Exporting Tickets from OTRS 6

[roderickal96]

Hello,

We're looking to migrate away from OTRS. Is there a way I can export all our existing tickets to a .csv file to use for importing into a new system? We have a lot of tickets. It seems we've been using OTRS since around 2010. I would also appreciate any advice if anyone else has ever gone through a migration process.

[root]

Hi,

Exporting tickets is not easy as it sounds, especially with a CSV file. What about attachments, etc.? Every time I did it, it needed custom development.

- Roy

[roderickal96]

What kind of custom development? Were you ever able to actually do it? I'm not even sure how to start. I figured it'd be more difficult than just saving tickets as csv files.

[root]

Hi,

Most of the time it is a script getting data out of system A and insert into system B. It always depends on the API and requirements of which data is needed.
- Roy

[alexus]

Hi,

One of the options for solving this problem is the use of standard OTRS REST API - method TicketGet. You can specify how detailed the ticket information will be. For every ticket you can get JSON data.

If you need only list of tickets without articles you get use SQL-request -

Code: Select all

SELECT * from ticket LIMIT X

[roderickal96]

Hi,

Most of the time it is a script getting data out of system A and insert into system B. It always depends on the API and requirements of which data is needed.
- Roy

Yeah, that's what confuses me. I'm not too sure how to go about everything. I just know I'm going to need to get all our existing tickets out someway and imported into some new system. I keep seeing people reference "articles" within the tickets, but I'm not sure what that means. Sorry if this is all basic. I only inherited OTRS from when it was setup before I got to my company.

[reneeb]

So you should think about the requirements first and get used to the terms used in OTRS.

You'd like to get all the *ticket*s from your OTRS. A ticket is just a "container" for the communication about one topic. Think about it like this thread. You started the thread "Exporting Tickets from OTRS 6". Within this thread you get answers or you respond to some answers. You can find that in your OTRS tickets as well. Your original question and the answers would be articles (one article per question/answer) in the OTRS ticket.

There are lots of data that belong to the container (ticket): Who is the customer? Which priority is allocated? Who is the owner? Which queue? Ticket dynamic fields ...

And there are lots of data that belong to the article: Who was the sender? Article dynamic fields ...

You have to look at the new system and think about the data you want to migrate. Can you migrate all the data? What is needed, what can be left behind? Are the values available in the new system (e.g. are the priority names the same or do you have to do a mapping from OTRS values to the new system)?

[roderickal96]

So you should think about the requirements first and get used to the terms used in OTRS.

You'd like to get all the *ticket*s from your OTRS. A ticket is just a "container" for the communication about one topic. Think about it like this thread. You started the thread "Exporting Tickets from OTRS 6". Within this thread you get answers or you respond to some answers. You can find that in your OTRS tickets as well. Your original question and the answers would be articles (one article per question/answer) in the OTRS ticket.

There are lots of data that belong to the container (ticket): Who is the customer? Which priority is allocated? Who is the owner? Which queue? Ticket dynamic fields ...

And there are lots of data that belong to the article: Who was the sender? Article dynamic fields ...

You have to look at the new system and think about the data you want to migrate. Can you migrate all the data? What is needed, what can be left behind? Are the values available in the new system (e.g. are the priority names the same or do you have to do a mapping from OTRS values to the new system)?

Thank you for explaining that so well. It really does help. So for example let's say I just want to export all tickets and their articles, any attachments, who is the owner, and the queue it was in. How would I then go into OTRS and begin to export that data?

[zzz]

Hey,

Take a look into the database. If the attachments are stored in DB (default), you should be able to get everything you need with a couple of SELECT statements.

Start with otrs.ticket and work your way into the connected tables.

— Emin

[roderickal96]

Hey,

Take a look into the database. If the attachments are stored in DB (default), you should be able to get everything you need with a couple of SELECT statements.

Start with otrs.ticket and work your way into the connected tables.

— Emin

Thank you! I'll see what I can find via digging. Is there a command to use from the DB to export to a file? Or a command within otrs?