WebTTS

Introduction

Welcome to the WebTTS Homepage! WebTTS is a trouble ticketing system written in PERL5. Trouble Ticketing Systems are used by businesses and individuals to track problems in some type of product or service. I have written WebTTS to be a trouble ticketing system for ISP's. This package allows ISP's to track various service-related problems.

This software is distributed under the GPL (included with the software). The requirements are very minimal, and the best part is it will run in ANY web browser! No more obscure command lines, or attempts to get eMail-based systems working properly. I designed the system to be portable, easy to use and functional. I use it every day in my job as a Systems Administrator at Cybermax in Jacksonville, FL.

What's New

9/1/2002 Well after two years of a stale tree I am in the process or preparing the newer version of WebTTS that has been promised to so many users. 4.0 will be a complete rewrite from the ground up. As always, WebTTS will continue to focus on its core strengths: ease of use and simple install processes. WebTTS 4.0 will also correct some areas where it has been lacking in the past, including mod_perl compatibility and an Email-based ticket creation system. A functional demo will be available soon. For the impatient ones, you will be able to track development status on Sourceforge as soon as they clean out my CVS repository which is littered with the old WebTTS source.

Watch this page for more updates about future versions of WebTTS, and its yet-to-be-named sister package powered by J2EE to address the needs of larger organizations.

3.0 introduces a few major features, the primary one being the new switch to MySQL using Perl's DBI/DBD interfaces. This allows me to port to other databases (Oracle 8 is in the works) easily since there is now a Data Abstraction Layer that contains all of the DB-related/specific code. I have also moved to the Mail::Sendmail Perl module to make mail sending easier (and allow the mail server to be a remote host using SMTP). There aren't many new features in this release, but it is an essential upgrade for all users. There are scripts included to import all of your old data so you don't skip a beat. Check the ChangeLog below for more specific information and a history of all changes.

FAQs

I have received swarms of eMail from users wanting to know more about WebTTS and several help requests. I have replied to all eMails, but here are a list of problems people are having and their fixes:

Can I use the UNIX /etc/passwd or /etc/shadow file for users passwords? In 3.0 there is no way for users to authenticate using the UNIX system passwords. I am unsure if this will be added to a future release since it is a pretty easy task to import your UNIX users into the SQL database and I would have to do double-duty to sync between SQL and the UNIX users so the permissions and other attributes would stay synced. If there is some overwhelming response and need for this feature, I might be persuaded into including it in future releases, but you have to eMail me and let me know, otherwise I don't plan on ever implementing this feature.
WebTTS is slow on my machine, how do I speed it up? I suggest trying the mod_perl Apache module. This starts PERL5 when Apache starts, and allows PERL to run on the fly (like server-parsed HTML). This will help speed up WebTTS considerably. In future releases I will optimize the code even more so WebTTS becomes extremely fast.

Plans for future releases

Here are some of the features I plan to include in future releases:

4.0 --public interface -- allow users who input their eMail address and a ticket # to track their ticket.
4.0 -- public ticket creation -- web AND eMail-based way for end-users to put a ticket into the system
4.0 --time tracking -- allow managers to track how long it takes for a response to a ticket, the time between updates, and the total time a ticket is open and compare them between users.
4.0 -- auto-assignment -- for new tickets coming in automatically assign people based on the areas
4.0 -- assignment groups -- allow for multiple users to exist in a group and eMail all of them when a ticket is created so the team can work on a ticket.

Release timetable

I am currently planning on getting 3.0pl1 out here in the next week or so. This release will not incorporate any new functionality, but will be a bug fix release. We'll also be bringing a new UI into the mix as well as enhanced install script functionality (have it simply ask for the MySQL passwords and it will do the rest (including GRANT, and CREATE options required). As soon as I get 3.0pl1 out I am really hoping I'll have some more developers headed my way to help me get 4.0 out as soon as possible. 4.0 will be another major rewrite with large portions of the code being rewritten to add piles of new functionality. Continue to monitor this page for more details.

Screenshots

I've not made any screenshots yet, because I am trying to re-assemble gashalot.com, which is going to take precedence over screenshots now. If you want to see it in action, just install it. It's not hard to do, takes up less than 100k of space, and you might just like it!

Download

The README for the program contains much more data, and I suggest reading it. You can also read the CREDITS , and the ChangeLog, and the LICENSE if you wish.

Download WebTTS 3.0 in .tar.gz format.
Old versions are in the archive.

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