Customer Centric RT?

RT Users
1

Has anyone done any work into making RT more customer centric?

Some history to help explain what I’m looking for.

Basically were an ASP hosting operation, we have hundreds of customers
that pay us money to host their site. Our company has several
departments that create tickets associated to each of the customers.
Currently the way were managing Customer is by having them defined as a
custom field and then we can write reports based off these custom
fields.

However, the queries we see related to custom fields have brought up
concerns about scalability of CF fields. Because we have several
hundred customers we have several hundred custom field values defined,
in addition to some more simple selection criteria.

Has anyone done any work in making a more Customer Centric version of
RT? In addition to our performance concerns we need to start adding
additional criteria for each customer ie, escalated customer, premier
support, etc. All of these parameters get factored into our escalation
scripts, our current thought is to do most of this work outside of RT
and then make the customer name display as Name § and then parse for
the () values to determine the correct ruleset. But I find this to be
terribly Kludge and there should be an easier way.

If anyone has any ideas or knows of any extensions to RT to help
accommodate some of these needs, I’d greatly appreciate it.

Justin Brodley

2

Basically were an ASP hosting operation, we have hundreds of customers
that pay us money to host their site. Our company has several
departments that create tickets associated to each of the customers.
Currently the way were managing Customer is by having them defined as
a custom field and then we can write reports based off these custom
fields.

Why can’t you use Requestor field to identify customers?

  • Mikko
3

-----Original Message-----
From: rt-users-bounces@lists.bestpractical.com [mailto:rt-users-
bounces@lists.bestpractical.com] On Behalf Of Mikko Lipasti
Sent: Tuesday, May 22, 2007 1:34 AM
To: rt-users@lists.bestpractical.com
Subject: Re: [rt-users] Customer Centric RT?

Basically were an ASP hosting operation, we have hundreds of
customers
that pay us money to host their site. Our company has several
departments that create tickets associated to each of the customers.
Currently the way were managing Customer is by having them defined
as
a custom field and then we can write reports based off these custom
fields.

Why can’t you use Requestor field to identify customers?

  • Mikko

I don’t know about Justin’s situation, but for u, we sometimes have
employees open tickets for customers. All correspondence should be via
the employee, but we need a way to find all tickets for a certain
customer. I’m planning to look into adding a “On Behalf Of” custom
field that validates against the user database, but I don’t know how
much work it will be.

-Kelly

4

Mikko Lipasti wrote:> On Mon, 2007-05-21 at 14:08 -0700, Justin Brodley wrote:

Basically were an ASP hosting operation, we have hundreds of customers
that pay us money to host their site. Our company has several
departments that create tickets associated to each of the customers.
Currently the way were managing Customer is by having them defined as
a custom field and then we can write reports based off these custom
fields.

Why can’t you use Requestor field to identify customers?

Or dedicate a queue to each customer? If the people using it are
different, a queue seems like the logical way to separate them.

Les Mikesell
lesmikesell@gmail.com

5

Because the requestors are in support or professional service and need to be kept up to date on requests.

Justin Brodley -----Original Message-----
From: rt-users-bounces@lists.bestpractical.com [mailto:rt-users-bounces@lists.bestpractical.com] On Behalf Of Mikko Lipasti
Sent: Monday, May 21, 2007 11:34 PM
To: rt-users@lists.bestpractical.com
Subject: Re: [rt-users] Customer Centric RT?

On Mon, 2007-05-21 at 14:08 -0700, Justin Brodley wrote:

Basically were an ASP hosting operation, we have hundreds of customers
that pay us money to host their site. Our company has several
departments that create tickets associated to each of the customers.
Currently the way were managing Customer is by having them defined as
a custom field and then we can write reports based off these custom
fields.

Why can’t you use Requestor field to identify customers?

  • Mikko

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6

Queues for each customer would be unmanageable as we would have over 200 queues, and i’d have a massive custom view to correlate all this data into a single pane of glass.

