Why not just put some free text fields in the ticket and allow your
agents to log in, enter the start/end time for their activities, then
sum that up in a report? Or is what you're trying to do a bit more
complex than that?
-----Original Message-----
Message: 3
Date: Mon, 11 Aug 2008 14:21:33 -0600
From: Aaron Spurlock
Yeah, I find it is kind of difficult to express what I mean. John goes to Widgets Inc. John's scheduled appt is 2 hours, but due to varying circumstances, may end up there longer, which is why we need to track time, so we can bill the overage time.
While there, John has 6 different ticket items to work on. We want John to record what was done on a ticket-by-ticket basis, which is where OTRS is perfect. But for any individual ticket, we don't care to record time, as John doesn't usually sit down and work on one ticket from start to end. He might work on ticket 1, then ticket 2, then come back to ticket 1. You get the idea.
One solution we've used in the past is to create a separate ticket JUST for the visit itself. In that case, we could use the free text fields for timestamps and report based on those stamps.
But what I'd REALLY like, and this is where I'm thinking I might need to have another app developed/integrated with OTRS, is to have a "begin visit" button, which then allows picking the client, and then an "end visit" button. Essentially, all this would do is capture a start and end time, along with client and technician ID's to a table, then we could use those timestamps for billing, reporting, etc...
-----Original Message-----
From: otrs-bounces@otrs.org [mailto:otrs-bounces@otrs.org] On Behalf Of Tony Pagliaroli
Sent: Monday, August 11, 2008 2:56 PM
To: otrs@otrs.org
Subject: Re: [otrs] Exploring OTRS
Why not just put some free text fields in the ticket and allow your
agents to log in, enter the start/end time for their activities, then
sum that up in a report? Or is what you're trying to do a bit more
complex than that?
-----Original Message-----
Message: 3
Date: Mon, 11 Aug 2008 14:21:33 -0600
From: Aaron Spurlock
On Mon, 11 Aug 2008, Aaron Spurlock wrote:
Yeah, I find it is kind of difficult to express what I mean. John goes to Widgets Inc. John's scheduled appt is 2 hours, but due to varying circumstances, may end up there longer, which is why we need to track time, so we can bill the overage time.
I don't think OTRS is built to be a time tracking and billing system. Sure, there is rudimentary support for this using Time/work units, but it is not designed to do what you say: have an agent log in, and track the time from login to logout, or click to click, and have all tickets touched during that time reported as part of his/her day. The problem comes in where you have a single agent working for multiple companies at the same time. What if John is working on site, and during that time he takes a call, and works on another ticket that is for "UPS, Inc"? Does John need to stop what he's doing, log out of OTRS for that company, log into OTRS for another company, then deal with the ticket? Then log out and log back in again to get back to his on-site job? While you CAN do this, I doubt OTRS development will take this track. Why don't you just use an existing time tracker, then with a block of time ID, you can put into the ticket that block ID. Then you can search by blockID and see what tickets were associated with that block (freetext field). There are better time tracking systems out there. Beckman --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Peter Beckman Internet Guy beckman@angryox.com http://www.angryox.com/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
That's a great idea to integrate a time tracking apps 'ID' into the free text field of a ticket. Have you used any time tracking apps you'd recommend to help jumpstart my search? Thanks! -----Original Message----- From: otrs-bounces@otrs.org [mailto:otrs-bounces@otrs.org] On Behalf Of Peter Beckman Sent: Monday, August 11, 2008 3:32 PM To: User questions and discussions about OTRS.org Subject: Re: [otrs] Exploring OTRS On Mon, 11 Aug 2008, Aaron Spurlock wrote:
Yeah, I find it is kind of difficult to express what I mean. John goes to Widgets Inc. John's scheduled appt is 2 hours, but due to varying circumstances, may end up there longer, which is why we need to track time, so we can bill the overage time.
I don't think OTRS is built to be a time tracking and billing system. Sure, there is rudimentary support for this using Time/work units, but it is not designed to do what you say: have an agent log in, and track the time from login to logout, or click to click, and have all tickets touched during that time reported as part of his/her day. The problem comes in where you have a single agent working for multiple companies at the same time. What if John is working on site, and during that time he takes a call, and works on another ticket that is for "UPS, Inc"? Does John need to stop what he's doing, log out of OTRS for that company, log into OTRS for another company, then deal with the ticket? Then log out and log back in again to get back to his on-site job? While you CAN do this, I doubt OTRS development will take this track. Why don't you just use an existing time tracker, then with a block of time ID, you can put into the ticket that block ID. Then you can search by blockID and see what tickets were associated with that block (freetext field). There are better time tracking systems out there. Beckman --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Peter Beckman Internet Guy beckman@angryox.com http://www.angryox.com/ --------------------------------------------------------------------------- _______________________________________________ OTRS mailing list: otrs - Webpage: http://otrs.org/ Archive: http://lists.otrs.org/pipermail/otrs To unsubscribe: http://lists.otrs.org/cgi-bin/listinfo/otrs Support or consulting for your OTRS system? => http://www.otrs.com/
I personally use SlimTimer.com -- it's free, works well. They don't really have an ID for your timeslice to use, but you could create your own. The ID would be the first three letters of the person's name, then the date, the the first three letters of the company name. That would identify a block of time well enough. Maybe throw in the starttime. ajs20080811140200ups So the ticket would be associated with the timeblock on SlimTimer for Aaron J. Spurlock, working on the UPS project, for the timeblock starting at 2:02pm on August 11, 2008. Just an idea. On Mon, 11 Aug 2008, Aaron Spurlock wrote:
That's a great idea to integrate a time tracking apps 'ID' into the free text field of a ticket.
