with simple needs?:
Essentially what I want is when either the boss or myself visit the site, it immediate asked for login with no other options. No home screen etc. Just go directly to the agent areas.
Just put Apache level authentication in front of it, easy peasy. Or put it in a VPN, but that's generally silly.
You know I may just do this for the experience. Maybe I'll spin up something on Vultr
This just means htaccess/htpasswd, which is what I did. All this does is make people have to login TWICE. Once to get past Apache, and again for osTicket.
@scottalanmiller said in Suggestion for decent, free, ticketing with simple needs?:
@guyinpv said in Suggestion for decent, free, ticketing with simple needs?:
There needs to be no "public" interface of any kind, just the login for employees.
If you are having that issue, it means that you have exposed the wrong directory in your web server, I think. Instead of pointing the web browser to the root of the install, point it to the scp directory. I think that is what you want.
This is what I want. I was thinking some kind of DNS-level redirect or htaccess, but changing the public root folder sounds like a simpler method. Will have to try this.
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@wirestyle22 said in Suggestion for decent, free, ticketing with simple needs?:
Did you try Katak? It's a fork of OSTicket.
Disclaimer: I have never used it, but I see that it exists.
Any idea why the fork? What does it do that sets it apart?
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@guyinpv said in Suggestion for decent, free, ticketing with simple needs?:
@wirestyle22 said in Suggestion for decent, free, ticketing with simple needs?:
@scottalanmiller said in Suggestion for decent, free, ticketing with simple needs?:
@guyinpv said in Suggestion for decent, free, ticketing with simple needs?:
Essentially what I want is when either the boss or myself visit the site, it immediate asked for login with no other options. No home screen etc. Just go directly to the agent areas.
Just put Apache level authentication in front of it, easy peasy. Or put it in a VPN, but that's generally silly.
You know I may just do this for the experience. Maybe I'll spin up something on Vultr
This just means htaccess/htpasswd, which is what I did. All this does is make people have to login TWICE. Once to get past Apache, and again for osTicket.
True, not ideal, but it can be locked down.
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@guyinpv said in Suggestion for decent, free, ticketing with simple needs?:
@wirestyle22 said in Suggestion for decent, free, ticketing with simple needs?:
This is what I want. I was thinking some kind of DNS-level redirect or htaccess, but changing the public root folder sounds like a simpler method. Will have to try this.
I've not tried that, BUT given that there is a public facing application AND the internal one, I think that that is the intended design. The interface that you want isn't just a different look than the public one, it's actually a different application entirely. So I'm pretty sure that the change of the web pointer is all that will be needed.
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@scottalanmiller said in Suggestion for decent, free, ticketing with simple needs?:
@wirestyle22 said in Suggestion for decent, free, ticketing with simple needs?:
Did you try Katak? It's a fork of OSTicket.
Disclaimer: I have never used it, but I see that it exists.
Any idea why the fork? What does it do that sets it apart?
The new functionality:
Multilingual system using Gettext. The system admin can change the language of the support system.
The choice of the ticket topic for the client is now optional.
Multiple attachments: Now you can attach multiple files to a ticket.
Introduced the “Reopen grace period”. After this period, set by the administrator, the ticket can no longer be re-opened by the client.
It is possible to enable the ability to see unassigned tickets for staff members. In other words, you can have staff members who can only see tickets assigned to yourself. The navigation bar will change accordingly.
Role permission are enhanced and simplified and there is no more confusion between role and account type.
The staff profile now shows the member´s own department.
Ticket assignment: In the scroll menu for each staff member is now shown also his own department.More secure password management with the use of SHA512, salting and stretching in computing the hash.
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I don't understand this thread at all..
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Manager wants a "cloud" helpdesk that isn't cloud
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You then install osTicket on Vultr (Cloud)
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Then you complain about clicking through an extra screen for a FREE helpdesk, but previously you were asked to use a spreadsheet
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This extra click becomes the most important thing about your helpdesk system.
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Manager does not understand cloud vs non-cloud. Why is he even logging into the system? I have a feeling that he is the one so concerned about this extra click thing. When in reality he probably only needs access once a week to feel like he knows what he is doing and to somehow grade your work.
P.S. use a password management system and you will save login time on every site you visit, not just the Help Desk.
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