OTRS: some issues

[marcosaps]

It's been a while since we're trying OTRS to see if it can be adopted as the standard solution to manage requests between the departments in the college were I work. The reason we are giving OTRS a try is primarily because its well-organized and intuitive user interface and because its process management feature. But we are facing problems imposed by the tool that we would like to tell you and ask for your help.

1. In OTRS there's no way to create a dynamic field of type 'Attachment'

The dynamic field types available in OTRS are: text, textarea, checkbox, dropdown, multiselect, date and date/time, which, I have to confess, already covers a lot of use cases, but in some situations we really do need a dynamic field of type 'Attachment'. We are currently having a problem that wouldn't exist in the first place if this field type existed.

2. In OTRS there's no way to create a dynamic field for a specific queue

OTRS offers us the possibility to create dynamic fields, but it doesn't let us associate a dynamic field with a specific queue, letting the field appear only in that queue. With OTRS, regarding this scenario, it's all or nothing. Either you create a dynamic field that would appear in all queues or don't create one. Different departments have different data and we need to specify data that are specific to departments. Hacks like this one viewtopic.php?f=60&t=8032 are imperfect and don't solve the problem completely. Native support is needed for an issue so important like this one.

3. Process Management: because of the lack of a dynamic field of type 'Attachment', you have to use a field of type Article

What's the problem with this? The problem is that na Article field is a compound field, a field composed of these three fields: Subject, Text, and Attachment. If all I want is an Attachment field, why do I need to have a subject and a text field? What will the user inform in these other fields? As you can see, if you want to create a process that have to upload files, OTRS puts you in a dead end.

4. Process Management: in an Article field, if you attach files in the upload field and don't specify content to the Subjec or Text field, you won't be able to access the uploaded files anywhere

For OTRS it seems that you don't even changed anything in the Article field. It lets you submit the Activity Dialog, but after that you don't have any way to access the files you uploaded.

5. Process Management: if you specify the Subject in an Article field, the subject you specified overrides the name of the process in the New Tickets area in the Dashboard

This is counter intuitive as the use won't know what the ticket is about, since the correct would be for the name of the process to be displayed and not the subject, in this case. If I have a process named 'Book ordering' I want the title of my ticket to be 'Book ordering' everywhere and not what I specifield in the subject field. That's another problem with Article fields.

Any help for these issues would be appreciated.

Thank you.

Marcos

[jojo]

1. In OTRS there's no way to create a dynamic field of type 'Attachment'

There is a feature add on for service customers

2. In OTRS there's no way to create a dynamic field for a specific queue

Makes no sense. What should happen on move? If you need some more flexibility during ticket creation use TicketForms AddOn or process tickets

3. Process Management: because of the lack of a dynamic field of type 'Attachment', you have to use a field of type Article

See above, get the feature add on

4. Process Management: in an Article field, if you attach files in the upload field and don't specify content to the Subjec or Text field, you won't be able to access the uploaded files anywhere

Works as designed

5. Process Management: if you specify the Subject in an Article field, the subject you specified overrides the name of the process in the New Tickets area in the Dashboard

Works as designed. Artilce Subject of initial article will be title of the ticket. But you can set another title via Transition Action if needed. Also there will be a dashlet showing running process tickets with the process and current activity name in upcomming OTRS4

[marcosaps]

First of all, thank you for the answers.

1. In OTRS there's no way to create a dynamic field of type 'Attachment'

There is a feature add on for service customers

With all respect and please don't get me wrong: I strongly think that I nor anywone else wouln't have to pay for such a basic feature. I basic feature like a dynamic field of type 'Attachment' would have to be available out of the box in the free version of OTRS for everyone. This simple feature would solve all my problems with the Article field, as you saw in my post. I don't want to start a flame war here (and please don't tell me "ok, so go and use RT"), but RT (Request Tracker) provides this feature out of the box in the free version.

2. In OTRS there's no way to create a dynamic field for a specific queue

Makes no sense. What should happen on move? If you need some more flexibility during ticket creation use TicketForms AddOn or process tickets

Sorry to disagree once again, but this really makes sense. A corner case like Move should not be sufficient reason to exclude a feature like this. In the case of a move I'm sure that the OTRS team would come up with not only one but with a couple of possible solutions to this case. I also suppose that RT has the move facility and so they alredy have a solution to this because in RT you can create dynamic fields specific not only for queues, but for other things as well.

3. Process Management: because of the lack of a dynamic field of type 'Attachment', you have to use a field of type Article

See above, get the feature add on

Again, for the time being, we don't want to pay basic things that should be available with no additional cost in the free version. We do agree that we have to pay for exotic and sophisticated things.

