01 OTRS Ticketing Tool, ITIL V3

OTRS Help Desk

 

Basics

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

OTRS is separated into several components. The basic component is the OTRS framework that contains all central functions for the application and the ticket system. Via the web interface of the OTRS framework, it is possible to install additional applications such as ITSM modules, integrations with Network Monitoring solutions, a knowledge base (FAQ).

Table of Content

Agent web interface

Customer web interface

Public web interface

First login

The web interface – an overview

What is a queue?

User preferences

Agent web interface

The agent web interface allows agents to answer customer requests, create new tickets for customers or other agents, write tickets about telephone calls with customers, write FAQ entries, edit customer data, etc. The OTRS login screen can be reached by using the address http://10.0.0.43/otrs/index.pl] in a web browser (see Figure below).

Customer web interface

 

Change their account settings, create and edit tickets, get an overview on tickets that they created, etc. The customer login screen can be reached by using the URL http://10.0.0.43/otrs/customer.pl with a web browser (see Figure below).

 

 

Public web interface

 

In addition to the web interfaces for agents and customers, OTRS also has a public web interface that is available through the FAQ-Module. This module needs to be installed separately. It provides public access to the FAQ system, and lets visitors search through FAQ entries without any special authorization. In our example, the public web interface can be reached via either of the URLs below http://10.0.0.43/otrs/faq.pl

First login

Access the login screen as described in the section Agent web interface. Enter a user name and a password. Since the system has just been freshly installed and no users have yet been created, login as OTRS administrator first, using ‘root@localhost’ for username and ‘bringup’ for password

If you don’t want to login as OTRS administrator, just enter the user name and password for your normal agent account.

In case you have forgotten your password, you can request the system for a new password. Simply press the link below the Login button, enter the mail address that is registered for your OTRS account into the input field, and press the Submit button (see Figure).

 

The web interface – an overview

On successfully logging into the system, you are presented with the Dashboard page (see Figure below). The Dashboard is completely customizable. It shows your locked tickets, allows direct access through menus to the queue, status and escalation views, and also holds options for creation of new phone and e-mail tickets. It also presents a quick summary of the tickets which are pending, escalated, new and open

To improve clarity, the general web interface is separated into different areas. The top row of each page shows some general information such the current username, the logout button, icons listing the number of locked tickets with direct access to them, links to create a new phone/email ticket, etc. There are also icons to go to the queue, status and escalation views.

Below the icons row is the navigation bar. It shows a menu that enables you to navigate to different areas or modules of the system, letting you execute some global actions. Clicking on the Dashboard button takes you to the dashboard which is the default start page after login. If you click on the Tickets button, you will get a submenu with options to change the ticket’s view, create a new ticket (phone/e-mail) or search for a specific ticket. The Statistics button presents a menu that allows choosing from an overview of the registered statistics, creating a new one or importing an existing one. The Customers button leads you to the Customer Management screen. By clicking the Admin button, you can access all the administrator modules, allowing you to create new agents, queues, etc. There is also a Search button to make ticket searches.

Below the title of the section you are currently in, there are several subsections each in a separate box. These boxes can be relocated within the same column by clicking on and dragging the box header, and dropping them elsewhere.

In the left column, you can see information on some tickets classified as – reminder, escalated, new and open. In each of the categories, you are also able to see all tickets you are allowed to access, how many tickets you have locked and how many are located in “My Queues”. “My Queues” are queues that you identify in your user configuration account preferences as those you have a special interest in tracking.

In the right column is the Settings button. Click on it to expand the section and see the various settings, as shown in Figure. You can then check or uncheck the individual settings options, and save your changes. This section is fixed, so you cannot drag and drop it.

User preferences

OTRS users such as customers, agents and the OTRS administrator can configure their account preferences as per their needs. Agent can access the configuration screen by clicking on their login name at the top right corner of the web interface (see Figure below), and customers must click on the “Preferences” link (see Figure below).

An agent can configure 3 different categories of preferences: user profile, email settings and other settings. The default possibilities are:

User Profile

• Change the current password.

• Adjust the interface language.

• Switch the frontend skin.

• Shift the frontend theme.

• Activate and configure the out-of-office time.

Email Settings

• Select events that trigger email notifications to the agent.

Other Settings

• Select the queues you want to monitor in “My Queues”.

• Set the refresh period for the queue view.

• Set the screen to be displayed after a ticket is created.

The ADMIN area of OTRS

 

OTRS administrators use the Admin page on the OTRS web interface to configure the system – adding agents, customers and queues, ticket and mail settings, installing additional packages such as FAQ and ITSM, and much more. Agents who are members of the admin group can access the Admin area by clicking the Admin link in the navigation bar (see Figure below). The rest of the agents won’t see this link.