Justin Brodley From: rt-users-bounces@lists.bestpractical.com [mailto:rt-users-bounces@lists.bestpractical.com] On Behalf Of Les Mikesell
Sent: Tuesday, May 22, 2007 5:34 AM
To: Mikko Lipasti
Cc: rt-users@lists.bestpractical.com
Subject: Re: [rt-users] Customer Centric RT?

Mikko Lipasti wrote:

7

Justin Brodley wrote:

Queues for each customer would be unmanageable as we would have over 200 queues, and i’d have a massive custom view to correlate all this data into a single pane of glass.

I thought the point was to separate them… If you want to see the
tickets regardless of queue you could make a custom query to pick the
ones you want.

Les Mikesell
lesmikesell@gmail.com

8

No, our main point is we need to be able to have Customers in the system and requestors as internal employees who are requesting on “behalf” of the customer. I’m really just trying to find out if anyone has done work like this already, or if this is something we’ll need to build from scratch. Were currently solving the problem with Custom Fields but were concerned about the qty of CF values, and we also have some additional needs for escalation scripts that require additional data be stored with each custom field.

Justin Brodley From: Les Mikesell [mailto:lesmikesell@gmail.com]
Sent: Tuesday, May 22, 2007 8:23 AM
To: Justin Brodley
Cc: Mikko Lipasti; rt-users@lists.bestpractical.com
Subject: Re: [rt-users] Customer Centric RT?

Justin Brodley wrote:

Queues for each customer would be unmanageable as we would have over 200 queues, and i’d have a massive custom view to correlate all this data into a single pane of glass.

I thought the point was to separate them… If you want to see the
tickets regardless of queue you could make a custom query to pick the
ones you want.

Les Mikesell
lesmikesell@gmail.com

9

-----Original Message-----
From: rt-users-bounces@lists.bestpractical.com [mailto:rt-users-
bounces@lists.bestpractical.com] On Behalf Of Les Mikesell
Sent: Tuesday, May 22, 2007 10:23 AM
To: Justin Brodley
Cc: rt-users@lists.bestpractical.com
Subject: Re: [rt-users] Customer Centric RT?

Justin Brodley wrote:

Queues for each customer would be unmanageable as we would have over
200 queues, and i’d have a massive custom view to correlate all this
data into a single pane of glass.

I thought the point was to separate them… If you want to see the
tickets regardless of queue you could make a custom query to pick the
ones you want.

“Helpdesk workers” need to see a single (or a few) ‘queues’ of work
items. Management, SEs, sales people want to see “all the tickets for
customer X in the last 60 days” before calling the customer, so that
they don’t get any rude awakenings…

-Kelly

10

No, our main point is we need to be able to have Customers in the
system and requestors as internal employees who are requesting on
“behalf” of the customer. I’m really just trying to find out if anyone
has done work like this already, or if this is something we’ll need
to build from scratch. Were currently solving the problem with Custom
Fields but were concerned about the qty of CF values, and we also have
some additional needs for escalation scripts that require additional
data be stored with each custom field.

You need the same thing from RT that I’ve always needed (being in the
contract computer consulting business), and to the best of my
knowledge, the closest you can currently get to that is by using Asset
Tracker and defining each client (and site) as an asset. I still don’t
think that gets you everything you’d want in that environment.

Check the list archive; this came up in the “what do you want in 4.0”
thread a couple months ago…

Cheers,
– jra
Jay R. Ashworth jra@baylink.com
Designer Baylink RFC 2100
Ashworth & Associates The Things I Think '87 e24
St Petersburg FL USA http://baylink.pitas.com +1 727 647 1274

11

No, our main point is we need to be able to have Customers in the
system and requestors as internal employees who are requesting on
“behalf” of the customer. I’m really just trying to find out if anyone
has done work like this already, or if this is something we’ll need to
build from scratch. Were currently solving the problem with Custom
Fields but were concerned about the qty of CF values, and we also have
some additional needs for escalation scripts that require additional
data be stored with each custom field.

