OTRS is an open source help desk and asset management software that provides: 1) A central point of contact for user requests and assigns requests to agents based on their skills. 2) Tools for request processing, reporting, and ensuring requests are resolved on time. 3) Integration with monitoring systems and authentication backends like LDAP. 4) An ITSM framework for service asset and configuration management as well as change management based on ITIL best practices. 5) A CMDB and integration with FusionInventory for collecting asset information.

1. OTRS Help Desk and Asset Management
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Goneri Le Bouder
June 2012
Solutions Linux 2012

2. ´
Goneri Le Bouder
About myself
FusionInventory project co-leader
Debian Developer
Work at TECLIB’, Paris, France
Asset management and Help Desk consulting
(FusionInventory, GLPI, OTRS)

3. Outline
Help Desk?
System requirements
The Help Desk solution
Request processing
Deeper integration
Service Asset and Configuration Management (ITSM)
Change Management (ITSM)

4. Why an Help Desk software matter?
the Benefits
central point of contact for the users
associate request depending on the agent skill
ensure request are resolved in time (SLA)
reporting
much more

5. History
2001 Created by Martin Edenhofer
2002 OTRS 0.5
2003 OTRS GmbH
2007 OTRS 2.0
2010 OTRS 3.0 and OTRS::ITSM 2.0
today OTRS 3.1

6. OTRS
the big picture (1/2)
an Help Desk software
not to confuse with a bug tracker
an IT Service Management solution (ITSM)
ITIL V3 Best Practices

7. The big picture
the big picture (2/2)
Free Software: GNU Affero General Public License 3
Available in 33 languages
A powerful underlying framework

8. Who is behind the software (1/2)
OTRS Company
Drives the project
Offices in Germany, Netherlands, USA, Mexico, Hong
Kong, Malaysia
70 employees
Provides consulting, software development, Support,
etc

9. Who is behind the software (2/2)
The community
QA
Specific platform support
Localizations
Provides Add-On and integration
Free support (mailing list, forums, etc)
Promotion

10. OTRS
Who use OTRS?
Used World-Wide!
100 000+ corporate installation
Certified partners on 3 continents

11. OTRS

12. Outline
Help Desk?
System requirements
The Help Desk solution
Request processing
Deeper integration
Service Asset and Configuration Management (ITSM)
Change Management (ITSM)

13. Supported OS
OTRS can be used on any Operating System
Linux
Solaris
AIX
FreeBSD
MacOSX
Windows
...

14. Supported Database
Supported databases
MySQL 4.1+
PostgreSQL 8.2+
Oracle 10g+
MS SQL 2005+
OTRS also has unsupprted drivers for
Ingres
IBM DB2

15. Authentification backend (1/3)
Database
the default configuration

16. Authentification backend (2/3)
Great LDAP integration
Large collection of supported servers
Advanced native LDAP interface
Ability to deal with exotic configuration

17. Authentification backend (3/3)
But also
HTTPAuth
Radius
Access Control List based on Email domain
Easy to write or extend Auth module
...

18. Conclusion
OTRS is
versatil
use the OS, DB, Auth mechanism you need

19. Outline
Help Desk?
System requirements
The Help Desk solution
Request processing
Deeper integration
Service Asset and Configuration Management (ITSM)
Change Management (ITSM)

20. Public interfaces
OTRS for end-users
Customer interface
optimized end-user interface: Show up just what matters
Email
Phone call

21. Public interfaces
OTRS for agent
Agent interface
Email
Phone call
iPhone and Android apps

22. Other system (1/2)
How to deal with
the monitoring Alerts
notifications from other system
other Tracking systems

23. Other system (2/2)
OTRS offers various interfaces
works out of the box for most of the monitoring
solutions
Email
with or without meta informations (X-OTRS-*)
SOAP
REST/JSON
Internal modules

24. Conclusion
OTRS is
much more than a random web application

25. Outline
Help Desk?
System requirements
The Help Desk solution
Request processing
Deeper integration
Service Asset and Configuration Management (ITSM)
Change Management (ITSM)

26. Ticket life cycle
Common request
1. Customer input
2. Queue assignment
3. Agent process the request

27. the “Customer”
Customer has
1. A company and common information
phone number, etc
2. No need to know him/her, an email is enough
helpful for a contact@mycompany.com like address
3. Some settings
Language, ...

