One OTRS instance, two or more departments

[ArminCM]

We currently use own instances of OTRS for each department and would like to use just one
instance in the future. Almost everything can be handled by separated email adresses, roles, groups, queue and
ACLs.

But there is still one open thing I have no solution so far:
With separated OTRS instances, department "A" can create a ticket in own OTRS and
send it to email address of department "B" OTRS. Answers and replies are no problem here.
Same is if a customer contacts both departments (issues to be handled together).

With one OTRS this communication between departments (queue) are not possible, right?
Moving a ticket into the other queue would require also read-access to see follow-ups and status,
but the queues (departments) itself shall be separated.
I read in another thread viewtopic.php?f=62&t=38968 just splitting
a ticket is available. But is there any other possibility (maybe addon?) to have a department to
department communcation just like if two OTRS instances are used?

Thanks
Armin

[wurzel]

Hi,

use notes for that with sysconfig option
Ticket::Frontend::AgentTicketNote###InformAgent

regards
Flo

[ArminCM]

InformAgent of course is a good possibility, but it will inform selected Agents via email only.

If a note, reply, or status for the team of the other queue is needed (inside OTRS), it will not help.

[wurzel]

Hi,

use ticket splitting for that, use a good (open minded) permission concept and you might want use webservices for improvements.

In the most installations I did, a open minded permission concept is sufficient.

Florian

[MHCDdave]

There's a permission for "move into" that allows you to transfer a ticket into a queue that you don't have Read access to. It might error after submission since you can't view the ticket you just transferred any longer, but then you just go back to queues you're allowed to read from and everything is happy again. You could also setup agent notifications for e-mail updates to tickets, but to some extent it looks like you're going out of your way to make sure these two queues can't read each other's tickets, but still wanting agents to be able to collaborate on those tickets. I'm not sure I understand why. If an agent from the other department still has work to do on the ticket, he/she should be able to enter information on the work they've done somewhere. Either via a split-ticket or by editing the ticket in the other queue. I suppose another way to do it might be to create a third queue, which is basically "shared" between the two departments. Any tickets strictly for Department A go into Department A's queue, any tickets strictly for Department B go in Department B's queue. Any ticket that is moving from Department A to Department B but still needs worked on by a Department A agent, goes into the "Shared" queue until the shared portion of the work is done.

[ArminCM]

If we just use the move-into right, then the ticket is not seen by the department who moved it any more.
Yes, the other department's agent could use inform-agent on updates, but it can be forgotten and
selecting the whole team doesn't make sense. Also, when the ticket is closed, just one department can
find it because of permissions of each queue.
Tickets that have been processed by two (or more) departments, must be visable with all history for all of them.

We also thought about a shared queue. But if we have more than 2 departments these inter-department-queues
would become a bigger list.

The best solution would be the feature to allow sending to another internal system mail address
and have the "task" split into own tickets. Just like it would be when separate OTRS systems are used.

[root]

The best solution would be the feature to allow sending to another internal system mail address
and have the "task" split into own tickets. Just like it would be when separate OTRS systems are used.

Hi,

Sending to a system address is not possible by default. Only commercial add-ons provide this feature.

- Roy

[ArminCM]

Hello Roy,

do you know a commercial add-on (name, vendor) providing that feature?

[root]

Hi,

You may contact Znuny and ask for internal e-mail communication.

- Roy