Request Tracker/Workflow

Request Tracker 'tracks' requests or jobs from start to finish by assigning them a ticket. You may have encountered tickets before when contacting a telco or utility over the phone - the case number or 'job' that is assigned to you is what the staff use internally to document and follow your complaint/question through to resolution. This is a much simpler system than trying to keep on top of hundreds of e-mails in your inbox!

Submission

Every request starts with the initial submission of a ticket. This is done by a staff member creating a ticket manually using RT's web interface, or by (any) person sending an e-mail to one of the designated support e-mail addresses. A ticket has several key properties:

• Subject - set when creating a ticket, or the subject of the e-mail message;
• Queue - the 'department' that the request is sent to;
• Owner - Initially 'Nobody', indicating that it is a new ticket and someone has yet to review it. After a staff member 'owns' or takes possession of the ticket, i.e. they become responsible for it, they become the owner;
• Requestor/s - the person who initiated the request. Shown as the staff members name, or an e-mail address;
• Contents - the actual contents of the ticket (or e-mail) describing the issue or request.

The RT interface also displays other information, such as the time and date of ticket creation, last updated, history of all correspondence and so forth.

Taking/Ownership

Once the ticket is submitted, it is displayed in the Dashboard (main interface) of RT where a staff member can 'Take' the ticket (for themselves) or set an owner (assign to a relevant staff member). e.g. the Press Officer would take a ticket generated as a result of a journalist asking for an interview, and assign (set the owner of the ticket) about membership records to the Party Secretary.

Actioning/Processing

After the ticket is taken, a staff member can proceed to 'action' the ticket. They can perform the following operations any number of times, in any order:

• Reply to the ticket - the reply written in RT will be sent to the requestor, and all subsequent correspondence is logged in RT for review/reference;
• Add a comment -
• Change ticket status - the status is used to indicate what stage the ticket is at. The available states are:
  • New - a freshly submitted ticket;
  • Open - ticket is in progress and being worked on by a staff member;
  • Stalled - ticket is in limbo e.g. awaiting a response from another staff member, the initial requestor has ceased replying or no solution can be reached;
  • Resolved - the request has been fulfilled/the issue has been fixed and the ticket is therefore closed;
  • Rejected - the request/issue is invalid e.g. can not be fulfilled;
  • Deleted - this option may not be available to you, as tickets are usually kept after resolution for auditing/historical reference;
• Change queue - the ticket was created in the wrong 'department' and is moved to the correct one;
• Change owners - assign the ticket to another staff member with specific knowledge of the area;
• Notify - CC (carbon copy) other staff into the content of a ticket, e.g. a supervisor.

Resolution

Once the issue has been resolved/request enacted, the ticket status is changed to resolved. RT will send an automatic message to the requestor informing them of this. If they believe the issue is not yet resolved, they can reopen the ticket automatically by replying to the message/e-mail again.

By default, resolved tickets are no longer displayed on your dashboard (unless bookmarked) nor in the queue. They will however show up in searches.