You may be severely frustrated setting up OneOrZero Trouble Ticket System. The demo on their site works perfectly and yet the local setup doesn’t allow reporters to create task. The solution is simple:

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I was looking for a simple free & open source trouble ticket system. I checked several of them, all the popular ones and more. I scanned through all the lists, which unfortunately haven’t been updated for years. Anyway after slogging for several hours, I present you with the simplest, easy to use and well featured trouble ticket system I could find.

Note: Don’t forget to read the disclaimer section (not your standard stuff) with interesting tidbits on other trouble ticket systems.

Trouble Ticket System / Customer Support System Requirements

First let’s look at the requirements:
Most people make the mistake of thinking that a trouble ticket system is nothing but a defect tracking system and so they recommend systems like trac. Trouble ticket system, while similar in concept to defect tracking system, is significantly different in nature and purpose. A trouble ticket system is primarily concerned with accepting issues from end-users and routing them through the workflow system to get it resolved. It should also allow for escalation, if required, and prioritization.

A trouble ticket system, may (mostly for open source projects) or not allow viewing defects reported by other users. A trouble ticket system is more concerned with providing a service to get the troubles / issues resolved. It may or may not want users to view issues reported by other users. However when it doesn’t allow viewing issues by other users, it should be complemented with a FAQ system to reduce load on customer support.
A valid use case for not allowing viewing issues for other users is when you are reporting an issue to your web hosting provider. Your report may contain details of login, password or other sensitive information which you do not want other users, or worse search bots, to browse through.
Many defect tracking systems, including the one I currently use - Mantis, doesn’t allow this simple functionality out of the box!

A defect tracking system on the other hand is focussed on getting defects resolved for a product or project. It isn’t focussed as much on providing timely resolution of customer defects as it is on timely fixing of bugs. So while they are similar, they intent and purpose is different.
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