One of the hardest things about documenting your tech support work is figuring out an easy way to do it. In my years here in Hopkins, I’ve documented things in a number of different ways using a bunch of different software packages. Until this school year, I never really found a solution that seemed to do all I wanted it to do.

This year, we set up an issue tracking software package called Request Tracker. Request Tracker consists of an SQL database that is accessed via a web interface, via email, or some combination of the two. It is open source, free software and so far, it seems to be the perfect choice for tracking tech support requests.

Request Tracker is run on a server and currently it will run on most flavors of Unix and Linux. Although it doesn’t specifical say, I would be willing to bet it would also run on Mac OS X, since that is just a variety of Unix. For those of you just starting out with it, it will run on a wide variety of software. When we first started using it, it was running on an old Pentium II 266mhz desktop we had sitting around. We’ve liked it so much that we recently purchased a rack mounted server to run it on. The new server has shortened the wait time when you search for records and will really pay of later as the database grows.

Here is how it works:

A user who is having difficulty with something would send an email to a “special” email address explaining what the problem is. Request Tracker receives the email and generates a numbered “ticket”. The ticket number is used to track this request until it is resolved. As part of generating the ticket, Request Tracker automatically generates a reply email message to the user explaining that their request has been received and what their ticket number is. It also explains how they should correspond in the future about that particular request.

When a tech works on this request, they enter in comments, or send additional email through the web interface of Request Tracker or via email through their favorite email client. Every comment they make or email they send about this ticket becomes part of the ticket’s history.

Why is this helpful? First, the email that your users send you is automatically documented. It becomes part of a searchable database that you can refer to time and time again from any web-enabled computer. Second, your users are doing half the work of documenting for you by sending in their questions and problems.

If you haven’t seen something like Request Tracker, check it out!