Jonathan Hutchins wrote:

<>Patric, you give some details on things like how you want buttons to respond, but no overview on what you're tracking.

You say you have 400 clients and are tracking "system problems" and "customer complaints".

<>What service are you providing? Are you supporting a software product? Are you the help desk for a corporation, handling all support for diverse departments?

At this time we are handling our own problems. We provide phone services like voice mail voice mail and/or customer service. Who knows where we will go with this in the future.

<>If you're providing general hardware support, how common is the hardware platform you're supporting?

no not really hardware support, just how to use voice mail. or how to forward the phone, or service complaints

If you're supporting software, are you responsible for the entire software install on numerous PC's, or only the performance of one application?

Do "customer complaints" involve system problems, ordering problems, unsatisfactory merchandise, unsatisfactory service or support?

Its not real/hard asset based, but rather client based the issues would be along the line of service, account changes, or some support. When you ask this I start thinking of more things that we would be able to migrate to the system, and how rather than just using it a little we would use it a lot.

Most of the issues would be. I would like to change my voice mail greeting, or the CSR got a wrong phone/credit card number. They were rude, etc. Phone is not rolling over properly (this one could be a help desk type of system.)

Currently we have a computer system that we would still be using with the help desk system. Our system provides cards in a menu for short bits of information i.e. how to forward your phone, how to blah.

What do you hope to get OUT of the tracking system? Do you just need to have opened and closed dates for tickets? Do you need to have a routing system to assign them to appropriate technicians and departments? Are you hoping to mine the data for common problems to allow you to pool solutions rather than rediscover them each time a problem occurs?

-Produce a ticket number -Display Highest priority problems up prominently -Be able to add message information -Emailing to the client is not necessary, and it would almost be easier to use a phone number since most of our clients contact us via the phone. -Make sure tickets don't sit there a long time without being addressed (one business day it needs to be assigned and at least one note added) or it goes to the top of the list. -email a report of calls: new, outstanding, high priority/ignored, etc. -page urgent calls (any call upon request) -We don't get too many calls that would be 'rediscover', it would mostly be music on hold not working. Or static on the line have a tech look at it.

You could knock a basic ticket database together in about fifteen minutes with MySQL and PHP.

I was debating this, but figured it would be "too basic"