OTRS-Helpdesk

Zusammenfassung

This chapter describes the features of OTRS Help Desk (OTRS). You will find information about the hardware and software requirements for OTRS. Additionally, in this chapter you will learn how to get commercial support for OTRS, should you require it, and how to contact the community.

Grundlagen

OTRS Help Desk (OTRS) is a web application that is installed on a web server and can be used with a web browser.

OTRS is separated into several components. The main component is the OTRS framework which contains all central functions for the application and the ticket system. It is possible to install additional applications such as OTRS::ITSM modules, integrations with Network Monitoring solutions, a knowledge base (FAQ), et cetera.

Features

OTRS has many features. The following list gives an overview of the main features included in the OTRS framework.

User interface

  • OTRS comes with separate, modern web interfaces for agents and customers.

  • It can be used on any modern web browser, including mobile plaforms and is retina ready.

  • The web interface can be customized with own themes and skins.

  • Powerful and customizable agent dashboard with personal ticket overviews and graphical statistics support.

  • An extensible reporting engine provides various statistics and report scheduling options.

  • With the ProcessManagement it is possible to define own ticket-based screens and processes (ticket workflows).

  • OTRS has a built-in rights management that can be extended with fine-grained access control lists (ACLs).

  • Support for more than 30 languages and different time zones.

Mail interface

  • Support for MIME emails with attachments.

  • Automatic conversion of HTML into plain text messages (increased security for sensitive content and enables faster searching).

  • Incoming mail can be filtered and pre-processed with complex rules, e.g. for spam messages or Queue distribution.

  • Support for PGP and S/MIME standards for key/certificate management and email processing.

  • Automatic responses, configurable for every queue.

  • E-Mail-Benachrichtigungen für Agenten über neue Tickets, Follow-ups oder freigegebene Tickets.

  • It is possible to define an own Ticket identifier to recognize follow-ups, e.g. Call#, Ticket# or Request#. There are different ticket number generators (date-based, random etc.) and you can integrate your own as well. Follow-ups can also be recognized by In-Reference-To headers or external ticket numbers.

Tickets

  • OTRS uses Tickets to gather all external an internal communication that belongs together. These tickets are organized in Queues.

  • There are many different ways of looking at the tickets in a system (based on Queues, Status, Escalation etc.) in different level of detail (small/medium/preview).

  • The Ticket history records all changes to a ticket.

  • Tickets can be changed in many ways, such as replying, forwarding, bouncing, moving to another Queue, updating attributes (state, priority etc.), locking and accounting working time. It is possible to modify many tickets at once (bulk action).

  • Pending time and escalation time / SLA management allow time-based scheduling and restrictions on tickets.

  • Tickets can be linked to other tickets or other objects such as FAQ entries.

  • Automatische und zeitgesteuerte Aktionen können mit Hilfe eines sog. "GenericAgent" auf Tickets ausgeführt werden.

  • OTRS comes with a powerful search engine that allows complex and fulltext searches on tickets.

System

  • OTRS runs on many operating systems (Linux, Solaris, AIX, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, Mac OS 10.x, Microsoft Windows) and supports several database systems for the central OTRS back-end (MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle, MSSQL).

  • The core system can be extended by installing OTRS packages. There are many free packages (such as FAQ, OTRS::ITSM and others) as well as FeatureAddon packages that are available for service contract customers of the OTRS group.

  • Integration of external back-ends for the customer data, e.g. via AD, eDirectory or OpenLDAP. Customers can authenticate via database, LDAP, HTTPAuth or Radius.

  • With the GenericInterface it is easy to connect OTRS to other web services. Simple web services can be integrated without programming, complex scenarios with custom extensions. The OTRS Ticket connector allows the creation, updating and searching of tickets, via web services from a third party application.

Now let us look at the changes in recent versions of OTRS.

New features of OTRS 3.3

Productivity
  • Dashboard ticket lists and regular ticket overviews can now be filtered by eligible ticket columns, and the shown coumns are configurable.

  • Ticket medium and preview overviews are now sortable.

  • Added a calendar widget for the dashboard that can show tickets as events.

