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.
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!
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.
Upgraded CKEditor 5
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.
RT 6 running with CKEditor 5
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.
RT 6 with Ticket Descriptions
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.
Auto-refresh options in RT 6
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.
Video showing the RT Connect app running in Splunk.
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.
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.
Preview of page interaction in Request Tracker 6.
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.
Visual changes in RT 6
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.
Quick ticket create in RT 6
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.
Sample tickets in Zendesk
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.
Sample tickets exported from Zendesk and imported into Request Tracker
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!
Jason Crome from Best Practical recently attended the Perl and Raku Conference 2024 in sunny (and hot!) Las Vegas, Nevada. In addition to giving a talk about improving your README on github, Jason attended other presentations and pulled together a list of the most interesting. And the best part is that the conference posts all videos from the conference on YouTube for free, so you can watch too!
Building a Better README
If you watch the Request Tracker repository on GitHub, you may have noticed some big improvements in our README file over the past year. Traditionally the README file was a quick-start guide written in plain text and read in a terminal window. But GitHub has changed that dynamic and the README has become a project’s homepage for developers. A good README not only helps users understand a project but also attracts contributors and builds a stronger community around the code.
Jason shared some of what we learned as we revised our README, like deciding what information to include, how best to structure a README, and how to make it visually appealing and inviting to those unfamiliar with a project.
Build a Better README presentation
Modern Browser Automation in Perl Using Playwright
One of the ways we keep RT running correctly as we do new development is running our automated test suite, which includes more than 42,000 automated tests. Testing a web application involves simulating a browser to confirm things work as expected. As you might imagine, this requires some special libraries to run automatically on a server, and these libraries have changed over time.
One of the newer libraries for automated browser testing is called Playwright, and one of the presentations talked about how to manage Playwright from Perl. RT doesn’t use Playwright yet, but this gives us some interesting new ideas.
Playwright-Perl presentation
The Test2 Ecosystem: Next-Level Testing
Perl has a long history of providing a robust environment for automated testing. And like all technology, it’s always changing and improving. The Test2 Ecosystem provides an in-depth look at the Test2 Perl framework and many of the new tools and libraries now available. Updates include options to speed up tests, improved diagnostics, better control over test execution, and the ability to create custom testing tools.
Tips for your Next Las Vegas Vacation
No conference in Vegas would be complete without a nod to the city's iconic gaming scene. Casino Gaming for the Mathematically Inclined is a fascinating dive into the world of probability, statistics, and game theory as applied to casino games. R Geoffrey Avery explores the mathematical principles behind popular casino games like blackjack, poker, and roulette, explaining which games offer the best odds and which games should be avoided. Even if you don’t like the math, it’s a very helpful presentation before your next trip to Vegas.
Many More Presentations
We’ve covered just a tiny sample of the many presentations from the conference this year and you can search and view all of the other sessions on the Perl and Raku Conference YouTube channel. And if you search, you’ll see videos are available for past years as well, so there are many hours of great content to watch and learn from. Thanks to all of the organizers and presenters for another great conference!
In today's rapidly evolving cybersecurity landscape, staying ahead of potential threats requires effective threat intelligence sharing and streamlined incident response processes. The new integration between RTIR (Request Tracker for Incident Response) and the MISP Threat Sharing platform brings together two powerful tools to enhance your organization's security posture.
What is MISP?
MISP is an open-source threat intelligence platform designed to facilitate the sharing, storing, and correlation of structured threat information. It enables organizations to share indicators of compromise (IOCs) and other threat data with trusted partners, improving collective threat detection and response capabilities.
It works like a social network for cyber threats. It's a free, open-source platform that security professionals use to share valuable information about malware, vulnerabilities, and other threats. Imagine a bulletin board where everyone can post details about the latest cyber dangers they've encountered. This shared knowledge helps everyone stay informed and better prepared to defend against attacks.
Seamless Threat Intelligence Sharing: Automatically pull threat data from MISP into RTIR, creating incidents based on the latest threat intelligence.
Enhanced Incident Context: Access detailed threat information from MISP directly within RTIR incidents, enriching your incident response process.
Streamlined Incident Management: Create and update MISP events from within RTIR, ensuring that your threat intelligence remains current and comprehensive.
You can see how the integration works in this short video demo.
Demo of the RTIR integration with MISP.
Key Features
Consume Event Feeds from MISP
After configuring the MISP integration, RTIR's External Feeds page will include a new MISP option. This feed pulls in events from MISP based on the configured number of days. From this feed display, you can create new RTIR tickets with information from the MISP events. If something from the feed impacts a service your team manages, you can then assign the incident for someone to research whether any action is needed for a particular threat.
MISP Portlet on Incident Display
On the Incident Display page in RTIR, if the custom field "MISP Event ID" has a value, a portlet named "MISP Event Details" will display details pulled from the MISP event via the MISP REST API. This provides quick access to valuable threat intelligence directly within RTIR. A link is also provided, so you can easily click to load the full MISP event if you need more details.
Update MISP Event
For incidents with a MISP Event ID, the Actions menu includes an option to "Update MISP Event." Selecting this action updates the existing MISP event with data from the RTIR incident ticket, ensuring that the threat intelligence remains up-to-date.
MISP has a defined RTIR object, and these attributes are automatically populated when you update the MISP event from RTIR.
RTIR Incident information uploaded to MISP.
Create MISP Event
If the MISP Event ID field is empty, the Actions menu shows an option to "Create MISP Event." This creates a new event in MISP with details from the RTIR incident ticket, facilitating the sharing of new threat intelligence.
Benefits of the Integration
Integrating RTIR with MISP provides several key benefits:
Improved Efficiency: Automate the process of creating and updating incidents based on threat intelligence, reducing manual effort and speeding up response times.
Enhanced Collaboration: Share threat data seamlessly between organizations, improving collective threat detection and response.
Comprehensive Threat Management: Access detailed threat intelligence within incident tickets, providing context and aiding in more effective incident response.
Conclusion
The integration of RTIR and MISP offers a powerful combination for enhancing threat intelligence sharing and incident response processes. By automating the flow of threat data and providing detailed context within incident tickets, this integration helps organizations stay ahead of potential threats and respond more effectively.
If you haven't already, we encourage you to set up this integration and experience the benefits for yourself. For more information, visit bestpractical.com or contact our team.
Best Practical has never been much of a marketing-driven company–RT has always grown by word of mouth. One of the things that we’re most proud of here is that RT isn’t a typical “product with customers”, but a product with a community.
The features we add to RT are driven pretty directly by what our users want and need, and many of our most active community members come to us directly through personal referrals from people like you. Some members of the RT community contribute code. Others contribute documentation, bug reports, feature requests, and enthusiasm.
If you find RT useful, we’d be grateful if you could help us make RT available to as many people and organizations as possible.
Share on Social Media
Social media posts have a powerful impact, as they help introduce RT to folks who might not find it on their own.
If you follow us on LinkedIn, just reposting our blog posts when we publish them helps grow RT’s audience. Even if LinkedIn isn't usually your thing, logging in once a month or so to interact with our posts can really help.
The rest of the social media landscape is a bit fractured right now, but sharing anywhere else also helps. Dropping a link to an RT blog post you found interesting on Mastodon, Bluesky, Threads, or Twitter can also help new people discover RT. We also post videos on our YouTube channel and, as the saying goes, “please like and subscribe.” Finally, if you frequent discussion sites like Reddit and Hacker News, when you see a discussion about issue tracking or ticketing software, chime in with your experiences with RT.
Star RT on GitHub
If you have a GitHub account, giving us a star is a quick way to show your support. It helps increase RT’s visibility within the GitHub community, and is a quick and easy way to help show off RT’s vibrant and active community.
Write Reviews and Testimonials
Platforms like Capterra or G2 are popular with professionals looking for software recommendations. Sharing your experiences in a review can guide others in their decision-making process and simultaneously boost our profile.
Engage on our Forum
Our open community forum is a hub for community discussion about RT. Many new users start there looking for advice and guidance. If you have a bit of spare time, sharing your expertise and answering a question for a beginner can help them (and future users) get up to speed with RT.
Share your customizations on The RT Wiki
If you haven’t discovered it yet, check out the RT wiki at https://wiki.bestpractical.com. The wiki is filled with RT documentation, including customizations and code for interesting use cases for RT. If you have built something useful for your RT instance, odds are that many other users would find incredibly useful, too. It’s quick and easy to share your customizations and extensions on the wiki.
RT Community MVP
If you really love RT and have extra time, you could think about some bigger projects.
Contribute a Case Study
We're starting the process of publishing selected case studies on https://bestpractical.com to help new users understand the many different ways RT is used across a large number of industries. If you'd like us to feature your organization’s use of RT, we'd love to chat. Get started by reaching out to feedback@bestpractical.com.
Give a Talk on RT
Put together a presentation inside your organization to help your users learn more about the RT system they have available to them. It's amazing how a few tips and tricks can unlock features for people who are already regular users of RT.
Talks on RT also make great sessions for conferences or professional organization meetings. You might give a talk on how your organization uses RT or even a talk on getting started with a ticketing system using RT. We’d be delighted to help support you as you put together your talk. Additionally, we’d be happy to provide a demo RT instance for your presentation. If your presentation is recorded and publicly accessible, let us know and we can link to it.
Your Impact
Your help has a profound impact. By supporting Request Tracker, you are not just advocating for a tool you use, but you are also contributing to the spirit of open source—collaboration and freedom. Our success is not just measured by the functionality of our software, but by the strength and enthusiasm of our community.
Thank you for being an integral part of what makes Request Tracker amazing. We wouldn’t be where we are today without your involvement and together we’re going to continue to make RT even better for many years to come!
In the high-octane world of Formula 1 racing, every detail counts. From aerodynamics to engine performance, teams strive for perfection in every aspect of their cars' design and construction. But Ars Technica tells the story of a Formula 1 team reaching the limits of MS Excel as a system to track their massive parts inventory.
This story got us thinking, RT's asset tracking system could help handle their challenges, and the process shouldn't be "viciously expensive".
The Excel Challenge
As described in the article, the Formula 1 team's massive parts list (over 20,000 rows!) pushed past the limitations of Excel when it came to tracking and managing their assets. With thousands of parts to monitor and coordinate, Excel workbooks can quickly become cumbersome and inefficient. Even simple details like the current state of a part (backordered, inspected, etc.) could not be easily determined.
How RT Could Rev Up the System
By transitioning from Excel to Request Tracker for asset tracking, Formula 1 teams could unlock a wealth of benefits, including:
Using configurable asset lifecycles, asset status and availability are immediately available
Multiple Catalogs can be used to track different categories of parts, each with its own lifecycle and metadata
Work and tasks associated with parts can be tracked on linked tickets
Enhanced collaboration and communication among team members as everyone can work in the system at the same time
Gaining insights using asset search, reporting, and dashboards
Improved decision-making through data-driven insights
Plus, all changes are tracked and audited so you know what updates have been made, when, and by which logged in user.
Seamless Data Migration with the RT Asset Importer
One of the key concerns when transitioning from Excel to a new asset tracking system like Request Tracker (RT) is the seamless transfer of existing data. Fortunately, RT offers a powerful solution for this challenge: the RT-Extension-Assets-Import-CSV extension.
The RT-Extension-Assets-Import-CSV extension enables teams to effortlessly import asset data from Excel spreadsheets into RT's centralized platform. You export your Excel spreadsheet in the CSV format, set up your RT assets with all of the fields you want to capture from the spreadsheet, then configure the extension to map the Excel columns to asset fields. Then you run the utility and all of your data is imported into RT.
Benefits of Automated Import
Automating the import process offers several benefits:
Time Savings: By eliminating manual data entry tasks, teams can save valuable time and resources during the transition process.
Accuracy: The automated import process reduces the risk of human error associated with manual data entry, ensuring that asset information is transferred accurately.
Efficiency: Teams can quickly onboard existing asset data into RT, allowing them to leverage the platform's features and functionalities without delay.
Scalability: The extension supports the import of large volumes of asset data, making it suitable for teams of all sizes and asset inventories.
RT is Ready to Join the Pit Crew
In the fast-paced world of Formula 1 racing, every advantage counts. With Request Tracker, we think teams could accelerate their journey towards efficiency and performance excellence. By harnessing the power of RT's asset tracking system and the RT-Extension-Assets-Import-CSV extension, Formula 1 teams can seamlessly migrate their asset data, streamline workflows, and drive towards victory on the track.
If anyone at the Williams team is still looking for a solution, we'd be happy to give you a test drive.
Chart showing assets by brand in Request Tracker 5.0.6
Following up on Star Wars Day and Cinco de Mayo, we thought May 6th needed something special, so we're happy to release RT 5.0.6 today (5/6). If you use assets with RT, you're going to like this release. If you don't, what are you waiting for? Go check out this new intro to assets video to see what you're missing.
This release includes some updates, new features, and fixes. Some notable updates are described here. Full details and release notes are linked in the forum post below.
If you’re not familiar with RT’s asset tracking, it’s a built-in feature that allows you to track pretty much anything you want. It was originally designed for IT assets, like computers and printers, or cloud assets like servers and databases. But it can be used to track any sort of inventory, from office supplies to medical devices to car parts.
This new release adds features to assets to catch up with existing ticket features, including inline edit on asset pages and improved autocomplete on asset links. Asset search results in the query builder also now support filtering from the headers like tickets.
Filter assets in search results
Charts
Asset and transaction query builder searches both now support charts, so you can visualize your asset information or transaction details. You can save charts and add them to dashboards just like tickets (see the screenshot at the top of the post for an example).
Charts also have a new feature allowing you to manage the x-axis in your charts. If your x-axis displays a count, like the number of tickets created per Requestor, you can now sort the results by that count rather than alphabetically by Requestor name. And if you have a large number of results with many smaller values, you can limit the chart to showing just the top results. So in the previous example, you might want to see just the top 10 Requestors by ticket count and not show all of the Requestors who created only 1 ticket.
Chart showing tickets created by top 10 Requestors
Lifecycles
Now that the graphical lifecycle editor has been out for a while, we took some time to improve lifecycle management based on feedback from users. We implemented several changes to make it easier to manage lifecycles, including automatically removing statuses from various places in the lifecycle when it is deleted from the graph. We also added a button to automatically populate mappings when the statuses are the same. So if you have two lifecycles that are very similar, you can now click on the maps page to automatically set the "new" <-> "new", "open" <-> "open", etc. There are a few other small fixes that should improve lifecycle management or just make it a little easier.
Upgrading
We include everything you need to upgrade RT in each release, and staying up-to-date gives you great new features. Also, the upgrade process is simpler when you only need to move one minor version. If you just don’t have time to manage new versions, we also offer a fully managed cloud RT and we’ll take care of the upgrades for you. However you manage your RT, we hope you enjoy the new version!
Want to use AWS reservations to save money, but have trouble matching your reservations to your EC2 servers? Or maybe you want to spread out your reservations, but need an easy way to get a list of servers that currently don't have a reservation? AWS reporting doesn't currently make this possible, but Request Tracker’s asset system can.
Understanding AWS Reservations
If you run services like EC2 and RDS on AWS, you probably know that there are several levels of pricing based on how long you can commit to using the services. On-demand is the most flexible because you can deprovision it at any time, so it's also the most expensive. If you can commit to a longer term, like a year or more, you can sign up for "reserved instances" and get a lower price.
When you sign up for these reservations, AWS asks for a bunch of information about the servers you are committing to. These are details like the region, the type of server (t3.medium, etc.), and the platform (Linux, etc.). For the reservation to get credited on your bill correctly, all of the reservation information must match up with your running servers.
When you start running more than a few services, tracking all of this information to make sure your reservations are being used can become a challenge. AWS has a utilization report that will tell you in aggregate if your reservations are being used or not. But this report doesn't connect specific EC2 or RDS instances with a reservation. This can be good if you remove an instance and then create a new one because the reservation will transfer. But if you want to review all active services and figure out which reservations are being used where, the AWS reporting doesn't provide that.
RT Asset Tracking
RT's asset tracking system is designed to record this kind of information, so we decided to start tracking our AWS resources and reservations in RT to help us match the two together.
To start, we needed to get the AWS assets created in RT. AWS has extensive APIs to access information about your resources, so we created a utility to fetch data about EC2 and RDS instances and create an asset record for each. We put all of these in one catalog called "AWS Resources".
Next we wanted to track our purchased reservations. We created a new catalog called "AWS Reserved Instances" to track those, since they aren't really the same thing as an EC2 or RDS instance. We also wanted to track different asset details on reservations, like start and end dates. Reservations also have "states" in AWS, so we were able to map that to the asset status and create a custom asset lifecycle with all of the AWS state values like "pending payment", "active", and "retired".
Once we had all of the information sync'd from AWS, we could start making sense of it. We started by creating some categories of assets using a few saved searches. We put them all in a dashboard like the one below so we could see what we had.
AWS asset dashboard in Request Tracker
Assigning Existing Reservations
The first thing we wanted to do is connect reservations with a matching resource. This mapping is very useful for tracking what we have purchased, but it just doesn't exist in the AWS interface.
Assets have links, similar to tickets, so we decided to link each resource asset with a reservation asset. To make that easy, we created a saved asset search called "Unlinked AWS Reservations", which is the third search above. This is all reservations without a linked asset, which at first was all of them.
In the search results, we added a custom column called "Link to Resource". Each reservation in the results then had a link to a new page that showed all AWS assets (EC2s, RDSs) that matched the details of that reservation. So a reservation for an EC2 t3.medium in us-east-1 would show all matching EC2 assets that also were not linked yet. This is important, because we need to make sure our linking aligns with the AWS rules for counting reservations in our bill.
To link them, we pick one from the list and click Link. We worked through all of our existing reservations until all were linked and our "Unlinked AWS Reservations" was empty.
Buying New Reservations
In our case, we didn't have a reservation for every AWS asset, so when we were done linking, our "EC2 Instances without Reservations" and "RDS Instances without Reservations" still had some assets. These two lists now became our shopping list for new reservations.
The tricky part about reservations is you need to manually fill out all of the fields in the AWS interface. If you get any fields wrong, your reservation won't match an existing resource and you'll end up paying for the unused reservation.
Previously we would keep an EC2 or RDS AWS console page open in one browser window, then open another browser window with the “buy” form, and carefully check every value. This was tricky because the values are at different locations all over the EC2 and RDS pages.
With our new asset searches, we modified the search layout to show all of the information needed to buy a reservation, and we put the values in the same order as the reservation form. This makes it much easier to buy new reservations with less stress.
We used this process to buy some new reservations now that we could easily see what was needed. Then we re-ran our import utility and the new reservations showed up in "Unlinked AWS Reservations". We followed the previous process and got them all linked until we had the coverage level we wanted.
Expiring Reservations
When you buy a reservation, you commit to some term, like 1, 2, or 3 years. Based on what you picked, the reservation record will have a duration. We use that duration to figure out the reservation end date and store that on the asset. This information helps populate the top two searches on our dashboard, "Recently Retired AWS Reservations" and "Expiring AWS Reservations".
The first is reservations that are now retired, so assets that previously had a reservation are no longer covered. That means our bill just went up and we need to buy a new reservation to get savings for another year.
To help plan ahead, "Expiring AWS Reservations" looks ahead 60 days to let us know which ones will be expiring soon.
Using these two searches, we can plan to buy new reservations at regular intervals. We can also watch the EC2 and RDS searches to see any new instances that might be added.
Connecting AWS with Your Business
The visibility we gained from linking the reservations was a huge win for us and saved a bunch of time we previously spent trying to understand what systems had reservations and where more were needed. But now that we have AWS asset records in RT, we can do even more. We can link them to customer tickets, link them to change management activity, and link them to sales and contract activity which is also tracked on tickets. Our AWS resources are now integrated into all of our other processes, which is a huge win given how important AWS is in our hosting business.
Does any of the above sound familiar? If you are trying to manage AWS resources via the AWS console, but having a hard time linking that to your other business processes, drop us a line. We'd love to share our experience and talk about how Request Tracker can bring some organization to your AWS infrastructure.
Managing change in a hosting environment is a complex task that can involve adding new services, software updates, and configuration changes. Request Tracker (RT) provides all of the tools to schedule and track these changes, especially using the Change Management extensionwe showed recently. But this scheduling and tracking can only happen if the change management tickets are created and all of the fields are set, and this can be a challenge for a busy team.
We had exactly this case in our hosted RT environment. Customers write in to support with various requests and sometimes these require a change on their hosted RT system. We want to track those changes and it was taking extra time for our support team to create and fill out these change management requests. So we created a small extension to make this easier.
Goals for the new Extension
Before we got to work, we identified our main goals for the new extension.
1. Create a Link on Support Tickets
To make change management easy, we wanted a single link on support tickets that would take the user to a create ticket page with the Change Management queue selected.
2. Link Location
We could have created a single link, possibly in the Actions menu on the ticket. But looking at past tickets, we realized we often wanted to quote a specific transaction, usually the reply that explained the requested change. Based on that, we decided to put a link on each transaction in the ticket history which allowed us to quote the text in that reply.
3. Pre-filled Fields
When our staff clicked the link, we wanted to automatically fill out as much information as possible on the new change management ticket. This would make creating the ticket much easier, and reduce the risk of human error.
4. Ticket Linking
To make it easy to trace every change, we wanted the new change management ticket be linked to the support request that asked for the change. We also wanted the change to show up in a list of all changes for that customer.
Building the Extension
Adding a single link is a small change, made easy using callbacks and other tools RT makes available for building extensions. When we started to add more details, like all of the fields we wanted to set automatically, it got a little more involved, but not much. Luckily our team has some experience building RT extensions.
Our Updated Change Flow
Image showing a wrench icon in the RT ticket history.
Our new extension adds a wrench icon on each transaction for support tickets that fits right in with the existing reply and comment icons. We included some logic to look up information on the customer's support contract and only add the wrench if the customer uses our hosting.
The main fields on the change management ticket are automatically filled out based on our most common changes.
The Owner is the current user.
The Status defaults to deployed and the Change Type is Standard, since most changes are standard and done right away as we handle the request.
The Change Completed date defaults to when the ticket is created, assuming the change has been done.
The Customer custom role is automatically set to the customer's group, which will make the change ticket show up in the list of changes for that customer.
The text of the reply in the support ticket is included in the content box.
The new Change Management ticket is linked to the support request.
Screenshot of a change management ticket with fields automatically filled out.
All of these fields can be changed by the user before the ticket is created. We set the defaults based on the most common case, but it still supports other situations, like scheduling a change for a few days later.
Change Management Best Practices
Implementing this small extension helped our process in several ways:
Efficiency: Support staff can initiate change management tickets with a single click, saving time and reducing the chance of errors.
Consistency: The pre-filled fields ensure that all necessary information is captured consistently, following best practices.
Transparency: The linkage between support and change management tickets provides transparency into why changes were initiated and their impact.
Auditability: All changes are documented and can be audited for compliance and accountability purposes.
RT gives you the flexibility and freedom to customize your system to make routine tasks fast and easy for your staff. While implementing custom solutions can take some time, this is offset by the day-to-day savings once it's up and running for your users.
Ready to get started with some changes of your own? Check our documentation to start building your own extension. You might even see if you can get some help from one of the AI tools out there now available, many of which know how to write RT code.
If you’re looking for some hands-on help with extending RT to meet your specific needs and business goals, reach out to us to explore what you can achieve!
Nir Eyal's new book, "Indistractable," is a beacon for everyone struggling with the daily mental tug-of-war at work. He offers actionable steps to reclaim your focus and achieve laser-sharp productivity. But let's be honest, implementing these strategies requires more than willpower alone. That's where Request Tracker comes in – a shared platform for conquering workplace distractions and keeping your boss in the loop.
Scheduled Syncing Explained
Eyal was recently on the podcast Lenny's Podcast and he explains how syncing with your boss can help you with your quest to become indistractable. Here is the part of the podcast where they talk about priority and syncing.
Scheduled syncing section of Nir Eyal’s episode on Lenny’s Podcast.
You can use your calendar and set up this weekly meeting with your boss, but what if there was a view of everything you were working on that your boss could check whenever they have time in their busy schedule? What if they could get an email update as you make progress throughout the day? What if they could go in and update the priority of a task directly, leaving you a note explaining why? Request Tracker makes all of this possible.
A Team Approach
Eyal emphasizes the importance of "externalizing your commitments." Request Tracker does exactly that. Ditch the sticky notes and mental to-do lists, and pour your tasks into the system. Categorize them, set priorities, and assign due dates. Suddenly, the overwhelming chaos transforms into a manageable shared roadmap.
And unlike individual to-do apps built just for you, RT's team-based system is built for collaboration. Give your boss an account, and you can create dashboards they can quickly view whenever they need to. Create accounts for your team and everyone can see what's happening and make updates as they complete tasks.
View Tasks Your Way
Eyal also talks about a "Timeboxing" technique. Request Tracker lets you break down large projects into smaller, time-bound tasks. You can then set a Starts and Due date and time to schedule your work at whatever level of detail you need. You'll be amazed at how much more you can accomplish in a distraction-free zone.
The simplest view of your plan for the week can be a list of the task tickets you have created, filtered by the tasks due this week, and sorted by priority. You can also get the calendar view you want using the free RTx::Calendar extension we recently talked about.
