ISP Ticket Support System for HelpDesk

Recently an OP was required to deploy an Help-Desk ticket system so that user can log there complains / suggestions and they must get ticket number in order to track the complain. [& generally it is also required by the PTA / Licensing Authorities].

Ideally the best approach is to create your own helpdesk complain system like in PHP as frontend and mySQL as backend because customized solutions are good and to the point according to the network requirements like you can integrate email + sms functions as well to let user / admin know about the complain status.Such systems are very common in almost every sophisticated networks.

But not every admin have good skills in PHP and mySQL, and in most cases OP usually don’t have enough budget to hire the resources to done the job in proper fashioned way.
To overcome the issue at lower level, I deployed ‘OS-Ticket‘  ISP Support Ticket System at a local network, so I thought to share it with all.

For beginners , you can use use already available “OSTICKET” system which is FREE for your local hosting requirements. Above all you can modify its code to add functions or change the theme as required. OSTICKET is very good and feature rich ticketing system. Installation of this application is very easy and you can modify it at certain levels. There is a support page for user end, admin and agents. read about it on google.

Writing this post to share the application deployment idea only, for complete guide, you should visit there Wiki and forums.

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Installation:

Following components are used in the installation of OSTICKET system.

1. Ubuntu 12.4 / 32bit
2. mySQL with PHP modules
3. GMAIL account to be used to send email alerts to admin / agents / users

Note: I assume you already have the mysql/php in working condition.

Lets Begin …

First install imap support in php which will be used later for email support.

sudo apt-get -y install php5-imap
# Restart Apache web service so changes can take effect.
service apcahe2 restart

Now download the osticket (the latest release is 1.9.12 at the time of writing this post 31st/mar/2016)

mkdir /temp
cd /temp
wget http://osticket.com/sites/default/files/download/osTicket-v1.9.12.zip
unzip osTicket-v1.9.12.zip
cd upload

Now copy it to web folder so that we can access the setup wizard via browser.

mkdir /var/www/support
cp -vr * /var/www/support/
cp /var/www/support/include/ost-sampleconfig.php /var/www/support/include/ost-config.php
chmod 0666 /var/www/support/include/ost-config.php

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Execute the configuration wizard via Browser !

Open browser and access following URL.

http://your_server/support

As showed in the image below …

on the next page, fill up the data as required. Pay attention to mySQL section and make sure you enter correct information for mysql and DB. You can take example as showed in below image …

After config done and you dont see any error continue below …

change the permission back to default for the config file.

chmod 0644 /var/www/support/include/ost-config.php

rm -fr /var/www/support/setup/

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OSTICKET Support /Admin Panel !

Now login to ADMIN panel to continue the rest of configuration.

Admin Panel:

http://your_server/scp

End-User Panel:

http://your_server/support/

Go ahead, make changes, add your information, add your custom logo which will be showed to admin/user.

The important part is the EMAIL alerts. Take example as showed here in the image below for email.

Goto Emails and add new EMAIL Address which will be used to send or receive email. You can configure different emails for different support staff as well. example support / outdoor field staff etc.

 

 

 

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Log First Ticket From User-End ! TEST …

Open panel from user end. by default , user end panel opens.

 

 

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Once the ticket is locked, Admin and user will be informed via email.

USER EMAIL ALERT:

ADMIN EMAIL ALERT:

You can change logo as well.

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OSTICKET system is very good, feature rich to create basic ticket system. You can make your own bash scripts which can send SMS upon locking ticket by query mysql tables and act accordingly. You can also add this ticket system with your existing RADIUS billing system depend on the billing code.

Regard’s

Syed Jahanzaib