28. the “Agent”
Agent has
1. Subscribed to one or more Queue
2. Some advanced privilege (Group and Role)

29. a “Queue”
Queue can have
1. some email templates
2. a specific email address
3. it’s own signature
4. sub-Queue

30. Also
OTRS offerts
1. a well desgined tool to do the job
Simple enough for new comers
2. a lot of action can be automated
e.g: All request from @foobar.com to the same agent

31. Conclusion
OTRS is
powerful and can deal with all the common Helpdesk
configuration

32. Outline
Help Desk?
System requirements
The Help Desk solution
Request processing
Deeper integration
Service Asset and Configuration Management (ITSM)
Change Management (ITSM)

33. deeper integration
Advanced configuration (1/4)
1. A lot of advanced settings are available
2. Dynamics Fields
3. Template tweaking

34. deeper integration (2/4)
OTRS Framework allow to do more or less anything
1. Filter some ticket based on criteria
2. Collect information from another software
3. etc

35. deeper integration (3/4)
Not to forget
1. SMIME and GnuPG support
2. define your own signature / language / template /
etc
3. basic Service and SLA support at this stage

36. deeper integration (4/4)
Addons
1. OTRS Corp repository: only available for OTRS
customers
2. OPAR repository: OTRS Package Archive more than 50
public packages already available
Documentation and API reference to write addons is
available.
Addons can be harmful
An Addon changes the DB structure and existing files.

37. Conclusion
OTRS
offers various ways to address very specific needs

38. ITSM
6 certified processes (Pink Elephant)
Incident Management
Request Fulfillment
Problem Management
Knowledge Management
Service Asset and Configuration Management
Change Management

39. ITSM

40. Outline
Help Desk?
System requirements
The Help Desk solution
Request processing
Deeper integration
Service Asset and Configuration Management (ITSM)
Change Management (ITSM)

41. OTRS::ITSM import computer informations (1/4)
The CMDB
ITIL compatible
Ability to edit quickly Configuration Item Class
Definition
Connector Generic Interface, FusionInventory

42. OTRS::ITSM SLA
based on ITIL incident lifecycle
Advanced SLA:various time spans
up to 99 different calendars
Response Time: reaction time with incidents
Update Time: notification time
Solution Time: time elapsed until incidents are
resolved or delivery time for service requests
Min. Time Between Incidents

43. OTRS::ITSM import computer informations (2/4)
FusionInventory Integration
Runs on most the Operating System
Windows, MacOSX, Linux, Solaris, AIX, BSD, HP-UX, etc
Simple deployment with predefined configuration files

44. OTRS::ITSM import computer informations (3/4)
FusionInventory Integration
REST/JSON communication
OTRS acts as a FusionInventory server
Import software, network, computer CIs

45. OTRS::ITSM import computer informations (4/4)
FusionInventory Integration
In developement since december
Mostly ready, bˆ ta open to OTRS Customers
e
Will be freely available in the future
For now, only for OTRS Customers

46. Conclusion
OTRS
has an ITIL compliant CMDB
can act as a FusionInventory server to collect
information from the assets

47. Outline
Help Desk?
System requirements
The Help Desk solution
Request processing
Deeper integration
Service Asset and Configuration Management (ITSM)
Change Management (ITSM)

48. ITSM: Change Management (1/5)
A lot of small changes
A common SI change requires action from different team,
sometime in different departement, country or company.

49. ITSM: Change Management (2/5)
Various level of “acknowledgement”
Each step has to be validated by the related manager.

50. ITSM: Change Management (3/5)
Getting things done “in time”
The planning matters a lot.

51. ITSM: Change Management (4/5)
Example
IT Changes: new Help Desk software
A new server must be deployed
(heat, outlet, power, etc)
A OS must be installed
Documenation needs to be validated
Software has to be configured
DNS configuration changes must be operated in time
Service has to be monitored
Help Desk people need to get ready
...

52. ITSM: Change Management (5/5)
Drive you infrastructure changes with OTRS
understand impact, cost, benefit and risk of proposed
changes
Keep in touch with the teams in a global strategy
Reduce the background noise, give only the information
that matters
Split operation as work orders
CMDB: Identify affected CI
Follow step by step what has been done
Schedule the actions
Statistic
Changes Within a Defined Period, Changes by Category,
Rejected Changes, ...

53. Conclusion
OTRS Change Management will help to
understand impact and cost of changes
secure your incoming SI changes
improve communication between team
...

54. Question?

55. Thanks
Thanks!
OTRS team