Request Tracker IT Partners Conference Oliver Thomas 19 April 2005

2 IT Partners Conference 19 April 2005 Overview 1.What is RT? 2.A Case Study 3.RT on help.mit.edu 4.Whats next?

3 IT Partners Conference 19 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

4 IT Partners Conference 19 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

5 IT Partners Conference 19 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

6 IT Partners Conference 19 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

7 IT Partners Conference 19 April 2005 Matlab Workflow Pre-processing 1.Client fills out a web form for Matlab and Tool Boxes 2.Server script parses & generates license file to pass to RT 3.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

8 IT Partners Conference 19 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 with license info –Completed queue is accessible to customers

9 IT Partners Conference 19 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

10 IT Partners Conference 19 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 environment Additions to customizations, per-queue options, and diverse queue space Additions to RTFM Many mods incorporated into RT 3.4

11 IT Partners Conference 19 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

12 IT Partners Conference 19 April 2005 MIT RT Home Page

13 IT Partners Conference 19 April 2005 Search Builder

14 IT Partners Conference 19 April 2005 Search Results / Queue Listing

15 IT Partners Conference 19 April 2005 Ticket Display

16 IT Partners Conference 19 April 2005 Side-by-side Ticket Display

17 IT Partners Conference 19 April 2005 Ticket Reply / Comment Screen

18 IT Partners Conference 19 April 2005 Queue Configuration

19 IT Partners Conference 19 April 2005 Queue Configuration Custom Fields

20 IT Partners Conference 19 April 2005 User Configuration

21 IT Partners Conference 19 April 2005 Whats 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

22 IT Partners Conference 19 April 2005 Request Tracker MIT RT Project Notebook: web.mit.edu/tooltime Contact information: Best Practical Solutions: Other ticket tracking tools: web.mit.edu/tooltime/others The End.