OTRS Features

From Email based Tickets to Workflow to SLAs!

Features Summary

Organize Teams Using Queues

Setup multiple support or service teams on the same system each with its own set of queues.

Email Notifications

Customers, support or service agents or managers get email notifications triggered by events like new ticket, followup, closure etc..

Ticket generated from Emails

Tickets get created and dispatched to appropriate queues based on incoming emails.

Ticket Workflow

Tickets can move from status to status or from one queue to another.

System Administration

Manage email configuration, dispatch rules, SLAs, queues & more.

Customer Interface

Customers can raise tickets, view status or provide information by logging into the system.

SLAs & Escalations

Setup SLAs at a customer level, track response time, tickets breaching SLAs are highlighted.

Other Ticket Features

Locking, history, zoom, print, text search, forward and more.

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Features Detail

Organize Teams Using Queues

Organize multiple support or service teams on the same system by create a set of queues for each team. For e.g. you could setup separate queues for IT, HR & building mgmt.

For IT you could set up separate queues for Desktop & Email.

You can even setup different queues within a team, e.g. 1st level & 2nd level support.

Email Notifications

Emails notifications are sent to customer when a new ticket is created based on their emails.

Notifications can also be sent when ticket status, owner or queue changes.

Email notifications to support & service agents are triggered by a number of events - New ticket, ticket assignment, owner update, escalation, followup, new note added, when lock times out or when a reminder is set.

Ticket generated from Emails

Tickets can get generated based on emails sent by external or internal customers.

Once the ticket is generated an autoresponse email be sent notifying the client of the ticket reference number.

The ticket also get dispatched to an appropriate queue based on a wide range of email parameters, e.g. to address, from address, Subject, Importance, text in the body etc.

Ticket Workflow

Once a ticket is created it can dispatched to a queue manually, or it can dispatched automatically based on rules that look at information in the incoming email.

The ticket can then be picked up by an agent assigned to the queue or it can be assigned to an agent by a manager. The ticket can also be assigned to another queue at any time.

The agent working on the ticket can lock the ticket, so others can not work on the same ticket. The agent can forward the ticket, or bounce it back to the customer or can split the ticket (when work needs to be done by more than one person). He or she can even link the ticket to another ticket or merge it with another.

The agent can send an email to the customer asking for more information or to send an update. The agent can postpone work on the ticket & can set a pending reminder.

Finally the ticket can be closed with an auto notification to the customer. .

System Administration

With your Administrator user id you will be able to manage users, groups & roles, queues & auto responses, email notifications & SLAs, configure otrs to work with your email server, and also setup dispatch rules for incoming email.

When you have a large no. of users & support or service teams, you can create groups & roles and link them to queues. You can then add users to groups at any time.

Use the email notifications module to setup the notification trigger events and the associated notification text.

Setup us Service Level Agreements (SLAs) at the customer level, so different customers can have different SLAs. SLAs can be setup for first response, updates & for closure.

You can also enter details of your email server to otrs can retreive incoming email for dispatch to its queues.

Dispatch rules can be setup that direct incoming emails to appropriate queues, these rules can be setup on a wide range of email fields from to address, to priority to subject or a certain text in the subject or body. .

Customer Interface

Customers can login to the system using a separate customer panel.

They can also create a user id for themselves & request for forgotten passwords.

Once they login customers can raise new tickets, track their tickets, track their company tickets.

They can also run a search based on wide range of parameters from date range to reference numbers to specific text in the various ticket fields.

Customers can also set preferences the look & feel of their screens & the queue refresh time .

SLAs & Escalations

Service Level Agreements (SLAs) can be setup on ticket first response, updates and closure.

SLAs can be setup at a customer level so different customers have different SLAs.

You can also setup different SLAs for different services for a customers, e.g. desktop or applications. If an SLA is breached the particular ticket is considered 'escalated', it is highlighted in the system so agents can easily find it.

Also an email notification can be sent out to agents of the particular queue. .

Other Ticket Features

OTRS is full of great ticket features - Locking, history, zoom, print, text search, forward and more.

A ticket can be locked by an agent so other agents don't work on it. A lock timeout can be configured so that the ticket gets unlocked after the timeout interval, an email is sent to the agent notifying her that her ticket is now unlocked.

A full ticket history is captured in the system covering the action, user, a time stamp, comments & description. Zoom allows one to look into the full detail of the ticket, or an element of a ticket (e.g. customer email).

You can print the full details of a ticket when you zoom into it.

One can search for a ticket based text, the system can search for the text in all the fields of the tickets (not just the subject). The agent can peform a number of actions on the ticket, forward to another email address, merge it to another ticket, link it to another ticket or split the ticket into multiple tickets.

The agent can also postpone work on a ticket and setup a reminder for the next time she wants to work on it .