4. Process Management: in an Article field, if you attach files in the upload field and don't specify content to the Subjec or Text field, you won't be able to access the uploaded files anywhere

Works as designed

Just don't understand the rationale behind this.

5. Process Management: if you specify the Subject in an Article field, the subject you specified overrides the name of the process in the New Tickets area in the Dashboard

Works as designed. Artilce Subject of initial article will be title of the ticket. But you can set another title via Transition Action if needed. Also there will be a dashlet showing running process tickets with the process and current activity name in upcomming OTRS4

Ok, but makes no sense to me. If the ticket is a process, it's more intuitive, in all cases, that the title of the ticket be the name of the process. Again, another problem with Article fields. Thank you for the Transition Action hint. I haven't thought about that. That could solve the issue in this case.

[crythias]

Works as designed/Makes no sense/Find a different ticketing system that makes sense?

[crythias]

Also, "Want it all for free". Go find one that works for you.

[marcosaps]

Also, "Want it all for free". Go find one that works for you.

One way to know that the things that you said are true and reasonable is that when you get answers like this one from you. As you couldn't win the argument, you get personal and uneducated.

[crythias]

What is personal about this? Did you read the responses that you wrote? How should random reader interpret anything other than "I shouldn't have to pay for this. This makes no sense"

[marcosaps]

What is personal about this? Did you read the responses that you wrote? How should random reader interpret anything other than "I shouldn't have to pay for this. This makes no sense"

Regarding the phrase "makes or makes no sense" I wasn't the first one to use it on this topic, and I even didn't see it as personal when used by the person that answered to me. I just thought it was normal. Regarding "I shouldn't have to pay for this", I wasn't being rude or sarcastic, in my opinion. I even said that it was with all respect and asked for not being get wrong before saying that. I would never ask for help in a top and be rude with people that is trying to help me. If I sounded like this, that wasn't my intention.

[jojo]

Marcos,

I did consultancy on nearly 1000 OTRS installations on my own + the knowledge of my team. Move is not a corner case.

Second, you get a software, saving you you more than 100K $ per year on licence costs for free. So you should not complain if you have to pay for services and additional features as this is the business model of most Open Source companies.

Open Source does not mean free in the sense of free beer!

[marcosaps]

Marcos,

I did consultancy on nearly 1000 OTRS installations on my own + the knowledge of my team. Move is not a corner case.

If you say, based in your professional experience as a OTRS consultant, that Move is not a corner case, I believe you. Who am I to disagree? But I just wanted you to realise that, based on the common sense, that there should be a way to conciliate dynamic fields for queues and the move operation. A quick look at the topic viewtopic.php?f=60&t=8032 shows that there are lots of people interested in this feature and that OTRS user base would even increase if it were present. Opinions about this could be relative and we could never reach a commom sense, but for the time being this is my opnion about this.

Second, you get a software, saving you you more than 100K $ per year on licence costs for free. So you should not complain if you have to pay for services and additional features as this is the business model of most Open Source companies.

Open Source does not mean free in the sense of free beer!

For now, we are not even saving money already because we can't say that we are already using OTRS, just evaluating it to see if it fulfils our needs. Regarding my issues 1, 3, 4, and 5, the simple fact of the existence of a dynamic field of type 'Attachment' would solve all of them. I'm not complaining about anything. I'm just making suggestions that would solve my problems and that, I believe, would be benefic to OTRS as well.

[crythias]

but you could just host and hyperlink it instead of attaching it because then you don't have the overhead of obsolete and multiple storings of the attachment.

[marcosaps]

but you could just host and hyperlink it instead of attaching it because then you don't have the overhead of obsolete and multiple storings of the attachment.

That could be an option, but I'm afraid that it would not be very practical and accepted by the end users here as they just want to find some file(s) from they local storage and attach them. The obsolute things taking space would not be a problem as they would serve as a history and backup for us.

[crythias]

If the end users are making processes, this is problematic. If they're using a ticket to attach files, this is not.

[marcosaps]

No, the users won't be making processes, just creating tickets using the processes made from us.

[jojo]

I don't see any showstopper to invest in service and get the functionality

[rvaldomir]

1. In OTRS there's no way to create a dynamic field of type 'Attachment'

there is a free addon from otrs365 guys

[jojo]

1. In OTRS there's no way to create a dynamic field of type 'Attachment'

Thats part of the OTRS Business Solution™

[rvaldomir]

http://otrs365.com/en_US/page/dynamicfield and it is free those guys are doing a good job.