Request tracking systems

Question

Hi folks

I'm looking for a request tracking system to replace the proprietary one that we use at the moment. I had a quick look at OTRS, but it looks quite complicated to setup and I'm not sure if it will do what I want. These are the main features that I'm looking for... I'm hoping that someone here can suggest a suitable solution.

• suitable for receiving pre-sale customer enquiries, without the customer needing to register
• customers can send questions via emails without having to use a web form
• agents can 'pull in' answers from a database, to save having to type all the answers
• our current system powers our website knowledge base, so this functionality would be good to!

Anyone any suggestions?

Thanks

Al

Answer 1

Hi Al,

You are right that OTRS might not be the easiest of systems to set up, but it will bring you all the features you mentioned (and of course, a lot more as well).

OTRS is great at processing inbound email. If you use the so-called 'FAQ module' you can use entries from this module as answers to emails. Also you can pre-define anwers that are repeatedly used, such as requests for log-files and so, in the system. You can make the FAQ module publicly visible, and you also can differentiate between internal and external FAQ's.

I would suggest to just install OTRS on a test system and evaluate it. If you have any additional questions, you can try the helpful community of OTRS on the mailing lists. Also, feel free to drop me a line if necessary.

Regards,

Michiel

Answer 2

We use Kayako, and from seeing the distinctive look and feel of the product all over the place - so do a huge number of other companies.

It has all the features you have mentioned, and it's quite easy to set up. (Not trivial though - I don't know a helpdesk package that is.)

I think if I had to start again on this, I'd use helpspot. But I've not used it in anger, so YMMV.

This wouldn't be stackoverflow.com if I didn't mention fogBugz. Here's a discussion about using fogbugz as a helpdesk package. That article may be out of date though, and the latest version of FogBugz appears to have inbuilt facilities for handling customer emails.

Answer 3

See this stackoverflow question:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/255162/customer-support-system-with-easy-integration