  • Added new dashboard widget that shows in a matrix form the number of tickets per state and per queue.

  • Agents can now mark important articles.

  • A new tree selection widget makes working with tree data (queues, services etc.) much faster and easier.

  • Added support to search relative dates ( e.g. more than 1 month ago ) in Date and Date/Time dynamic fields.

  • It is now possible to specify templates (previously "standard responses") also for creation of new tickets and for ticket forwarding.

  • The list of available processes can now be filtered by ACLs.

  • Added support to initiate processes from Customer Interface.

  • In many places text is not shortened any more by a fixed number of characters ("Queue1..."), but instead by available screen estate. This makes it possible to see more information at once.

  • OTRS is now Retina-ready. Images have been adapted to match the higher resolutions and most of the image icons have been replaced by font characters from the FontAwesome webfont.

  • Added new feature "management dashboard". This makes it possible to display statistic charts in the dashboard. Please note that IE8 does not support this feature.

Working With External Systems
  • OTRS can now use multiple customer company databases, thanks to Cyrille @ belnet-ict.

  • OTRS can now automatically store customer user data in ticket dynamic fields for permanent storage in the ticket. This can be useful for reporting.

  • OTRS is now able correctly assign incoming emails to existing tickets based on ticket numbers from external systems.

  • OTRS can now fetch email also over POP3/TLS connections.

Installation & Administration
  • Web Installer now can setup OTRS on PostgreSQL, Oracle and SQL Server databases in addition to MySQL.

  • OTRS now has full support for MySQL 5.6.

  • Generic agent jobs can now be executed for configured ticket events.

  • The new graphical ACL editor makes ACL editing easier.

  • Postmaster filters can now use negated filter conditions, thanks to Renée Bäcker.

  • Postmaster filters can now specify relative pending dates and Owner / Responsible for new tickets based on incoming email data.

  • Customer and Agent passwords now can be encrypted using the strong bcrypt algorithm, which is better than SHA.

  • Many icons now use an icon font which makes it much easier to create custom skins with different base colors. This also improves overall performance through smaller amount of (image) files to load.

New features of OTRS 3.2

More customer focused
  • Das neue "Kunden-Informationszentrum" bietet eine schöne Ansicht auf einen Kunden (bzw. die Kundenfirma). Sie können

    • Escalated, reminder, new, and open tickets of the customer company.

    • Kundenbenutzer (Kontakte), die zu dieser Firma gehören, mit ihren individuellen Ticketzahlen und Shortcuts zur Erstellung von neuen Tickets für diese Nutzer.

    • Eine allgemeine Ticket-Statusübersicht für diese Kundenfirma.

  • New "switch to customer" feature makes it possible for an agent with the required permissions to look into the customers's panel with their rights.

More customizable
Process Management
Customer Interface Improvements
  • Die Kundenoberfläche unterstützt jetzt AJAX und ACLs umfassend.

  • It now requires JavaScript and is not compatible with Internet Explorer 6 or earlier versions.

  • In der Kundenoberfläche können Sie jetzt den Standard-Tickettyp für neue Tickets einstellen. Zusätzlich kann der Ticket-Typ versteckt werden, wobei alle Tickets mit dem Standard-Ticket-Typ erstellt werden.

Verbesserungen in der Agenten-Oberfläche
  • Agenten können Tickets nun nach der Eskalationszeit suchen.

  • New option to show DynamicFields by default in ticket search.

  • Verbesserte Bildschirmnutzung in den Ticketmasken, durch die unnötiges Scrollen vermieden wird. In jeder Maske kann die Größe des Rich-Text-Editors jetzt separat konfiguriert werden.

  • Es ist nun möglich, Tickets aus den Ticketmasken heraus in eine andere Queue zu verschieben (z. B. aus Ticket Schließen), nachdem eine Konfigurationsoption aktiviert wurde. Dies ist standardmäßig nicht aktiviert.

  • Ticket search will now directly jump to the ticket zoom screen if only one ticket is found.

  • New ability to hide the Article Type from TicketActionCommon-based screens which can be helpful to fit more data in the browser window.

