RT What? Navigating through the ByWater Solutions Ticketing System

by Margaret Hade on Mar 8, 2019

Getting the most out of the ticketing system!

ByWater Solutions uses the Open Source ticket tracking system called Request Tracker (RT). Developed by Best Practical Solutions, RT is a problem tracking power house!

For questions, requests, or problems we recommend opening a ticket. Once the Support Leads receive your ticket, we’ll work with team member who has expertise in that area to answer your questions or resolve the problem as quickly as we can. The more details you can provide about a problem the faster we'll be able to resolve it. When entering tickets try to include a screenshot or video of the problem, all of which can be attached to the ticket. Our goal is to reproduce and understand the problem so that we can fix it or report it as a bug.

In this blog we'll show you the Self Service and Self Service+ interfaces for RT. Let's get started!

Self Service

Go to this URL to log into RT - http://ticket.bywatersolutions.com/

In this example we are Amelia, Techsupport and Network coordinator for the Greenville City Library. She works with the City's IT department to manage the Library's network and integration systems

NEW TICKET - You can open a New Ticket.
TICKETS - View Open or Closed tickets.
LOGGED IN - Click the dropdown menu to edit your Preferences (Password, Language, and Region) and Log Out.
GOTO TICKET - A simple ticket number search. Every ticket is assigned an unique numerical ID when it is created.

Finally our phone number is written in bold across the top. You can reach us any time at 888-900-8944.

In the main body of the window are her tickets. Open tickets are the first thing you see by default. Amelia has three open tickets. She can see these tickets' subjects, when they were last updated and by who. Once these tickets are closed they will show in the Closed section.

Let's open up a ticket and look at its contents.

From top to bottom there is the Number and Subject of the ticket, metadata information about the ticket (The Basics and Dates), and the correspondence of the ticket (History). Tickets are a comprehensive record changes we make to Koha on your behalf. every time we correspond on a ticket that entry is logged. That's why it's our gold standard for support communication.

Amelia can respond to this ticket by clicking the Reply button. She can attach files, such as in this case and documentation from the third party vendor she wants Koha to integrate with.

Now let's look at Amelia's account options.

Amelia can change her locale: choose her language and Timezone. Changing the timezone will insure that the Created and Updated times on the ticket accurately match your clocks locally.

She can also update her password. We suggest you do this routinely and choose a strong and memorable password. (Or you can use an encrypted password manager, such as KeePass, the free, open source, light-weight and easy-to-use password manager!)

What else can RT do?

We're excited to share that we have new updates and improvements coming to RT. You can take advantage of these features today:

Primary Ticket Contact for a Library

This feature is for our partners with many staff members who submit tickets. A primary contact email can be added to every ticket. As a Library Director or Systems Administrator you'll know that you are always in the loop.

Simply call or create a ticket letting us know who should be the Primary Ticket Contact.

Customized Ticket Analysis

Do you want your tickets broken down and grouped by their status (new, open, needsinfo) or queue (support, development, bugs)? We can create daily or weekly reports emailed to you that give you that analysis.

Simply call or create a ticket letting us know how you'd like your report styled and the frequency you'd like to recieve it.

Ticket Submission by Email

Don't have time to log into the ticketing system? Was a problem reported to you while you were out of the office?

You can email support@bywatersolutions.com to create tickets! Then once you're back in the office you can look up and mange your ticket as you normally would.

Password Reset

Can't remember your password? We've added a password reset option! We use email addresses as Usernames for RT accounts, so you will need to remember that!