 

 

Agents, Groups and Roles

 

Agents

 

By clicking the link Agents, you get access to the agent management screen of OTRS (see Figure below). Administrators can add, change or deactivate agent accounts. Administrators can also manage agent preferences, for instance the language and notification settings for their interface.

Note

An OTRS agent account may be deactivated but not deleted. Deactivation is done by setting the valid flag to invalid or invalid-temporarily.

To register an agent, click on the “Add agent” button, type all the needed data and press the

Submit button at the bottom of the screen, as shown in Figure.

After the new agent account has been created, you should make the agent a member of one or more groups or roles. Information about groups and roles is available in the Groups and Roles sections

You can access the group management page (see Figure below) by clicking the Groups link in the admin area.

 

 

Note

As with agents, an OTRS group may be deactivated but not deleted. Deactivation is done by setting the valid flag to invalid or invalid-temporarily.

To add an agent to a group, or to change the agents who belong to a group, you can use the link Agents <-> Groups from the Admin page (see Figure below).

An overview of all groups and agents in the system is displayed. You can also use the filters to find a specific entity. If you want to change the groups that an agent is member of, just click on the agent’s name (see Figure below). To change the agents associated with a group, just click on the group you want to edit (see Figure below).

Right	Description
ro	Read only access to the tickets, entries and queues of this group.
move into	Right to move tickets or entries between queues or areas that belongs to this group.
create	Right to create tickets or entries in the queues or areas of this group.
owner	Right to update the owner of tickets or entries in queues or areas that belongs to this group.
priority	Right to change the priority of tickets or entries in queues or areas that belongs to this group.
rw	Full read and write access on tickets or entries in the queues or areas that belong to this group.

Roles

Roles are a powerful feature to manage the access rights of many agents in a very simple and quick manner. They are particularly applicable on large, complex support systems with a lot of agents, groups and queues. An example below explains when they may be used.

Suppose that you have a system with 100 agents, 90 of them with access to a single queue called “support” where all support requests are handled. The “support” queue contains some sub queues. The other 10 agents have permission to access all queues of the system. These 10 agents dispatch tickets, watch the raw queue and move spam messages into the “junk” queue. The company now opens a new department that sells some products. Order request and acceptance, order confirmation, bills, etc. must be processed, and some of the company’s agents shall do this via OTRS. The different agents have to get access to the new queues that must be created.

Because it would take a long time to change the access rights for the different agents manually, roles that define the different access levels can be created. The agents can then be added to one or more roles, with their rights automatically changed. If a new agent account is created, it is also possible to add this account to one or more roles.

Note

We have not used as we don’t have the bigger number of agents for OTRS, still we added few categories.

 

 

Customers and Customer Groups

 

 

Customers

 

OTRS supports different types of users. Using the link “Customers” (via the navigation bar, or the Admin page), you can manage the accounts of your customers (see Figure below), who can log into the system via the Customers interface (customer.pl). Through this interface, your customers can create tickets and access them as they are updated. It is important to know that a customer is needed for the ticket history in the system.

To create a new customer account, click on the “Add customer” button (see Figure below). Some of the fields are mandatory, i.e., they have to contain values, so if you leave one of those empty, it will be highlighted in red.

Customers can access the system by providing their username and password. The CustomerID is needed by the system to identify the user and associated tickets. Since the email address is a unique value, it can be used as the ID.

 

Note

As with agents, groups and roles, customers can not be deleted from the system, only deactivated by setting the valid option to invalid or invalid-temporarily.

Customer Groups

Customer users can also be added to a group, which can be useful if you want to add customers of the same company with access to one or a few queues. First create the group to which your customers will belong, via the Group management module. Then add the queues and select the new group for the queues. Same has been shown into the below figure.

To define the different groups a customer should be part of and vice versa, click on the corresponding customer username or group, as shown in below figures.

 

Queues

Clicking on the link “Queues” of the Admin page, you can manage the queues of your system (see Figure below). In a new OTRS installation there are 4 default queues: Raw, Junk, Misc and Postmaster. All incoming messages will be stored in the “Raw” queue which is set now as invalid.

Here you can add queues (see Figure below) and modify them. You can specify the group that should use the queue. You can also set the queue as a sub-queue of an existing queue.

You can define an unlock timeout for a queue – if an agent locks a ticket and does not close it before the unlock timeout has passed; the ticket will be automatically unlocked and made available for other agents to work on.

There are three escalation time settings that can be associated at queue level:

 

Escalation – First Response Time

• After creation of the ticket, if the time defined here expires without any communication to the customer, either by email or phone, the ticket is escalated.

 

Escalation – Update Time

• If there is any customer follow-up via e-mail or the customer portal and recorded in the ticket, the escalation update time is reset. If there is no customer contact before the time defined here expires, the ticket is escalated.

 

Escalation – Solution Time

• If the ticket is not closed before the time defined here expires, the ticket is escalated. With ‘Ticket lock after a follow-up’, you can define if a ticket should be set to ‘locked’ to the old owner if a ticket that has been closed and later is re-opened. This ensures that a follow up for a ticket is processed by the agent that has previously handled that ticket.