  • Es gibt ein neues "Out of Office" Widget im Dashboard, welches alle Agenten-Kollegen auflistet, die derzeit nicht verfügbar sind.

  • Der neue CKEditor 4 macht das Arbeiten mit Rich-Text-Inhalten (wie HTML-Mails) leichter und stabiler.

Administration improvements
  • Ereignisbasierte benachrichtigungen können nun nur für besteimmte Artikel-Sender-Typen versendet werden.

  • The Statistics engine in OTRS now understands 'Weeks' in addition to days, months and years. This grants the ability to, for instance, create a report for tickets 'created last week', or generate a report that shows tickets created per queue per week.

  • Es ist nun möglich, angepasste DTL (Template)-Dateien in Custom/Kernel/Output/HTML abzulegen. Diese überschreiben dann die Dateien des Systems, genau wie dies bereits auch mit Perl-Dateien möglich ist.

  • AdminSMIME kann nun Zertifikate in menschenlesbarer Form anzeigen.

  • In der SysConfig können nun Datum und Datum+Zeit als Konfigurationstypen verwendet werden.

Bessere Skalierfähigkeit
Ticket Archiving Improved
  • Wenn tickets archiviert werden, wird die Information, welcher Agent das Ticket bereits gelesen hat, gelöscht, genau wie die Information, welche Agenten das Ticket beobachten. Diese Einstellung ist standardmäßig aktiv und reduziert die Datenmenge, die in großen Systemen mit vielen Tickets und Agenten anfällt.

  • Es steht auch ein Skript zur Verfügung, welches diese Daten aus bereits archivierten Tickets entfernt.

  • Archivierte Tickets werden nun immer als bereits vom Agenten gelesen angezeigt.

Performance Improvements
  • Die Sitzungsverwaltung von OTRS ist nun bis zu 10-mal schneller, besonders bei vielen aktiven Nutzern.

  • Es ist möglich, die Zahl der gleichzeitig aktiven Agenten und/oder Kunden zu beschränken, um eine Überlastung des Servers zu vermeiden.

  • Significant reduction in the number of executed database statements in ticket overviews and ticket masks in agent and customer frontend.

    • Dies wird die Last auf Datenbankservern reduzieren, besonders auf großen Systemen. In manchen Fällen wird OTRS dadurch auch sichtbar schneller.

  • Die Geschwindigkeit der LDAP-Benutzersynchronisation wurde verbessert.

  • Die Geschwindigkeit des Caches im Umgang mit vielen Dateien wurde erhöht.

Bessere Zusammenarbeit mit Fremdsystemen
FAQ Connector for the GenericInterface
  • Es ist nun möglich, die Daten des FAQ-Moduls (OTRS-Wissensdatenbank) mittels Webservice (GenericInterface) zu nutzen. Damit können FAQ-Artikel zum Beispiel zusätlich in Ihrer Unternemenswebsite angezeigt werden.

New features of OTRS 3.1

GENERIC INTERFACE - A Web Service Framework
  • GI is a flexible framework to allow web service interconnections of OTRS with third party applications.

  • OTRS can act in both ways - as a provider (server, requested from remote) or requester (client, requesting remotely).

  • Simple web service connections can be created without programming by configuring the Generic Interface.

  • Complex scenarios can be realized by plugging in custom OTRS extensions that add perl code to the GI infrastructure on different architectural layers.

  • Connectors expose parts of OTRS to Generic Interface web services.For example, a ticket connector exposes the ticket create/update function, so that they can be used in a web service regardless which network transport is used.

  • A scheduler daemon process supports asynchronous event handling. This is useful to asynchronously start web service requests from OTRS to another system, after the agent''s request has been answered (e.g. when a ticket has been created). Otherwise, it might block the response, resulting in increased response times for the agent.

With the Generic Interface, new web services can be configured easily by using existing OTRS modules, without additional code. They can be combined to create a new web service. When configuring a new web service connection, the administrator has to add:

  • A new web service in the admin GUI

  • The basic meta data (Transport type (SOAP), URL etc.) and

  • Existing operations (part of a connector) and specify for each operation how the data must be mapped (inbound and outbound)

A Generic Interface Debugger will help the OTRS administrator to check how requests are coming in and how they are handled through the different layers.

