How do you use Queues?

RT Users
1

I’m curious to know how others use Queues. It was a bit hard to do a
comprehensive search on this somewhat vague subject in the list
archives, but from what I gather from the searches I did, there seem to
be three basic models that are widely used:

  1. one queue per entity receiving service (think “customer”)

  2. one queue per entity providing service (think groups like
    like “IT”, “engineering”, “sales”, “marketing”)

  3. one queue per general type of work (think “desktop support”,
    “web design”, etc.)

Have I missed any other ways of thinking about it? Has anyone used one
of these, realized it was wrong, and switched? Anyone have thoughts on
what makes it appropriate to use one model versus another?

Obviously #2 and #3 are similar since often groups are formed around
work types like “desktop support”, “network operations”, and so forth
– but they sort of come at queue naming from a different direction.

–Bret

2

Hi Bret–

I am successfully doing this:

  • use queues for categorizing tickets
  • use ownership for responsibility control
  • use groups for access control

HTH,

Jan

Bret Martin wrote:

I’m curious to know how others use Queues. It was a bit hard to do a
comprehensive search on this somewhat vague subject in the list
archives, but from what I gather from the searches I did, there seem to
be three basic models that are widely used:

  1. one queue per entity receiving service (think “customer”)

  2. one queue per entity providing service (think groups like
    like “IT”, “engineering”, “sales”, “marketing”)

  3. one queue per general type of work (think “desktop support”,
    “web design”, etc.)

Have I missed any other ways of thinking about it? Has anyone used one
of these, realized it was wrong, and switched? Anyone have thoughts on
what makes it appropriate to use one model versus another?

Obviously #2 and #3 are similar since often groups are formed around
work types like “desktop support”, “network operations”, and so forth
– but they sort of come at queue naming from a different direction.

–Bret

The rt-users Archives

Be sure to check out the RT wiki at http://wiki.bestpractical.com

Jan Algermissen http://www.topicmapping.com
Consultant & Programmer http://www.gooseworks.org

3

We’ve done several different types.

At first, we used one queue per group with custom fields to seperate types
of requests.

Think HelpDesk with a Custom field for Computer problem or Network Issue

But we changed that to an initial Queue of Help Desk with seperate queues
for each type of problem.

One person or group sorts through new tickets in Help Desk and places them
in the appropriate sub-queue (or creates tickets in those queues referring
back to initial ticket)

This can be very useful for a number of reason. Perhaps 1 Help Desk ticket
requires action from various departments.

For example: New Employee
1 ticket in Hardware request to purchase or prepare computer
1 ticket in Software request to purchase appropriate licenses
1 ticket in network to make the employee login
1 ticket in Office Manager queue to find office space and outfit
etc etc

Makes it very easy to keep track of what needs to be done and who needs to
do it.

Brett Barnhart

4

I am successfully doing this:

  • use queues for categorizing tickets
  • use ownership for responsibility control
  • use groups for access control

The latter two are clear. By “categorizing”, do you mean by type of
work? If you have a chance, can you give some examples?

–Bret

5

I am successfully doing this:

  • use queues for categorizing tickets
  • use ownership for responsibility control
  • use groups for access control

The latter two are clear. By “categorizing”, do you mean by type of
work? If you have a chance, can you give some examples?

Perhaps queues are for coarse grained categorization, and custom
variables are for finer grained, so that searches that don’t cross
queues can filter out what you want to find?

Karl Hegbloom hegbloom@pdx.edu

6

I’m curious to know how others use Queues. It was a bit hard to do a
comprehensive search on this somewhat vague subject in the list
archives, but from what I gather from the searches I did, there seem to
be three basic models that are widely used:

We are a small SysAdmin team, and we use them for categorizing tickets
on multiple levels.

First, we have an “Incoming” queue, where all new tickets to us go.
Since users tend not to be trustworthy of placing a ticket in the right
queue themselves, we watch the incoming queue and put each ticket in the
right place.

Next we have queues based on the type of work to be done. More
specifically, for the timeline they need to be done in. We have a
general queue, where most open tickets go (Deadline: ASAP), one for
scheduled new hires (A Specific Date), one for projects (Things people
want but don’t need) and so on.

Then, we have additional queues for other groups in the company who take
requests. For instance, we have a group who builds executables of our
software for various platforms, so we set up an alias to create them a
ticket in a “Builds” queue, which only they can see, rather than people
just emailing them.

We of course further categorize tickets with several custom fields, too.
But mostly we use queues so we can look at a glance and see what needs
to be done now, or in a week, and if I’m busy which ones can I ignore?

-Charles