Help Desk

Only successful tracking of calls or issues posted by an employee or customer can lead to satisfactory and timely solution. In a typical situation, its likely that an issue is not handled at the first point; instead it is escalated and the re-escalated. Want to track an escalating issue? IssueTracker bundled with PCQLinux 2005, allows one to track with whom the issue is with and what is the status of the issue-whether it is waiting, closed and open. 

You will need to install MySQL database server. Refer to the MySQL section in the article Connect Java Web Apps to Databases to install and set up MySQL. Next install RPMs for php (refer to the installation section of the article on online forum). Install the RPM named issue-tracker-4.0.3-1.i386.rpm, found on PCQLinux 2005 CD 3. Then create a database named issue-tracker as:

mysqladmin -u root -p create issue-tracker

When prompted, supply the password that you had set for the root MySQL user. Change to the directory
/var/www/html/issue-tracker/setup and issue

mysql -u root -p issue-tracker < schema.mysql

mysql -u root -p issue-tracker < indexes.sql

mysql -u root -p issue-tracker < data.sql

When prompted for password, supply the MySQL's root user password. Next, open the file named config.php, lying in the directory /var/www/html/issue-tracker/conf, in a text editor and modify the database configuration parameters as follows:

$db = array(

"type" => "mysql",

"host" => "localhost",

"port" => "",

"name" => "issue-tracker",

"user" => "root",

"pass" => "pwd"

);

IssueTracker is used by RedHat-the makers of RedHat Linux distributions-to track issues and bugs

Substitute pwd with the MySQL root user's password. You may also like to modify the lines defining the _ADMINEMAIL_, _EMAIL_, _TITLE_ and _COMPANY_ as per your preference. Browse the URL http://localhost/issue-tracker and you should be greeted by the Issue racker's login page. 

Before you begin to work with the IssueTracker, you need to create your technical support team. The team members should belong to various groups. If you have different product or service offerings, you might have different teams for different products. You can create groups and subgroups of your users and assign them to various combinations of products. Then, you can set up what each team member can do and how they can escalate or assign issues to other members. You can also choose to move an issue to a different support group. When all is done, you mark the issue as 'closed'. When assigning a support call, you would set up a duration (in days) for that issue to be resolved or escalated in turn. The system tracks this period and shows group and user-wise performance as a running display on the welcome page.

Login as the 'admin' user. The default password is 'demo'. Click on the Administration link at the top right of the page and under the 'Product Management' group, click on 'New Product'. Enter the name of the product, PCQLinux 2005, and click on the 'Create Product' button. Repeat for each product or service your company offers. Now, click on the 'New Category' link under 'Category Management'. This can either be the categories of the products/services you offer (software) or of the type of support call being answered (premium and partner). Click the 'Create Category' button and repeat for each product and call type.

Next, you would need to create different types of statuses for the issue. Some come pre-configured,however, you can add more if you want. To do this, go to the 'Status Management' category. 

The administration console of Issue-Tracker provides a starting point to set up all aspects of tracking issues in your organization

Next, you need to create both users and user groups. Either you can make a user group first and then users, or you make the users and then the group and add the users to those groups. Let's create the users first. Go to the 'User Management' module and click on 'New User'. Enter the username, first name, last name and e-mail address for each user. You can create up to 10 users in a single shot. If they are normal tech-support employees, check on the Employee option. If they are of supervisor or above cadre, select Admin. A user can be both an Employee as well as Admin. We created three users: Techsupport1, Techsupport2 and TechAdmin. TechAdmin was an 'admin' user, while the other two were of type Employee. Next open each user from the 'User Management' screen and go to the 'Permissions' link there. Select to let the users 'update status', otherwise, your support team members cannot close or escalate issues.

Now go to 'Group Management' and add new groups, one for each of your support teams. We made two groups: PCQLinux and PCQMag. Except for the name, you need not fill in anything else on the
creation form. Back in the 'Group Management' screen, click on each group in turn and then the 'Add/Remove Users' link on top. Select the members for this team from the left-side box and clickon'Udate Users' (this will go to the right side). Note that a bug in this will not allow you to de-select an item once you have clicked on it and if you click on Update button now, it will move to the other box. When you're done, click on the group's name on the gray bar on top and then on the Permissions link. You will find a table of users and associated permissions here. This is where you assign who does what on your support team. The 'Group Administrator' gives them the right to access all issues and assign them to other members and Technician lets them answer queries.

Select the permissions as appropriate (Techsupport1 and Techsupport2 get Technician and TechAdmin gets 'Group Administrator'). 

Wow, that was easy to do! The basic setup of Issue Tracker is complete. Feel free to add other information as you might find necessary. All passwords are sent to the respective user's e-mail IDs. Create another user now for use as a 'client' and submit issues. You will notice that your Technician and 'Group Administrator' users can see and respond to it. They can also assign it to someone else or even move the issue to a different product group (for example, if a magazine subscription issue lands up with PCQLinux team, the team can move it to the PCQMag group). When an issue has been completely answered, one of the team member should mark the Status as with one of the 'closed by ...' values.

Go ahead play with this comprehensive tracking system to provide a pleasant service to your customers.