The parameter for the system address specifies the email address that will be used for the outgoing tickets of this queue. There is also possibility to associate a queue with a salutation and a signature, for the email answers. For more detailed information, please refer to the sections email addresses, salutations and signatures.

 

Note

As with agents, groups and customers, queues cannot be deleted, only deactivated, by setting the valid option to invalid or invalid-temporarily.

Salutations, Signatures and Responses

 

Salutations

 

A salutation is a text module for a response. Salutations can be linked to one or more queues, as described in the section about queues. A salutation is used only if a ticket from a queue the salutation is linked to, is answered. To manage the different salutations of your system, use the “Salutations” link of the admin area (see Figure below).

To create a new salutation, press the button “Add salutation”, provide the needed data and submit it (see Figure below).

Signatures

Another text module for a response is the signature. Signatures can be linked to a queue, as described in the section about the queues. Only if a signature is linked to a queue will it be included into the response text. Through the “Signatures” link of the Admin page, you can manage the signatures in your system (see Figure below).

To create a new signature, press the button “Add signature”, provide the needed data and submit it (see Figure below).

Note

As with salutations, signatures too cannot be deleted, only deactivated by setting the valid option to invalid or invalid-temporarily.

Responses

 

To speed up the answering of tickets and to standardize the look of answers, you can define responses in OTRS. A response can be linked to one or more queues and vice versa. In order to be able to use a response quickly, the different responses are displayed below every ticket in the Queue View or in “My Queues”.

On a fresh OTRS installation, the “empty answer” response is defined for every queue. Clicking the “Responses” link on the Admin page brings you to the Responses management page (see Figure below).

To add/remove responses to one or more queues, click on the “Responses <-> Queues” link on the Admin page (see Figure below). You can also use filters to get information on a specific entity.

To define the different responses that will be available for a queue and vice versa, click on the corresponding response or queue

Auto responses

 

OTRS allows you to send automatic responses to customers on the occurrence of certain events, such as the creation of a ticket in certain queue, reception of a follow-up message on a ticket, closure or rejection of a ticket, etc. To manage such responses, click the link “Auto responses” on the Admin page (see Figure below).

To create an automatic response, click on the button “Add auto response”, provide the needed data and submit it (see Figure below).

Email addresses

To enable OTRS to send emails, you need a valid email address to be used by the system. OTRS is capable of working with multiple email addresses, since many support installations need to use more than one. A queue can be linked to many email addresses, and vice versa. The address used for outgoing messages from a queue can be set when the queue is created. Use the “Email Addresses” link from the Admin page to manage all email addresses of the system(see Figure below).

If you create a new mail address (see Figure below) you can select the queue or sub queue to be linked with it. This link enables the system to sort incoming messages via the address in the To: field of the mail into the right queue.

Notifications

 

OTRS allows notifications to be sent to agents and customers, on the occurrence of certain events. Agents can set the system events for their own notifications via the preferences link. Through the “Agent Notifications” link on the Admin page, you can manage the notifications of your system (see Figure below). You can use filters to list only certain notifications.

You can customize the subject and the text of the notifications. Click on the notification you want to change from the list, and its content will get loaded for editing (see Figure). Please note that there is a notification with the same name for each of the available languages.

States

Through the “States” link on the Admin page, you can manage the different ticket states you want to use in the system (see Figure below).

After a default setup, there are some states defined:

• closed successful

• closed unsuccessful

• merged

• new

• open

• pending auto close+

• pending auto close-

• pending reminder

• removed

Every state is linked to a type, which needs to be specified if a new state is created. By default

the state types are:

• closed

• merged

• new

• open

• pending auto

• pending reminder

• removed

SysConfig

The SysConfig link leads to the section where many OTRS configuration options are maintained

Setting up business hours, holidays and time Zones

 

Some functions in OTRS, like escalations and automatic unlocking of tickets, depend on a proper configuration of business hours, time zones and holidays. You can define these via the SysConfig interface, in Framework > Core::Time. You can also specify different sets of business hours, holidays and time zones as separate ‘Calendars’ in Framework > Core::Time::Calendar1 through

Framework > Core::Time::Calendar9.

Business Hours

Set up the working hours for your system in SysConfig Framework > Core::Time::TimeWorkingHours, or for your specific calendar in the calendar’s configuration. OTRS can handle a granularity of one hour. Checking the marks in the boxes 8, 9, 10 … 18

corresponds with business hours

Fixed date holidays

Holidays that are on a fixed date every year, such as New Year’s Day or the Fourth of July, can be specified in TimeVacationDays, or in the corresponding section for the calendars 1-9. Tickets will not escalate nor get unlocked on dates defined in TimeVacationDays.

 

 

 

 

 

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