Customer Management with RT?

RT Users
1

Hello,

I run an ISP and would like to use RT to manage customer information as well
as track their support issues.

I added custom fields to Users so as to be able to include IP addresses and
other standard customer info.

I plan to create a non privileged user for each customer.

Is there a way to attach a ticket to a user without making them an owner?
More importantly, is there a way to attach a ticket to a user and not have
them get an email regarding it?

I would like to be able to track incidents, updates and notes as tickets
associated with a user (Customer) without spamming them every time we do
some internal updates.

I also need to be able to search by a user/customer and view their tickets.

Is there a good way to do this?

Thanks for any help.

-Aaron

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2

Hello,

I run an ISP and would like to use RT to manage customer information as well
as track their support issues.

I added custom fields to Users so as to be able to include IP addresses and
other standard customer info.

I plan to create a non privileged user for each customer.

Is there a way to attach a ticket to a user without making them an owner?
More importantly, is there a way to attach a ticket to a user and not have
them get an email regarding it?

I would like to be able to track incidents, updates and notes as tickets
associated with a user (Customer) without spamming them every time we do
some internal updates.

I also need to be able to search by a user/customer and view their tickets.

Is there a good way to do this?

Thanks for any help.

-Aaron

No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
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5:44 PM

3

Aaron,

Why not just let the customer/user be the requestor and remove any

notification privileges and/or modify any notification scrips to not
send to the requestor accordingly? That way, they know nothing unless
you send them direct E_mail and you have a requestoer that can be used
for any kind of query. Hope this helps.

Kenn
LBNL

aaron@thunderbirdbroadband.net wrote:

4

Kenn,

SO would my csr need to log in as the customer and initiate the ticket or is
there a way to change the requestor from the UI as a superuser?

Thanks,

AaronFrom: rt-users-bounces@lists.bestpractical.com
[mailto:rt-users-bounces@lists.bestpractical.com] On Behalf Of Kenneth
Crocker
Sent: Wednesday, August 22, 2007 9:16 AM
To: aaron@thunderbirdbroadband.net
Cc: rt-users@lists.bestpractical.com
Subject: Re: [rt-users] Customer Management with RT?

Aaron,

Why not just let the customer/user be the requestor and remove any

notification privileges and/or modify any notification scrips to not
send to the requestor accordingly? That way, they know nothing unless
you send them direct E_mail and you have a requestoer that can be used
for any kind of query. Hope this helps.

Kenn
LBNL

aaron@thunderbirdbroadband.net wrote:

Hello,

I run an ISP and would like to use RT to manage customer information as
well as track their support issues.

I added custom fields to Users so as to be able to include IP addresses
and other standard customer info.

I plan to create a non privileged user for each customer.

Is there a way to attach a ticket to a user without making them an
owner? More importantly, is there a way to attach a ticket to a user and
not have them get an email regarding it?

I would like to be able to track incidents, updates and notes as tickets
associated with a user (Customer) without spamming them every time we do
some internal updates.

I also need to be able to search by a user/customer and view their
tickets.

Is there a good way to do this?

Thanks for any help.

-Aaron

No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.5.484 / Virus Database: 269.12.1/963 - Release Date:
8/20/2007 5:44 PM

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Commercial support: sales@bestpractical.com

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5

aaron@thunderbirdbroadband.net wrote:

Kenn,

SO would my csr need to log in as the customer and initiate the ticket or is
there a way to change the requestor from the UI as a superuser?

Thanks,

Aaron

Sort answer: you can change any of tickets data from within the web
interface. It largely depends on what type of rights the user you are
doing the action has.

