Help Desk integration

jptechnical · Post by **jptechnical** » Fri Jan 21, 2005 3:23 am

Anyone integrated a helpdesk into CMSMS? What helpdesk would you recommend for integration?

I am currently outgrowing my existing helpdesk and am shopping so to speak.

Thanks.

Akrabat · Post by **Akrabat** » Fri Jan 21, 2005 4:42 pm

At work, we use Best Practical's RT: http://www.bestpractical.com/rt/

It's perl based though.

jptechnical · Post by **jptechnical** » Fri Jan 21, 2005 7:32 pm

any idea if this can be installed on a shared hosting server?

I totally loved what I saw... then I saw the installation requires root and start/stop of web... DOH!

Akrabat · Post by **Akrabat** » Fri Jan 21, 2005 7:35 pm

No idea, sorry

We have it installed on its own server (a remarkably old P3-450!)

jptechnical · Post by **jptechnical** » Fri Jan 21, 2005 7:54 pm

How do you host it? Do you colocate it or do you have dsn resolving to your specific IP?

I wouldnt be opposed to a local helpdesk as long as it was readily accessed remotely by my customers.

of course, I forgot to ask... does it integrate with CMS at all?

Akrabat · Post by **Akrabat** » Fri Jan 21, 2005 8:08 pm

We have a static IP address on our dsl line into the office. We have the firewall route anything coming in on port 8080 to port 80 of the RT box. Our customers tend to interact with it by email which works suprisingly well.

We haven't integrated it with anything.

Jope · Post by **Jope** » Sat Jan 29, 2005 12:04 am

jptechnical wrote:How do you host it? Do you colocate it or do you have dsn resolving to your specific IP?

I wouldnt be opposed to a local helpdesk as long as it was readily accessed remotely by my customers.

of course, I forgot to ask... does it integrate with CMS at all?

It seems the script needs full root access to install, so I suggest looking into a non-root install helpdesk.

and theres really nothing to integrate with the helpdesk

Ted · Post by **Ted** » Sat Jan 29, 2005 12:54 am

There has to be a non-root PHP alternative out there somewhere. I've never looked into it myself, but with the amount of PHP scripts out there, I would have a really hard time believing that it doesn't exist.

Petroski · Post by **Petroski** » Wed Mar 09, 2005 6:48 am

A php Help Desk, eh? How about [url=http://phpsupport.jynx.net'>phpSupport[/url]

Peteroski · Post by **Peteroski** » Wed Mar 09, 2005 6:51 am

=http://phpsupport.jynx.net

jptechnical · Post by **jptechnical** » Wed Mar 09, 2005 8:03 am

Support Logic (www.support-logic.com) works pretty well. I have been using it here for a while since I struck out on the root instal one.

I have demoed a few others and have found some key features to be missing.

Or there are the series of help desks systems out there (like 3 or 4) all seemingly by the same person, you can tell because the interface is so god awful ugly with huge totally unrelated photos all over the place. I think pictures of swirling galaxies and lightening storms are cool, but you can't just put one on the header of a page and call it done.

Petroski · Post by **Petroski** » Wed Mar 09, 2005 3:06 pm

Sorry, I thought that we wanted to keep this simple

jptechnical · Post by **jptechnical** » Wed Mar 09, 2005 10:09 pm

Petroski wrote: Sorry, I thought that we wanted to keep this simple

I do, there are only a few features I need.

Email pipe
File upload
Create ticket on behalf of user

I currently live without the last one but of all the simple systems there are some serious lackings. I am looking at lynx and it has a good simple feature set, but the missing uploads is the killer.

Although I have learned I can do a simple form to login for the one I am currently using... that is enough of an integration as I need at the moment. I will just see if I can get the header and footer in there like I want it.

Thanks.

Petroski · Post by **Petroski** » Thu Mar 10, 2005 6:56 am

But, doesn't CMSMS have a user contributed File upload module. Look in the WIKI

jptechnical · Post by **jptechnical** » Thu Mar 10, 2005 7:14 am

It does... I havent played with it yet. I am just twiddling my thumbs on awaiting a new release of the helpdesk I use now... it has been a long time coming and should fill in the rather small gap. I have a file upload feature on my current desk that works well.

Here is the thing I am worried about the file uploads. I went hunting for a helpdeskscript for a client to give him alternatives, in my searching I fould 4 helpdesk scripts that had been hacked... 2 for certain used an exploit in the upload... they uploaded a file and executed it, simple as that.

So I want to become more familiar with how they work before I use anymore, at least the current desk requires registration before an upload and I am sent an email (ticket) as soon as a file is uploaded. Still enough time for a determined individual to ruin my day.

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