Have you used any time tracking apps you'd recommend to help jumpstart my search?
Thanks!
-----Original Message----- From: otrs-bounces@otrs.org [mailto:otrs-bounces@otrs.org] On Behalf Of Peter Beckman Sent: Monday, August 11, 2008 3:32 PM To: User questions and discussions about OTRS.org Subject: Re: [otrs] Exploring OTRS
On Mon, 11 Aug 2008, Aaron Spurlock wrote:
Yeah, I find it is kind of difficult to express what I mean. John goes to Widgets Inc. John's scheduled appt is 2 hours, but due to varying circumstances, may end up there longer, which is why we need to track time, so we can bill the overage time.
I don't think OTRS is built to be a time tracking and billing system. Sure, there is rudimentary support for this using Time/work units, but it is not designed to do what you say: have an agent log in, and track the time from login to logout, or click to click, and have all tickets touched during that time reported as part of his/her day.
The problem comes in where you have a single agent working for multiple companies at the same time. What if John is working on site, and during that time he takes a call, and works on another ticket that is for "UPS, Inc"? Does John need to stop what he's doing, log out of OTRS for that company, log into OTRS for another company, then deal with the ticket? Then log out and log back in again to get back to his on-site job?
While you CAN do this, I doubt OTRS development will take this track. Why don't you just use an existing time tracker, then with a block of time ID, you can put into the ticket that block ID. Then you can search by blockID and see what tickets were associated with that block (freetext field).
There are better time tracking systems out there.
Beckman --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Peter Beckman Internet Guy beckman@angryox.com http://www.angryox.com/ --------------------------------------------------------------------------- _______________________________________________ OTRS mailing list: otrs - Webpage: http://otrs.org/ Archive: http://lists.otrs.org/pipermail/otrs To unsubscribe: http://lists.otrs.org/cgi-bin/listinfo/otrs Support or consulting for your OTRS system? => http://www.otrs.com/ _______________________________________________ OTRS mailing list: otrs - Webpage: http://otrs.org/ Archive: http://lists.otrs.org/pipermail/otrs To unsubscribe: http://lists.otrs.org/cgi-bin/listinfo/otrs Support or consulting for your OTRS system? => http://www.otrs.com/
--------------------------------------------------------------------------- Peter Beckman Internet Guy beckman@angryox.com http://www.angryox.com/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
We use getmytime.com, it's highly customizable, and can be used in conjunction with OTRS. It's not free, but it's another option for you. I'm not exactly sure how we are integrating them, it might be a manual process done by our admin person that runs our invoices. We enter our ticket numbers in the notes of the timer to help tie the two together. Loren -----Original Message----- From: otrs-bounces@otrs.org [mailto:otrs-bounces@otrs.org] On Behalf Of Aaron Spurlock Sent: Monday, August 11, 2008 4:50 PM To: User questions and discussions about OTRS.org Subject: Re: [otrs] Exploring OTRS That's a great idea to integrate a time tracking apps 'ID' into the free text field of a ticket. Have you used any time tracking apps you'd recommend to help jumpstart my search? Thanks! -----Original Message----- From: otrs-bounces@otrs.org [mailto:otrs-bounces@otrs.org] On Behalf Of Peter Beckman Sent: Monday, August 11, 2008 3:32 PM To: User questions and discussions about OTRS.org Subject: Re: [otrs] Exploring OTRS On Mon, 11 Aug 2008, Aaron Spurlock wrote:
Yeah, I find it is kind of difficult to express what I mean. John goes to Widgets Inc. John's scheduled appt is 2 hours, but due to varying circumstances, may end up there longer, which is why we need to track time, so we can bill the overage time.
I don't think OTRS is built to be a time tracking and billing system. Sure, there is rudimentary support for this using Time/work units, but it is not designed to do what you say: have an agent log in, and track the time from login to logout, or click to click, and have all tickets touched during that time reported as part of his/her day. The problem comes in where you have a single agent working for multiple companies at the same time. What if John is working on site, and during that time he takes a call, and works on another ticket that is for "UPS, Inc"? Does John need to stop what he's doing, log out of OTRS for that company, log into OTRS for another company, then deal with the ticket? Then log out and log back in again to get back to his on-site job? While you CAN do this, I doubt OTRS development will take this track. Why don't you just use an existing time tracker, then with a block of time ID, you can put into the ticket that block ID. Then you can search by blockID and see what tickets were associated with that block (freetext field). There are better time tracking systems out there. Beckman --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Peter Beckman Internet Guy beckman@angryox.com http://www.angryox.com/ --------------------------------------------------------------------------- _______________________________________________ OTRS mailing list: otrs - Webpage: http://otrs.org/ Archive: http://lists.otrs.org/pipermail/otrs To unsubscribe: http://lists.otrs.org/cgi-bin/listinfo/otrs Support or consulting for your OTRS system? => http://www.otrs.com/ _______________________________________________ OTRS mailing list: otrs - Webpage: http://otrs.org/ Archive: http://lists.otrs.org/pipermail/otrs To unsubscribe: http://lists.otrs.org/cgi-bin/listinfo/otrs Support or consulting for your OTRS system? => http://www.otrs.com/
participants (4)
-
Aaron Spurlock -
Loren Crowe -
Peter Beckman -
Tony Pagliaroli