Tiquit

From JComServ Documentation

Tiquit Is Quality User Incident Tracking

Tiquit is a help desk incident racking system, written largely on a dare. While agonizing over whether to update my workplace's aged and critically mis-configured installation of iEt Solutions/Applix to the current version or scrap it in favor of something new, I was asked whether rolling our own from scratch would be feasible. We ended up upgrading to the new version of Applix, which has proven to the best choice, but I tried my hand anyway. The result of my personal itch-scratching and piles of co-workers' suggestions is Tiquit.

Installation

Requirements

Tiquit requires PHP >= 4.0.3 with the GD extension enabled and either MySQL >= 4.1 or PostgreSQL (works with 8.1, earlier untested). PHP must also have the extension available for the DB you intend to use.

Email notifications require access to an email server.

Tiquit has been tested on Linux, but should run on any OS that supports PHP. The DB can be run remotely or locally.

PHP files

Download the tar.gz and unpack into a folder withing the desired place in your webserver's docroot.

Verify that the tiquit/files directory is writable by your webserver.

Database setup

Create a database on your DB server, and create a DB user with SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE and DELETE permissions. Populate the schema and inital data with mysql -uroot -p YOURDB < tiquit.sql for MySQL and psql -d tiquit -f tiquit.pg.sql for PostgreSQL.

Edit config.php to contain the proper host, username, password and dbname for your Tiquit database. Make sure the dbtype variable is set to the type of RDBMS you're using.

Upgrading

To upgrade an existing Tiquit installation, complete the following steps in the order listed.

Back up your database(mysql_dump, pg_dump)

Back up your config.php

Replace all files in your installation with the files from the new tar.gz

Double-check tiquit/files permissions (see above)

Migrate settings from old config.php to new config.php

Edit upgrade.php to include proper DB type, host, DB name and ROOT DB user/password.

Run php upgrade.php

Delete upgrade.php

Initial Setup

Initialization

Point your web browser to the web address of your Tiquit installation. Click the Login button, then log in with Username admin, password admin.

Change the password of this account by clicking on Change Password and doing what comes naturally. This documentation is available on the internet, and if you fail to change your password and/or login, your Tiquit install is now the personal toy of anyone on the internet. You have been warned.

Change the information for this user by logging back in with your new password, clicking Agent Manager, and clicking on Edit next to the Admin user. You will notice that you may not change your own Admin level. This is done to prevent you from locking yourself out of the Admin functions. If you did manage to do this, you could change your admin level directly in the database, but that's a huge hassle.

Customize For Your Organization

Define Incident Types. Use the Incident Type Manager to define the categories into which your incidentss will fall. You can never delete an obsolete Type, but you can disable it to prevent new incidents from being assigned to that Type.

Define Locations. Set up one Location for each location in your organization. Some may have just one, and others hundreds. You need at least one to use Tiquit.

Define Agents. Create on Agent ID for each person in your organization that will be assigning incidents or to whom incidents may be assigned. By default Agents get Admin level 0, which is basic access to incident maintenance and searching. Level 1 is Level 0 plus access to the User Manager. This is a good level to give to Help Desk personnel, so that they can aid in keeping the User listings up to date. Level 2 is Level 1 plus access to the Agent, Type, Location and Global Configuration Managers. This should be restricted to yourself and the one or possibly two other persons whom you feel will need this level of access. Use sparingly.

Define Users. This process may be daunting, especially for large organizations, but that's why you just set up fellow Agents. :)

Begin Using Tiquit

Configure notification, if you intend to use it. Move the radio button in the Configuration menu from 0 to 1, and enter the SMTP email address of the account you'd like Users to see notifications coming from and that you'd like them to reply to. Support group addresses are a good candidate for this. Once done, each User should receive a message when their incident is opened, and any Agents to whom the incident is assigned will also.

Go live. Let your support personnel or all type aware of where to find Tiquit, and hand out Agent IDs and passwords. Advise Agents to change their password upon first login. This is not enforced, but simply common sense.