So, in essense, what you’ve got is:

Requestor: your employee working at the customer interface
Owner: your employee actually doing the work
CF-Customer: the name of the customer

What you’d really need is the ability to add a custom “role” to your tickets, so that you’d have:

Requestor: the name of the customer (since he’s the true originator of the request, right?)
Account Manager (you pick): your employee working at the customer interface
Owner: your employee actually doing the work

Am I on to something here?

It seems to me that customizing roles could be a useful feature for RT in general, not just your case. Have the standard “Requestor, Cc, AdminCc” in as default, but let people add new and perhaps even rename the old.

Now, it seems to me that from a technical (database) point of view, new roles could be added without modifying the schema. However, I don’t know what this would imply to the rest of the system. Something for RT4 perhaps?

  • Mikko
12

Mikko-

This is an interesting way to consider doing this work. I hadn’t thought about additional roles.

Justin Brodley -----Original Message-----
From: Mikko Lipasti [mailto:mikko.lipasti@polarcom.fi]
Sent: Wednesday, May 23, 2007 3:57 AM
To: Justin Brodley
Cc: rt-users@lists.bestpractical.com
Subject: Re: [rt-users] Customer Centric RT?

----- “Justin Brodley” jbrodley@sumtotalsystems.com wrote:

No, our main point is we need to be able to have Customers in the
system and requestors as internal employees who are requesting on
“behalf” of the customer. I’m really just trying to find out if anyone
has done work like this already, or if this is something we’ll need to
build from scratch. Were currently solving the problem with Custom
Fields but were concerned about the qty of CF values, and we also have
some additional needs for escalation scripts that require additional
data be stored with each custom field.

So, in essense, what you’ve got is:

Requestor: your employee working at the customer interface
Owner: your employee actually doing the work
CF-Customer: the name of the customer

What you’d really need is the ability to add a custom “role” to your tickets, so that you’d have:

Requestor: the name of the customer (since he’s the true originator of the request, right?)
Account Manager (you pick): your employee working at the customer interface
Owner: your employee actually doing the work

Am I on to something here?

It seems to me that customizing roles could be a useful feature for RT in general, not just your case. Have the standard “Requestor, Cc, AdminCc” in as default, but let people add new and perhaps even rename the old.

Now, it seems to me that from a technical (database) point of view, new roles could be added without modifying the schema. However, I don’t know what this would imply to the rest of the system. Something for RT4 perhaps?

  • Mikko
13

-----Original Message-----
From: rt-users-bounces@lists.bestpractical.com [mailto:rt-users-
bounces@lists.bestpractical.com] On Behalf Of Mikko Lipasti
> ----- “Justin Brodley” jbrodley@sumtotalsystems.com wrote:

No, our main point is we need to be able to have Customers in the
system and requestors as internal employees who are requesting on
“behalf” of the customer. I’m really just trying to find out if
anyone
has done work like this already, or if this is something we’ll need
to
build from scratch. Were currently solving the problem with Custom
Fields but were concerned about the qty of CF values, and we also
have
some additional needs for escalation scripts that require additional
data be stored with each custom field.

So, in essense, what you’ve got is:

Requestor: your employee working at the customer interface
Owner: your employee actually doing the work
CF-Customer: the name of the customer

What you’d really need is the ability to add a custom “role” to your
tickets, so that you’d have:

Requestor: the name of the customer (since he’s the true originator of
the request, right?)
Account Manager (you pick): your employee working at the customer
interface
Owner: your employee actually doing the work

Am I on to something here?

It seems to me that customizing roles could be a useful feature for RT
in general, not just your case. Have the standard “Requestor, Cc,
AdminCc” in as default, but let people add new and perhaps even rename
the old.

Now, it seems to me that from a technical (database) point of view,
new roles could be added without modifying the schema. However, I
don’t know what this would imply to the rest of the system. Something
for RT4 perhaps?