And oddly enough, this very old screen shot on RT 3 even shows this
functionality.
http://www.bestpractical.com/images/screenshots/rt/3.0/newticket.gif

You might find more answers to your questions on the wiki:
http://wiki.bestpractical.com/view/HomePage

In particular,
http://wiki.bestpractical.com/view/Requestor

and for what rights you’d need to give a user to set the owner:
http://wiki.bestpractical.com/view/QueueSpecificRights

.r’

6

Aaron,

I'm not sure I understand your question. By csr I guess you mean the

customer/user. That person initiates the ticket either thru E_mail or
the web. A Superuser can change anything, but superuser rights are not
required for this. ModifyTickets would suffice. YOu haven’t describes
the privileges you have set up.

Kenn
LBNL

aaron@thunderbirdbroadband.net wrote:

7

Aaron,

I’m not sure I understand your question. By csr I guess you mean
the customer/user.

CSR=Customer Service Representative.
An euphemism for “help desk monkey” :wink:

That person initiates the ticket either thru E_mail or the web. A
Superuser can change anything, but superuser rights are not
required for this. ModifyTickets would suffice. YOu haven’t
describes the privileges you have set up.

I don’t know if what Aaron want’s to do is possible completely with RT3.
At the end of the day, RT is a tool to handle incidents and, as the
name suggests, requests from customers.
Having “notes” and other things in there is probably not impossible
(with Asset-Tracker, there’s even more stuff).
But it somehow defies the original purpose in that tickets get
opened, worked upon and closed.

RTFM could perhaps be modified to store per-customer info that is not
tied specifically to a ticket. Or AssetTracker (haven’t played with
it recently - the project still lacks a homepage to channel support-
request and user-to-user communication).

That said, there’s no question that RT needs to get more “customer-
centric” (or “project-centric”), in the sense that (e.g.) there are
often cases where one wants to have a way to get a per-company view
of tickets (because e.g. project-management at customer-company wants
to see how many and what kind of tickets all the 3rd-party developers
and contractors have opened in the name of his company).

One could create a queue per company and make some people privileged
users without the right to view comments - but with many projects/
companies/customers, it will get very convoluted.

There was a thread some months ago about RT 4 (by Jesse) - most of
the brainstorming is in that thread.

The trick with all this is to not let RT become into some silly CRM-
like tool that has many options and features but makes dealing with
tickets difficult and slow. All the above stuff has nothing to do
with what people in helpdesks have to do (take ticket, answer, wait
for feedback, next), yet those other feature are what differentiates
Helpdesk-solutions to those who decide about procurement/installation
(management, etc.).

cheers,
Rainer
Rainer Duffner
CISSP, LPI, MCSE
rainer@ultra-secure.de

8

Kenn,

This would work out perfectly. I have created a Group called “Customers”. It
is a non privileged group. My customer service rep can create a ticket and
add the customer “John Doe” as a requestor.

I can then search for tickets where requestor name is “John Doe” to see all
the previous incidents and tickets associated with that customer.

Now the question is, how to keep them from receiving an email. I can have it
so that no requestors get email under any circumstances, that would be fine.

I looked in the rights and saw nothing regarding notification rights. I am
also not sure which default scrips to delete/modify. I assume only the ones
that refer to requestors. It would be ideal if I could modify the scrips so
that :

It only send an email if the requestor does not belong to the group
“Customers”, or if the requestor is “Privileged”

Any advice on how to do so?

Thanks for the help,

Aaron

Aaron,

Why not just let the customer/user be the requestor and remove any

notification privileges and/or modify any notification scrips to not
send to the requestor accordingly? That way, they know nothing unless
you send them direct E_mail and you have a requestoer that can be used
for any kind of query. Hope this helps.

Kenn
LBNL

aaron@thunderbirdbroadband.net wrote:

Hello,

I run an ISP and would like to use RT to manage customer information as
well as track their support issues.

I added custom fields to Users so as to be able to include IP addresses
and other standard customer info.

I plan to create a non privileged user for each customer.

Is there a way to attach a ticket to a user without making them an
owner? More importantly, is there a way to attach a ticket to a user and
not have them get an email regarding it?

I would like to be able to track incidents, updates and notes as tickets
associated with a user (Customer) without spamming them every time we do
some internal updates.

