OTRS 3.3 - Admin Manual

René Bakker, Stefan Bedorf, Michiel Beijen, Shawn Beasley, Hauke Böttcher, Jens Bothe, Udo Bretz, Martin Edenhofer, Carlos Javier García, Martin Gruner, Manuel Hecht, Christopher Kuhn, André Mindermann, Marc Nilius, Elva María Novoa, Henning Oschwald, Martha Elia Pascual, Thomas Raith, Carlos Fernando Rodríguez, Stefan Rother, Burchard Steinbild, Michael Thiessmeier, Daniel Zamorano.

This work is copyrighted by OTRS AG.

You may copy it in whole or in part as long as the copies retain this copyright statement.

The source code of this document can be found at github, in the repository doc-admin.

UNIX is a registered trademark of X/Open Company Limited. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.

MS-DOS, Windows, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows 2003, Windows Vista and Windows 7 are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. Other trademarks and registered trademarks are: SUSE and YaST of SUSE Linux GmbH, Red Hat and Fedora are registered trademarks of Red Hat, Inc. Mandrake is a registered trademark of MandrakeSoft, SA. Debian is a registered trademark of Software in the Public Interest, Inc. MySQL and the MySQL Logo are registered trademarks of Oracle Corporation and/or its affiliates.

All trade names are used without the guarantee for their free use and are possibly registered trade marks.

OTRS AG essentially follows the notations of the manufacturers. Other products mentioned in this manual may be trademarks of the respective manufacturer.


Table of Contents

Preface
1. Introduction
Trouble Ticket Systems - The Basics
What is a trouble ticket system, and why do you need one?
What is a trouble ticket?
OTRS Help Desk
Basics
Features
Hardware and software requirements
Community
Professional Services for OTRS
2. Installation
The simple way - Installation of pre-built packages
Installing the RPM on a SUSE Linux server
Installing OTRS on a Red Hat Enterprise Linux or CentOS system
Installing OTRS on a Debian or Ubuntu system
Installing OTRS on Microsoft Windows systems
Installation from source (Linux, Unix)
Preparing the installation from source
Installation of Perl modules
Configuring the Apache web server
Configuring the database
Setting up the cron jobs for OTRS
OTRS Scheduler Service
Using the web installer
Upgrading the OTRS Framework
Upgrading Windows Installer
Performing patch level upgrades on Windows
Performing minor level upgrades on Windows
Additional applications
FAQ
3. First steps
Agent web interface
Customer web interface
Public web interface
First login
The web interface - an overview
The Dashboard
What is a queue?
What is the queue overview?
User preferences
4. Administration
The ADMIN area of OTRS
Basics
Agents, Groups and Roles
Customers and Customer Groups
Queues
Salutations, signatures, attachments and templates
Auto responses
Email addresses
Notifications
SMIME
PGP
States
SysConfig
Using mail accounts
Filtering incoming email messages
Executing automated jobs with the GenericAgent
Admin email
Session management
System Log
SQL queries via the SQL box
Package Manager
Web Services
Dynamic Fields
System Configuration
OTRS config files
Configuring the system through the web interface
Backing up the system
Backup
Restore
Email settings
Sending/Receiving emails
Secure email with PGP
Secure email with S/MIME
Using external backends
Customer data
Customer user backend
Backends to authenticate Agents and Customers
Customizing the customer self-registration
Ticket settings
Ticket States
Ticket priorities
Ticket Responsibility & Ticket Watching
Time related functions
Setting up business hours, holidays and time zones
Automated Unlocking
Customizing the PDF output
Stats module
Handling of the module by the agent
Administration of the stats module by the OTRS administrator
Administration of the stats module by the system administrator
Dynamic Fields
Introduction
Configuration
Generic Interface
Generic Interface Layers
Generic Interface Communication Flow
Web Services
Web Service Graphical Interface
Web Service Command Line Interface
Web Service Configuration
Connectors
OTRS Scheduler
Scheduler Graphical Interface
Scheduler Command Line Interface
5. Customization
Access Control Lists (ACLs)
Introduction
Examples
Reference
Process Management
Introduction
Example process
Implementing the example
Process configuration reference
Creating your own themes
Localization of the OTRS frontend
6. Performance Tuning
OTRS
TicketIndexModule
TicketStorageModule
Archiving Tickets
Database
MySQL
PostgreSQL
Webserver
Pre-established database connections
Preloaded modules - startup.pl
Reload Perl modules when updated on disk
Choosing the Right Strategy
mod_gzip/mod_deflate
A. Additional Resources
Website OTRS Group
Mailing lists
User Forums
Bug tracking
Commercial Support
B. Overview of all configuration parameters
C. Credits
D. GNU Free Documentation License
0. PREAMBLE
1. APPLICABILITY AND DEFINITIONS
2. VERBATIM COPYING
3. COPYING IN QUANTITY
4. MODIFICATIONS
5. COMBINING DOCUMENTS
6. COLLECTIONS OF DOCUMENTS
7. AGGREGATION WITH INDEPENDENT WORKS
8. TRANSLATION
9. TERMINATION
10. FUTURE REVISIONS OF THIS LICENSE
How to use this License for your documents

