osTicket Web Hosting

osTicket Web Hosting

osTicket as the name suggests; is an open source support ticket system that is widely used world -wide. This highly useful tool is written mainly using PHP scripting language. It is essentially; light weight; simple, user-friendly and packed with rich and utilizable features.

What’s more; it s completely free and offers the same functionality as the otherwise more expensive and complicated customer support systems. The osTicket system features the ability to seamlessly integrate all tickets created via email and web-based form with a simple web interface. This also facilitates streamlined management, organization and archiving of all support requests with great ease. That’s not all. The clients can easily view the status of the tickets that were submitted by them and view its history online for quick and easy reference.

For the successful installation and running of osTicket; the user’s web server must meet th following requirements:

• PHP 4 (or better)
• MySQL 3.23 (or better).

The user also needs to make certain that they have one MySQL database with valid username, password and hostname handy during installation. The database username must have permission to CREATE, DROP and ALTER tables. If however; the user is unsure about the above, he/she is advised to consult their host or database admin before proceeding.

The installation process is quite simple. After downloading the osTicket; the user needs to Unzip and upload files and directories to a directory of their choice on their server. The basic know-how of using FTP would be a definite bonus. The osTicket system comes with its own 3 minute installer to help guide the user through the installation process. CHMOD config.php to 077 and invoke the installer (setup.php) via the web browser by entering the URL to it into the browser address bar and then follow the instructions to finish up the installation process.

This feature rich system manages all the support requests in a streamlined fashion and more features are constantly added; enhancing the system’s functionality and utility. Highlighted below is a brief overview of the osTicket’s key features:
Basic Features:

• Supports aliases with perl gateway
• Supports pop3 login with optional crontab.
• Uses Perl gateway, PHP backend, and MySQL database
• Handles unlimited emails
• Admin/Supporter/User panels
• Email Intervals to prevent auto responder loops
• Max Allowed to limit maximum tickets user can have opened
• Filters to remove messages in replies
• Accept attachments and limit size

Administration features:

• Completely delete tickets from database
• Create categories (departments)
• Create Representatives (Supporters)
• Define groups
• Edit or disable response messages
• Email alerts compatible with pagers
• And much more…

Supporter features:

• View only tickets in departments you have access to
• Cannot delete tickets

User Features:

• Login with email and any ticket # assigned to you
• View all tickets sent from that email and much more.

The upcoming release of osTicket is its new version called osTicket 2.0. This comes packed with still more advanced features which include:

• Client login
• Frequently Asked Questions
• Canned/Pre-made response
• Ability to assign tickets to staff and groups
• Template System
• Optimized tables for improved performance
• And much more

A demo for the new version is expected to be available soon as well. The community/forum is a great interactive tool for osTicket users and proves to be instrumental in resolving any system related queries and/or issues. Before posting messages; visitors however may need to register first.