I also need to be able to search by a user/customer and view their
tickets.

Is there a good way to do this?

Thanks for any help.

-Aaron

No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.5.484 / Virus Database: 269.12.1/963 - Release Date:
8/20/2007 5:44 PM

The rt-users Archives

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Commercial support: sales@bestpractical.com

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Commercial support: sales@bestpractical.com

Discover RT’s hidden secrets with RT Essentials from O’Reilly Media.
Buy a copy at http://rtbook.bestpractical.com

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9

More info:

This works out of the box:

Create the ticket
Assign an owner
Add John Doe as Requestor (no email is sent by default)
Comment (no email by Default)
Resolve (no email by Default)

Only Reply will send an email to John Doe.

Works great.

Thanks for helping me understand some of the basics.

-AaronFrom: rt-users-bounces@lists.bestpractical.com
[mailto:rt-users-bounces@lists.bestpractical.com] On Behalf Of
aaron@thunderbirdbroadband.net
Sent: Wednesday, August 22, 2007 7:07 PM
To: ‘Kenneth Crocker’
Cc: rt-users@lists.bestpractical.com
Subject: RE: [rt-users] Customer Management with RT?

Kenn,

This would work out perfectly. I have created a Group called “Customers”. It
is a non privileged group. My customer service rep can create a ticket and
add the customer “John Doe” as a requestor.

I can then search for tickets where requestor name is “John Doe” to see all
the previous incidents and tickets associated with that customer.

Now the question is, how to keep them from receiving an email. I can have it
so that no requestors get email under any circumstances, that would be fine.

I looked in the rights and saw nothing regarding notification rights. I am
also not sure which default scrips to delete/modify. I assume only the ones
that refer to requestors. It would be ideal if I could modify the scrips so
that :

It only send an email if the requestor does not belong to the group
“Customers”, or if the requestor is “Privileged”

Any advice on how to do so?

Thanks for the help,

Aaron

Aaron,

Why not just let the customer/user be the requestor and remove any

notification privileges and/or modify any notification scrips to not
send to the requestor accordingly? That way, they know nothing unless
you send them direct E_mail and you have a requestoer that can be used
for any kind of query. Hope this helps.

Kenn
LBNL

aaron@thunderbirdbroadband.net wrote:

Hello,

I run an ISP and would like to use RT to manage customer information as
well as track their support issues.

I added custom fields to Users so as to be able to include IP addresses
and other standard customer info.

I plan to create a non privileged user for each customer.

Is there a way to attach a ticket to a user without making them an
owner? More importantly, is there a way to attach a ticket to a user and
not have them get an email regarding it?

I would like to be able to track incidents, updates and notes as tickets
associated with a user (Customer) without spamming them every time we do
some internal updates.

I also need to be able to search by a user/customer and view their
tickets.

Is there a good way to do this?

Thanks for any help.

-Aaron

No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.5.484 / Virus Database: 269.12.1/963 - Release Date:
8/20/2007 5:44 PM

The rt-users Archives

Community help: http://wiki.bestpractical.com
Commercial support: sales@bestpractical.com

Discover RT’s hidden secrets with RT Essentials from O’Reilly Media.
Buy a copy at http://rtbook.bestpractical.com
The rt-users Archives

Community help: http://wiki.bestpractical.com
Commercial support: sales@bestpractical.com

Discover RT’s hidden secrets with RT Essentials from O’Reilly Media.
Buy a copy at http://rtbook.bestpractical.com

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Version: 7.5.484 / Virus Database: 269.12.2/966 - Release Date: 8/22/2007
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10

Aaron,

I would merely modify any scrip that notifies requestors and etc. to

“notify Owner” or “Notify AdminCc” or “Notify Cc” in the action
drop-down and save. If you need more than one of these to be notified
then duplicate the modified scrip with a different recipient in the
action drop-down and re-name the scrip.

Kenn
LBNL

aaron@thunderbirdbroadband.net wrote: