We are thrilled to announce the release of RT 6.0.0, the latest major version of the Request Tracker ticketing platform. This release represents a significant evolution in RT’s capabilities, with a focus on customization, flexibility, and modern web technologies.

What’s New in RT 6

If you haven’t had a chance to look at our previews, you can see some of the new features in action including updates that improve the look and feel of working in RT, along with new ticket and saved search features. And with the release now available, we’re excited to share one of the biggest updates.

Page Layouts: Tickets and Assets Your Way

The centerpiece of RT 6 is our new Page Layouts system. You can now customize the content and layout of ticket and asset pages with reusable page layouts, giving you complete control over your RT experience with no coding required.

Layouts are available for every page you use to interact with Tickets and Assets, so you can control the look of create, display, and update pages. And layouts are managed as separate configurations, so you can use them selectively on one queue or catalog, many, or even all. You just go to the admin page for a queue, for example, and select the page layouts you want to use.

These new layouts leverage the Bootstrap grid system, allowing you to create multiple rows and columns to organize your information exactly how you want it. Whether you need a compact view for support staff or a comprehensive layout for managers, the new Page Layouts feature makes it possible.

Enhanced Dashboards

We’ve extended these new layout capabilities to dashboards as well. You can now completely customize the look of your dashboards with multiple rows and columns of different widths, creating personalized information hubs that meet your specific needs.

This enhancement gives you the flexibility to design dashboards that truly work for your team, whether you’re monitoring service levels, tracking project progress, or keeping an eye on key metrics.

Upgrading to RT 6

As always, RT comes with utilities and documentation to help you through the upgrade process. Our database update utilities can upgrade from even very old versions of RT right up to the latest version.

As with any major release, RT 6 introduces updates that require some planning for your upgrade. We strongly recommend performing a trial upgrade on a test system before upgrading your production environment. Documentation is available describing the bigger changes you’ll see when coming up from older versions.

Custom Code and Extensions

The significant changes in RT 6, particularly the addition of htmx and the new layout options, may require updates to your custom code and local extensions. We have provided technical documentation for your developers to help with the process. If your team doesn’t have the time or resources to handle these updates, our professional services team is ready to assist.

Need Help?

We understand that upgrading mission-critical systems can be challenging, especially with the day-to-day demands on your IT team. That’s why we offer several options to help:

• Professional Services: Our team can help support your RT 6 upgrade, answering questions and sharing our experience upgrading many other systems.
• Hosted RT: We’re currently offering free migrations from on-premise systems to our hosting service, which includes a free upgrade from older versions of RT. If you’d like us to take over your RT maintenance and upgrades, check out our hosting options.
• Training and Support: We provide comprehensive training and support to help your team get the most out of RT 6’s new features.

Ready to Upgrade?

The Request Tracker 6.0.0 release is available now. You can download it from our website or access it through your usual channels.

We’re excited to see how you’ll use RT 6’s new capabilities to streamline your workflows and improve your service delivery. As always, we welcome your feedback and look forward to continuing to evolve RT to meet your needs.

Thank you for being part of the RT community!

RT version 5.0.8 is now available, along with RT 4.4.8. In addition to a batch of updates, new features, and fixes, there are several security updates provided in these releases. Details on these fixes are in the release notes linked in the forum posts below. We recommend that all RT users upgrade to get these security updates.

• RT 4.4.8
• RT 5.0.8

The security updates in these releases are the result of reports from security researchers and testers at Siemens, the Spanish National CSIRT, and the NATO Cyber Security Centre. You can find details in the release notes posted on our documentation site. Thanks to the security professionals for reporting these issues so we could get them fixed.

Have Questions?

It’s always good to keep your system up-to-date, but upgrading is especially important when there are security fixes. If you run into any problems or have questions, our team is always ready to help at sales@bestpractical.com. And remember, we offer managed hosting if you’d like us to handle the upgrades for you.

The countdown to RT 6 is officially on, and we’re thrilled to invite you to get in early! The beta release of Request Tracker 6.0.0 is now available – and this is your chance to explore what’s new, and get a head start on everything it has to offer.

RT 6 is a significant upgrade featuring:

• Modern browser interactions powered by htmx
• An updated HTML message editor for faster, smoother message composition
• A refreshed, more user-friendly interface built with Bootstrap 5
• And a host of behind-the scenes enhancements designed to make your daily workflows faster, simpler, and more powerful

Want a sneak peek before diving in? Check out our latest blog posts:

• Developer Preview: Request Tracker 6
• RT 6 Beta Coming Soon: New Features Preview

This beta release is your opportunity to preview what’s coming and help us polish the final release. If you’re interested in testing it out or want to dig into the details, head over to our forum announcement for full information on how to get started. Just want to take RT 6 for a test drive? Try it out on our demo instance.

Your feedback makes RT better. We can’t wait to hear what you think!

The Request Tracker 4.4 series (first released in February of 2016) and Request Tracker for Incident Response 4.0 series (first released in July 2016) will reach end of life on November 1, 2025. After this date, Best Practical will no longer support these series or publish any new releases with security updates, bug fixes, or new features. We recommend all RT 4.4 / RTIR 4.0 users upgrade to a supported release.

Best Practical continues to support RT 5.0 / RTIR 5.0 as a maintenance release. RT / RTIR 6.0 will be released soon as the new stable release. Current supported releases and EOL dates are always available in our release page.

If you are upgrading, be sure to read all of the upgrade notes for RT and, if applicable, RTIR. If you would like assistance with your upgrade, are interested in exploring our on premise or hosted RT solutions, or would like to see a demo of what’s new in RT 5, drop us a line.

We hope you’ll take this opportunity to upgrade and take advantage of all of the new features in our latest releases.

Thanks for using RT!

Exciting news for the Request Tracker (RT) community—RT 6 is coming soon, and we’re getting closer to the public beta release! As we reported on the forum, we’ve been running RT 6 on our own RT instance, and it’s made updating tickets fun as we work with the new features! While we finalize the last details, we want to share a sneak peek of some of the new features you can expect in this major update.

Updated Reply/Comment Editor

One of the most noticeable improvements in RT 6 is the upgraded CKEditor 5, which brings a modern, streamlined editing experience. Whether you’re formatting ticket responses or drafting internal notes, CKEditor 5 enhances usability with a cleaner interface, better support for rich text, and improved handling of copy-pasted content, including images.

New “Description” Field for Tickets

To provide even more context within RT, we’ve added a new “Description” field on tickets. This allows users to store additional details beyond the subject and initial content, making it easier to provide structured, at-a-glance information about a ticket. Whether you need to summarize an issue, add key details, or categorize requests more effectively, this field will help improve organization and clarity.

Enhanced Auto-Refresh for Saved Searches

We know how valuable saved searches are, especially for keeping an eye on ticket activity. RT 6 introduces an improved auto-refresh feature, ensuring your saved searches update more efficiently. This means faster access to the latest ticket information, helping teams stay on top of workflows with minimal manual effort.

Public Beta Coming Soon

We’re excited to get RT 6 into your hands, and the public beta will be available soon. If you want to be among the first to test it and provide feedback, stay tuned for our official beta announcement.

Want an early look at RT 6 in action? You can sign up for a quick demo session and see what’s new.

In the meantime, let us know what you think of these new features in the comments or on our forum!

Stay tuned for more updates as we approach the RT 6 release!

If you run Splunk for observability, you can easily integrate with Request Tracker (RT) or RTIR with the RT connector app available right in Splunkbase. This integration is designed to automatically create new tickets from alerts, allowing you to effectively assign and manage incidents, ensuring that your team is always on top of issues as they arise.

Splunk Enterprise Security is a comprehensive security solution often used to automate monitoring of machine-generated data produced throughout an organization. It acts as a robust log aggregator, detecting security threats in real-time. By centralizing logs from across your IT infrastructure, Splunk enhances observability, helping you identify and address issues quickly.

Integrating RT with Splunk Enterprise Security

Whenever something is detected in logs indicating a production problem or possible security issue, Splunk Enterprise Security triggers an alert. With the RT connector, you can select “RT” when configuring your action, and the alert will then automatically create a ticket. Your team is then immediately notified about any issues, allowing for faster triage, tracking, and resolution.

You can watch the process for setting up an alert below.

Improve Alert Handling with Splunk and RT

Integrating Splunk with RT or RTIR can help improve your incident and alert handling processes, allowing your team to focus on fixes. These are just some of the benefits.

• Real-Time Response: As soon as an alert is generated in Splunk, a ticket can be created in RT, ensuring your team can respond without delay.
• Enhanced Observability: By leveraging Splunk’s log aggregation capabilities, you gain a clearer view of your IT infrastructure, making it easier to spot and resolve issues before they escalate.
• Improved Tracking: All incident-related information is automatically logged and tracked within RT, and tickets can be assigned to a team member, reviewed, prioritized, and ultimately resolved. All activity is recorded and communicated in RT.

Explore the Connector

To learn more about this connector and how it can benefit your organization, visit Splunkbase Apps and check out Best Practical’s Connector for Splunk Enterprise Security.

Are you looking for more for your Splunk + RT integration? We’re always happy to work with customers to improve tools and integration. Send us an email to get the conversation started today.

We’re getting excited about the new features in RT 6, so we wanted to give you a first look at some of the updates coming soon. This release is packed with new features and enhancements designed to make your ticket management experience faster, more intuitive, and visually engaging. Here’s a sneak peek at what’s in store:

1. Seamless Page Loading with HTMX

In RT6, we’ve integrated the htmx JavaScript library to deliver a smoother, more dynamic browsing experience. This means many page interactions, such as ticket updates and navigation, now happen without a full page reload. Watch the preview video to see how this new approach reduces friction and keeps you focused on your tasks.

2. Modern Styling with Bootstrap Defaults

RT6 introduces some refreshed visuals, embracing more of the default styling provided by Bootstrap. This refresh not only modernizes the interface but also improves consistency across the application. Whether you’re a long-time user or a new one, the cleaner design will make navigation and interaction more enjoyable.

3. Faster Ticket Creation with Quick Ticket Create

Speed is essential when managing support requests. That’s why RT6 features a significantly improved “Quick Ticket Create” component. We’ve streamlined the process to make creating new tickets faster and more efficient than ever before. Check out the preview video to see this enhancement in action.

These are just a few highlights of what’s coming in Request Tracker 6. We’re committed to delivering a better user experience while maintaining the powerful functionality you rely on. Stay tuned for more updates and details as we approach the official release!

We’d love to hear your thoughts! Share your feedback and let us know which feature you’re most excited about.

You have decided to make the big move and start using Request Tracker for ticketing, maybe because of the features, flexibility, open source code, or reasonably priced cloud hosting plans. Whatever the reason, you are ready to switch, but you don’t want to lose all of the information you have in your existing system. You might have years worth of correspondence with customers, support questions and answers, and internal project tickets.

Should you leave it behind and start fresh?

We’re happy to say you don’t need to make this tough decision. With our free migration extension, RT::Extension::Import::CSV, you can take all of your data with you. With a little planning and testing, your RT migration can be a smooth and hassle-free experience.

Exporting Your Existing Data

Most ticketing systems provide some way to export tickets information, usually to a spreadsheet, which can be easily converted to a CSV file. Each solution is a little different, but the first step is searching the documentation and following the steps to get an export.

The key information is usually on tickets. However, there is also user information, like names and email addresses, for your staff and also for end users and customers. You’ll also want to export that user data so it can be loaded into RT.

Your existing system may also record all of the correspondence on tickets, which might be the questions and answers between staff and end users. These usually don’t fit in a single ticket row, so there might be a way to export these also as transactions. If that sort of export is available, you can get that information also.

Map Existing Fields to RT Fields

This is where you will likely spend most of your time: mapping fields from your old ticketing system, which will be columns in your CSV files, to their RT counterparts. 

RT has a number of common core ticket fields available, so you’ll first map information like “Status”, “Priority”, “Owner”, etc. And if you’ve spent any time customizing, you’re likely to have fields without a direct match in RT. For these, you can create new custom fields in RT. This is a good time to review which fields are still active, and consider dropping some fields that are no longer used.

If you have multiple export files with different formats, that’s not a problem. You can create one mapping configuration file for each ticket CSV and pass in the filename as an option when you run the import.

Run the Import

And now the big moment! Once you’ve completed the mapping process, you’re ready to run the imports. The  RT::Extension::Import::CSV documentation shows you how to run the import utility for users, tickets, and even transactions if you have that information.

Verify Imported Data, Address Issues

After the import completes, look at how your data appears in RT. Does the data appear where you’d expect to see it in RT? If not, is it showing someplace else? Was it skipped entirely? Maybe you want to rename some fields or make other changes?

The import utility will log messages for any issues it encounters with the actual data. The logs are detailed and can help you identify missing required fields, formatting errors, unmapped fields, and other issues.

It also has features to help you reformat and adjust your data during the import process. There are hooks before and after each row is inserted, and the field mapping can accept small blocks of code to do things like reformat a date, normalize upper or lowercase issues, or any other data cleanup you might need.

If you are importing into a new RT, plan to do some test runs, clearing out the system between each. Once you get a clean import, you can plan your final migration!

Migrating from Zendesk

Zendesk provides a good example of how the migration process can work. Most ticket views in Zendesk allow you to export tickets to CSV. By navigating through the different views your organization has created, you can create multiple export files to migrate to RT, each with their own unique list of columns.

For users, Zendesk provides an export of privileged users, which are staff users who can act on tickets. To generate an export of all users, including customers, there are a few more steps. A script is available to help you export users via the Zendesk API.

Once you have the files, configure the field mapping for each and run the imports to load your existing ticket data into RT. You’ll want to run the user import first so the user records will be available when you add your tickets. After running your ticket imports, all of your history will now be available in your new RT instance. You can find additional details in the extension documentation.

But Wait, There’s More!

RT::Extension::Import::CSV can import articles (faqs, knowledge base, help text, common answers, etc.) too. If your previous system has this information and you can get an export, you can import using the same process discribed above. With these different types of imports, you can successfully mitigate much of the pain that comes with changing ticketing systems, allowing you to focus on helping your users to get up to speed with RT.

More Complex Cases

This only scratches the surface of what you can accomplish with our import tool. RT (and RT::Extension::Import::CSV) allow you to leverage the full power of the Perl programming language, widely known for its superior text processing capabilities. 

Data may have quoted identifiers, byte-order marking, and other oddities. With some additional configuration, RT::Extension::Import::CSV will help you account for these instead of addressing them through code. We have used our importer on all kinds of source data and have always been able to find a way to get existing data into RT.

Start Your Migrations!

Has the thought of moving all of your data got you stuck in a ticketing system that isn’t working for you? Our free importer provides a powerful solution to migrate to RT from Zendesk and other ticketing systems. RT’s flexibility and robust feature set will provide you with a powerful platform for managing your tickets going forward.

If you’re looking for some hands-on help with migrating your data RT, reach out to us to explore support, professional services, and hosting options. Want a guided tour of the latest version of RT? Book a demo today!