David,<br><br>I think RT could do what you want. Some aspects would be harder than others though. Custom fields can be applied to user accounts so that is easy.<br><br>Hiding the email address could be difficult. There a lot of places in the interface where the email could appear. It would take some custom development to hide the email but it could be done.
<br><br>Approving correspondence would also be difficult but could be done with custom software modifications.<br><br>-Todd<br><br><div><span class="gmail_quote">On 1/12/08, <b class="gmail_sendername">David Barnard</b> <
<a href="mailto:david@didactylos.net">david@didactylos.net</a>> wrote:</span><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">I am considering adapting RT to manage an email helpline. Not a
<br>technical helpline, but a crisis / mental health / support helpline.<br><br>Volunteer helplines don't have the funding for a fancy commercial<br>solution, and of all the free/OSS possibilities I have researched, RT is
<br>the best fit by far. It's not an exact fit, though.<br><br>I would like your opinions on whether there is more suitable software<br>than RT, and whether RT can be customised for my needs without rewriting<br>a significant fraction of the code.
<br><br>Here are some details specific to the situation: instead of the<br>issue/ticket being central, the whole thing revolves around the actual<br>email conversation.<br><br>Conversations will never be closed (except in very tragic
<br>circumstances).<br> - This won't be a problem if I map each email to a separate ticket,<br>resolved by sending a single reply.<br><br>Responses must be approved before being sent.<br> - I'm guessing I can suppress any emails when the reply is created, and
<br>raise an approval ticket instead. Approval will send off the email. (The<br>goal is to have the reply seen by two people, so responses can't be<br>approved by the same person who created the response.)<br><br>I need to track some user metadata. Can I add custom fields to users?
<br><br>Confidentiality. Ideally, I would like to hide contact details such as<br>the requestor email address.<br> - I can think of a couple of ways to do this. Removing data from the<br>UI, or creating dummy users. This may make searching difficult.
<br><br>I need to link new conversations with past conversations from the same<br>person. This one should be easy.<br><br>Emails should be answered in FIFO order.<br><br>I may need to simplify the interface and terminology. Helpline
<br>volunteers will include total technophobes.<br><br>Can anyone see any major flaws in my plan? How significantly will this<br>diverge from the standard RT?<br><br>Many thanks<br><br>David Barnard<br>_______________________________________________
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