List of Tables

2.1. Description of several cron job scripts.
4.1. Default groups available on a fresh OTRS installation
4.2. Rights associated with OTRS Groups
4.3. Additional permission groups
4.4. Events for Auto answers
4.5. Function of the different X-OTRS-headers
4.6. The following fields will be added into the system:
4.7. List of init scripts and supported Operating Systems
A.1. Mailinglists

List of Examples

4.1. Sort spam mails into a specific queue
4.2. .fetchmailrc
4.3. Example jobs for the filter module Kernel::System::PostMaster::Filter::Match
4.4. Example job for the filter module Kernel::System::PostMaster::Filter::CMD
4.5. Example job for the filter module Kernel::System::PostMaster::Filter::ExternalTicketNumberRecognition
4.6. Configuring a DB customer backend
4.7. Using company tickets with a DB backend
4.8. Configuring an LDAP customer backend
4.9. Using Company tickets with an LDAP backend
4.10. Using more than one customer backend with OTRS
4.11. Authenticate agents against a DB backend
4.12. Authenticate agents against an LDAP backend
4.13. Authenticate Agents using HTTPBasic
4.14. Authenticate Agents against a Radius backend
4.15. Customer user authentication against a DB backend
4.16. Customer user authentication against an LDAP backend
4.17. Customer user authentication with HTTPBasic
4.18. Customer user authentication against a Radius backend
4.19. Definition of a value series - one element
4.20. Definition of a value series - two elements
4.21. Activate Field1 in New Phone Ticket Screen.
4.22. Activate Field1 in New Phone Ticket Screen as mandatory.
4.23. Activate several fields in New Phone Ticket Screen.
4.24. Deactivate some fields in New Phone Ticket Screen.
4.25. Activate Field1 in Ticket Zoom Screen.
4.26. Activate Field1 in Ticket Overview Small Screens.
4.27. Activate Field1 in TicketCreate event.
4.28. Activate Field1 in the User preferences.
4.29. Example to start the OTRS Scheduler on linux
4.30. Example To Start The OTRS Scheduler
4.31. Example to force stop the OTRS Scheduler
4.32. Example to register the OTRS Scheduler as a Windows Service
4.33. Example to start the OTRS Scheduler on Windows
4.34. Example to force stop the OTRS Scheduler on Windows
5.1. ACL allowing movement into a queue of only those tickets with ticket priority 5.
5.2. ACL allowing movement into a queue of only those tickets with ticket priority 5 stored in the database.
5.3. ACL disabling the closing of tickets in the raw queue, and hiding the close button.
5.4. ACL removing always state closed successful.
5.5. ACL only showing Hardware services for tickets that are created in queues that start with "HW".
5.6. Reference showing all possible important ACL settings.
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