Current Features
  • Network transports: SOAP/HTTP. Others like REST and JSON are scheduled to be added in the future depending on customers demand.

  • Configurable data mapping Graphical User Interface for key/value transformations with respect to incoming and outgoing data.

  • Graphical debugger to check the configuration and flow of information of configured web services.

  • A ticket connector allowing the use of OTRS as a web service for ticket handling.

Future Features
  • Additional network transports (REST, JSON).

  • The GI will replace the iPhoneHandle as the backend for mobile apps.

  • Additional connectors will be added to provide more parts of OTRS for use with web services (e.g. to allow the creation, update, or deletion of agents, users, services or CIs).

DYNAMIC FIELDS

The DynamicFields Feature replaces the existing ticket and article FreeText and FreeTime fields with a dynamic structure that will also allow to create custom forms in OTRS.

  • An unlimited amount of fields can be configured using an own graphical user interface for administration.

  • The fields can have different types that can be used for both, tickets and articles. Available by default are:

    • Text

    • Multiline text

    • Checkbox

    • Dropdown

    • Multi-select

    • Date

    • Date and time

  • New custom field types (e.g. custom field type dropdown with an external data source) can be added with small effort as the fields are created in a modular, pluggable way.

  • A future scenario is, that DynamicFields can be used for objects other than tickets or in custom modules. For example, a custom module adding objects to handle "orders" in OTRS could use the DynamicFields to attach properties/data to these orders.

  • A database update script will transform historic FreeText fields and related configuration settings into the new structure.

TICKET MANAGEMENT IMPROVEMENTS
Ticket creation improved
  • Multiple email addresses can now be specified as 'To:', 'CC:' or 'BCC:' when creating a new phone or email ticket.

Inbound phone call support
  • Inbound phone calls can now be registered within an existing tickets (until now, only outbound calls were registered).

Ticket overview preview improved
  • It is now possible to exclude articles of certain sender types (e.g. articles from internal agents) in the SysConfig from being displayed in the overview preview mode.

  • A certain article type can be configured which will display articles of that type as expanded by default when the view is accessed.

Ticket move improved
  • The screen shown after moving a ticket is now configurable. Options are the ticket zoom view (LastScreenView) or the ticket list (LastScreenOverview).

Bulk action improved
  • With the new bulk action, outbound emails can now be sent from multiple tickets at the same time. As tickets can have different queues, and these queues each can have different templates, salutations and signatures, these are not used in the Bulk Action email.

  • An additional bulk action allows configuring the ticket type for selected tickets.

Configurable Reject Sender Email Address
  • The feature allows configuring an email address instead of the administrator address to reject the creation of new tickets by email. This feature can be used in all cases where customers are not allowed to create new tickets by email.

PROCESS AUTOMATION
Escalation events added
  • OTRS will now create events for each of the available escalation types (response, update and resolution). This allows performing actions (such as notifications) before the escalation occurs, in the moment it occurs, and in the moment that the escalation ends.

Notification mechanism improved
  • A new generic agent notification module allows the OTRS administrator to define messages that will be shown in the agent web front-end when agents log into the system.

Time calculation improved
  • All kinds of times will now be calculated by and based on the application server only solving the issues that were caused by variances between the clock times of application and data base servers.

GenericAgent improved
  • The GenericAgent can now filter for tickets change time.

  • In addition, the GenericAgent can set the ticket responsible for matched tickets.

USER INTERFACE, RICH TEXT EDITOR, CHARSET
User interface performance improved
  • The speed for rendering and article display was improved, thanks to Stelios Gikas <stelios.gikas@noris.net>!

Rich Text Editor Update
  • IOS5 support added.

  • Block quotes can be left with the enter key.

  • Update from CKEditor 3.4 to CKEditor 3.6, so improvements refer to the releases of CKEditor 3.5 and CKEditor 3.6.

  • IE9 support improved.

  • Resizable dialogs.

Unicode Support - Non-UTF-8 Internal Encodings Dropped
  • UTF-8 is now the only allowed internal charset of OTRS.

