Transcript Handling requests with a trouble ticket system at DESY Zeuthen Wolfgang Friebel Motivation

Handling requests with a trouble ticket
system at DESY Zeuthen
Wolfgang Friebel
Motivation
The req/reqng request tracking system
Enhancements
Problems left
Experiences
August 28, 1998
Handling requests with a trouble ticket system at DESY Zeuthen
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Motivation
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Stimulated by an introductory talk to Remedy
Remedy license bought by DESY, usage straightforward
Installation at Zeuthen planned for months, estimated
manpower for installing, configuring and administering
led to further delays
Idea to try a quick and dirty interim solution
(to cope with the requests while several admins were abroad)
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Knew only about gnats and req
Selected req as it did fit best our work model
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Handling requests with a trouble ticket system at DESY Zeuthen
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Living without a request tracking system
Users trained to use email to ”uco” to report problems
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Additional problem reports by phone, email to individuals
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All admins receive the email and work on some problems
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Solutions are posted back to the users and to “uco”
Works only for small group of admins, obvious drawbacks
Ideally, a trouble ticket system should
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be invisible or transparent to end users
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put as few additional load to admins as possible
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allow for efficient coordination of the work on requests
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The req/reqng request tracking system
Replaces the mailing list “uco“ by a mail filter of the same name
The email filter
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stores requests as emails in repositories (active and resolved)
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adds email headers (user, priority, request date, owner, status, …)
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sends the modified mail containing a request ID to “uco-dist“
The administrator
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reviews the request queue and performs actions on it:
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view a request
take it
give it to somebody
merge requests
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notify a user
comment a request
change its status/priority
resolve requests
change the subject
change the user
kill (remove) a request
search a request
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The req/reqng request tracking system (2)
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Almost completely written in perl5
Powerful searching capabilities by indexing requests with
glimpseindex
Now maintained at http://scuttlebutt.explore.com/reqng
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The req/reqng user/admin interfaces
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Email interface
reply to email, possibly adding X-request-Do: headers
inserting actions in the preformatted Subject: line
Re:[Ztn #38] my problem becomes Re: [take Ztn #38] ...
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Command line interface
programs q (query) req (do) uco (query for users)
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Graphical interface tkreq
WWW interface wwwreq
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Enhancements at DESY
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NFS based access replaced by client/server solution
Interfaces rewritten for client/server solution
Administrators get defined in a configuration file
Enhanced email interface (subject line actions)
Search with glimpse integrated in cmdline interface
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Problems left
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Mixture of req and reqng code
Problem area field defined but not used yet
Repository not well enough organized
(many small files in a directory, replace it by an archive)
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Interfaces still with bugs
Command line interface not yet fully implemented
DESY version not well maintained
no interface to Remedy Action Request System yet
No escalation procedures yet
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Experiences
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In use since May 98, 400 trouble reports up to now
Usage statistics within the last month
(96 total, 46/33/9/8 resolved same day/<1 week/>1 week/unresolved)
Resolved requests
Resolved requests
30
50
45
25
40
35
20
30
15
25
20
10
15
5
10
5
0
1
2
3
4
within hours
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6
0
0
1
2
3
4
5
within days
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Experiences(2)
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Basically no overhead for administrators
Not even known to users (no automatic
acknowledgement, not confronted with request number)
Main advantage: admins precisely know status of request
Searching/Indexing facility not used (yet)
(admins get posted all solutions, do still remember)
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Admins get much better organized and informed
Saves lots of $$$ (commercial solutions quite expensive)
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