[rt-users] Can RT replace Remedy?

[James Pifer]

On Wed, 2008-02-13 at 14:15 -0600, Kenneth Marshall wrote:
> On Wed, Feb 13, 2008 at 02:20:16PM -0500, James Pifer wrote:
> > We currently use Remedy and it's in need of an upgrade.If you know
> > anything about Remedy you know that can be extremely costly. I'm trying
> > to look at other Helpdesk products to see if something else could fit
> > instead of staying with Remedy.
> > 
> > Our helpdesk is somewhat customized, but we really don't take advantage
> > of what Remedy has to offer. We use it for tracking tickets/incidents. 
> > 
> > I have RT installed on a test server and configured for LDAP which is a
> > requirement.  
> > 
> > We currently create and route tickets based on a three level category
> > and the user's Location. My initial look at RT shows it as much simpler
> > than that. Basically writing an email and submitting. I assume someone
> > else is then responsible for routing the incoming tickets accordingly?
> > 
> > Other things we do:
> > 
> > 1) Escalations? We have tickets with four different severity levels,
> > like Critical, High, Medium, and Low. Depending on the severity level
> > AND which group the ticket is assigned to, if nothing happens on a
> > ticket within a certain amount of time, an escalation
> > notification(email) is sent. Each group has three levels for during and
> > after business hours, plus three more global higher levels. These levels
> > are set for each group. 
> > 
> Yes, this is configurable. Check the wiki for information.

Are you referring to EscalatePriority and the other examples on that
page? I assume because that's the only escalate I see.  I guess I view
an escalation a bit differently. Our view of escalation is more of a
notification to the next person in line or within the group/queue. 

For example, a request comes in that is Critical. If nothing happens to
that ticket within 30 minutes and escalation (or notification email) is
sent to the appropriate person, and the request is marked as Escalated.
This would happen over and over until the highest level of escalation is
reached. 

I guess just about anything is possible depending on the customization I
want to do, right? Looks like what I want do to will require a
significant about of custom fields, etc. Plus running rt-crontool pretty
often. 

I'll step back and look at how requests get entered. I'll need them to
get them entered with more specific details (like categories) before I
can even think about escalations anyway. 

Thanks,
James