  • All language files are now formatted in UTF-8, which simplifies their handling and future improvements of the translation mechanism.

DATABASE DRIVER SUPPORT
PostgreSQL DRIVER compatibility improved
  • PostgreSQL 9.1 support added.

  • A new legacy driver is now available for PostgreSQL 8.1 or earlier versions.

MS SQL DRIVER compatibility improved
  • The MS SQL driver now stores binary data in VARBINARY rather than deprecated type TEXT as well as NVARCHAR to store text strings rather than VARCHAR (for improved Unicode support).

MAIL INTEGRATION
Mail handling improved
  • When connecting to IMAP mail accounts, it is now possible to handle emails from a specific email folder, aside from the INBOX folder.

  • OTRS can now connect to IMAP servers using Transport Layer Security (TLS), which is useful for modern restricted environments.

Hardware und Software-Anforderungen

OTRS can be installed on many different operating systems. OTRS can run on linux and on other unix derivates (e.g. OpenBSD or FreeBSD). You can also run it on Microsoft Windows. OTRS does not have excessive hardware requirements. We recommend using a machine with at least a 2 GHz Xeon or comparable CPU, 2 GB RAM, and a 160 GB hard drive for a small setup.

To run OTRS, you'll also need to use a web server and a database server. Apart from that, you should install perl and/or install some additional perl modules on the OTRS machine. The web server and Perl must be installed on the same machine as OTRS. The database back-end may be installed locally or on another host.

For the web server, we recommend using the Apache HTTP Server, because its module mod_perl greatly improves the performance of OTRS. Apart from that, OTRS should run on any web server that can execute Perl scripts.

You can deploy OTRS on different databases. You can choose between MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle, or Microsoft SQL Server. If you use MySQL you have the advantage that the database and some system settings can be configured during the installation, through a web front-end.

For Perl, we recommend using at least version 5.8.8. You will need some additional modules which can be installed either with the Perl shell and CPAN, or via the package manager of your operating system (rpm, yast, apt-get).

Software-Anforderungen

Perl support

  • Perl 5.10 or higher

Web server support

  • Apache2 + mod_perl2 or higher (recommended)

  • Webserver mit CGI support (CGI nicht empfohlen)

  • Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS) 6 or higher

Database support

  • MySQL 5.0 or higher

  • PostgreSQL 8.0 or higher (8.2 or higher recommended)

  • Oracle 10g oder höher

  • Microsoft SQL Server 2005 or higher

The section in the manual about installation of Perl modules describes in more detail how you can set up those which are needed for OTRS.

Wenn Sie ein bereits vorgefertigtes OTRS-Paket für Ihr Betriebssystem zur Installation verwenden (rpm, Windows-Installer), sollten die benötigten Perl-Module automatisch installiert werden.

Web browser support

To use OTRS, you'll be OK if you use a modern browser with JavaScript support enabled. We do not support the following browsers:

  • Internet Explorer before version 8

  • Firefox before version 10

  • Safari before version 5

We recommend always using the latest version of your browser, because it has the best JavaScript and rendering performance. Dramatical performance varieties between the used browsers can occur with big data or big systems. We are happy to consult you on that matter.

Community

OTRS has a large user community. Users and developers discuss OTRS and exchange information on related issues through the mailing-lists. You can use the mailing lists to discuss installation, configuration, usage, localization and development of OTRS. You can report software bugs in our bug tracking system.

The homepage of the OTRS community is: http://www.otrs.com/open-source/.

Professional Services for OTRS

Whether you need help in configuring or customizing OTRS or you want to be on the safe side, don't hesitate to contact us: We offer a wide range of professional services such as world-wide enterprise support, consulting and engineering including process design, implementation, customization, application support, and fully managed service.

Our Service Contracts guarantee instant help and professional support as well as support assessment and last but not least free access to OTRS Feature Add-ons - useful additional features for your OTRS.

The OTRS Group offers specific training programs in different countries. You can either participate in one of our public OTRS Administrator trainings which take place regularly, or benefit from an inhouse training that covers all the specific needs of your company.