[rt-users] Configuring RT3 for use by an MSP

[Jim Lancaster]

I've got RT3 up and running on RH-Fedora under Apache 1.3 + mod_perl1 +
MySQL 4.0 and I'm beginning to experiment with it to see if it will suit
our needs.  I run an outsourced network administration
company--essentially an MSP with onsite service.  I need a request
tracking system with the following features:

What I am looking for is a system that will allow us to create virtual
service desk for each client we manage.  Obviously, I would like each
client to be able to see only their own tickets.  Some clients provide a
technical contact that is responsible for reviewing the help requests
made by their employees, and want prior approval before we begin work on
a ticket so as to not waste our time or their money.  The technical
contact should be able to monitor all of the tickets entered by the
client's employees, regardless of who entered them.

Each client has an administrator from my staff assigned to them, but
each administrator works on multiple clients. (These are generally small
clients.) Each client also has a technical account manager who is
responsible for making sure the tickets are being cleared by the
administrators in a timely manner.  I would like the administrators to
see all of the tickets assigned to them, regardless of the client.  I
would like the technical account managers to monitor the tickets both by
administrator and client.

I'm pretty sure RT can do what I want, but I don't really know how to
get started setting it up.  Let me start with a few basic questions:

1. What is the optimum configuration?  Fedora + MySQL 4.0 + Apache v1.3
(or 2.0?) + [mod_perl1 (or 2?) or fastcgi] Is there anything else I
would need?

2. Do I create a queue for each client?  How do I proceed from here?

3. Do I create a virtual host for each client?  And would it be better
to use different host names for each? e.g.,
support.client1.com,support.client2.com, support.client3.com?  Or would
some other configuration be better? e.g., support.mycompany.com/client1,
support.mycompany.com/client2

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Jim