  • Mikko

I was just thinking that one possible solution is to add a new CF type
(or at least validation type), call it “User”. Then you’d be able to
add various “People” based CFs however you like, and presumably be able
to search on them…

-Kelly

14

Jay R. Ashworth wrote in Article 20070522153409.GJ24030@cgi.jachomes.com
posted to gmane.comp.bug-tracking.request-tracker.user:

You need the same thing from RT that I’ve always needed (being in the
contract computer consulting business), and to the best of my
knowledge, the closest you can currently get to that is by using Asset
Tracker and defining each client (and site) as an asset.

I think this is the first I’ve ever heard of Asset Tracker. Where can I
find out more?

Paul Johnson
Email and IM (XMPP & Google Talk): baloo@ursine.ca

15

Has anyone done any work into making RT more customer centric?

Some history to help explain what I’m looking for.

Basically were an ASP hosting operation, we have hundreds of customers
that pay us money to host their site. Our company has several
departments that create tickets associated to each of the customers.
Currently the way were managing Customer is by having them defined as a
custom field and then we can write reports based off these custom
fields.

However, the queries we see related to custom fields have brought up
concerns about scalability of CF fields. Because we have several
hundred customers we have several hundred custom field values defined,
in addition to some more simple selection criteria.

Has anyone done any work in making a more Customer Centric version of
RT? In addition to our performance concerns we need to start adding
additional criteria for each customer ie, escalated customer, premier
support, etc. All of these parameters get factored into our escalation
scripts, our current thought is to do most of this work outside of RT
and then make the customer name display as Name (P) and then parse for
the () values to determine the correct ruleset. But I find this to be
terribly Kludge and there should be an easier way.

If anyone has any ideas or knows of any extensions to RT to help
accommodate some of these needs, I’d greatly appreciate it.

Justin Brodley

We are currently evaluating a dedicated CRM system versus RT, since we have
already running RT for other things. The main aspect that seems common to
your problem to me is, that a customer (= a company) is the main object and
not the person who created a ticket neither the ticket itself. Yet every
contact, phone call etc will be documented by a ticket so I need to be able
to search for all tickets belonging to a customer. Each ticket may have
different requestors (people in my company and employees of the customer.
So is somebody using RT as CRM system ?

Regards

Rolf Schaufelberger
rs@plusw.de

16

We are currently evaluating a dedicated CRM system versus RT, since we have
already running RT for other things. The main aspect that seems common to
your problem to me is, that a customer (= a company) is the main object and
not the person who created a ticket neither the ticket itself. Yet every
contact, phone call etc will be documented by a ticket so I need to be able
to search for all tickets belonging to a customer. Each ticket may have
different requestors (people in my company and employees of the customer.
So is somebody using RT as CRM system ?

Would it be adequate to create a special RT “user” for each customer?
Then you attach that user to a ticket as a CC. You still have individual
requestors, owners, and so on. But you can easily get reports of all tickets
relating to given customer. (And you can even have a single ticket
be related to multiple customers.)

Some variations:

  1. Create a Group for each Customer (instead of, or in addition to,
    the special Customer User.) You can assign the group as a CC watcher on a ticket.
    This will enable you to put the representatives of a Customer in
    that Group. With a little bit of scrip’ing, if repA from Customer2
    sends in a ticket, you would automatically CC Customer_Group2,
    which would notify repB and repC, who are in that group.

    It would even be possible to have a real user be a member of
    multiple Customer Groups. This might be useful if you have
    a consultant assigned to specific Customers.

    (You might have to hack RT a little to allow non-privileged users
    to be in groups. Or better, make everyone “privileged”,
    but reserve real privilege for consultants to other special consultant groups.)

  2. It was suggested to add a new “role”. You might create a “Customer” role,
    to stand out a bit visually from CC or AdminCC, but for the most part,
    do the same thing.

  3. Note that you can make custom fields that apply to a user rather than a ticket.
    That should let you tag a Customer as “premium service” or whatnot.
    You can also add comments to a User.

    bobg