Screenshot of a calendar view of one week of task tickets in Request Tracker
Prefer to keep your tasks and reserved time in your main calendar? No problem. RT can provide an iCal compatible feed of any set of task tickets and you can subscribe to this from your main calendar. Events from RT will then show up in your main calendar where other non-RT users can see them.
Keeping Your Boss in the Loop (Without the Micromanagement)
Transparency is key to a healthy work relationship. Request Tracker's real-time updates and progress reports keep your boss informed without the constant need for check-ins. They see what you're working on, the progress you're making, and any roadblocks you're facing. No more frantic "What's on your plate?" emails or nerve-wracking status meetings.
Collaboration Without the Collision
Eyal highlights the importance of "frictionless collaboration." Request Tracker fosters seamless teamwork. Assign tasks to colleagues, share updates, and track progress together. No more chasing down teammates or deciphering cryptic email threads.
As you are getting control of your attention, you don't want to do so at the expense of your boss or coworkers. Request Tracker's notification settings keep you in sync with your team at whatever level makes sense. Add team members as watchers on individual tasks they need to see, remove them from personal task tickets, and mute individual updates that don't need an email.
And everyone on the team can delete email worry-free because Request Tracker keeps a record of all updates right on the ticket. In the future, they can always check the ticket if they missed an update. No need to create yet another email folder to track updates.
Becoming Indistractable, One Request at a Time
Nir Eyal's "Indistractable" offers a powerful framework, and Request Tracker provides the tools to translate theory into action. It's your digital assistant, your focus facilitator, and your communication machine. So, ditch the distractions, embrace the power of Request Tracker, and watch your productivity – and peace of mind – skyrocket. Remember, a focused you is an unstoppable you.
Ready to reclaim your focus and become indistractable at work? Sign up for a Request Tracker demo today and experience the difference!
AI has been a huge topic in 2023 across all industries and we have been experimenting with it at Best Practical across all parts of our business. One of the areas where we see some real potential is allowing more RT admins to build custom Scrips to automate more things in their systems. Many tools have tried for years to build GUI interfaces to help people build complex logic without learning a programming language. The new AI tools may have just made it possible to let people explain what they need in natural language and get functioning code to implement it.
Experimenting with ChatGPT
The first step in working with the new large language models (LLMs) is working out how to explain to the model exactly what you want it to do for you. These instructions are “prompts”, so this has been referred to as “prompt engineering”. There are techniques that can significantly improve your likelihood of getting good output, so there are many ChatGPT prompt cheat sheets available online and OpenAI has published their own documentation to help people get the most out of the tool.
I decided to try to create a simple Scrip that I have used in training, which is “On Update from Big Boss, Set Priority to High”. This is a fairly simple scrip that uses information about any update on a ticket to possibly change the priority. As you can see from the video, the process involves working through various prompts to get the correct code to create the condition and action. The really cool part is that once you work out how to ask correctly, ChatGPT shows you that it knows how to program valid RT code.
Video showing an RT scrip being created with ChatGPT.
AI Resources
As noted in the video, OpenAI’s ChatGPT isn’t the only service available as a potential coding partner. I have experimented with Microsoft’s Bing and Google’s Bard. There are also open source options like HuggingFace, which has several models to choose from. When we tested, we got some decent output using falcon-180B-chat. All of these services require an account and you’ll need to log in. Each behaved a little differently and needed different tuning to refine and improve the prompts.
Creative Coding
Even with the AI help, you might still run into some snags. One of the models included this line in the sample code output:
my $modifier_email = $self->TicketObj->LastModifier->EMail;
That looks perfectly reasonable, except tickets objects in RT don’t have a “LastModifier” method. And even if it did, RT usually refers to email as EmailAddress rather than EMail. What to do if you run into this?
If you get some errors with suggested code, you can check our documentation to see if there is something close. For example, the RT::Record class, the parent of RT::Ticket, has a method LastUpdatedByObj which is the user who last updated the ticket. That’s pretty close, and you can call “EmailAddress” on that. So the AI might give you a good idea and our documentation can get you the rest of the way. You might also be able to prompt the AI to review the code and confirm it’s real.
Have you had any experiences working with AI to generate some custom RT code? We’d love to hear about what other people are trying and what your experience is. Stop over to our forum and let us know how it’s working for you.
Managing your organization's schedule, maintenance windows and appointments just got easier with the latest update to the RTx::Calendar extension for Request Tracker (RT). The extension has been available for a long time and the most recent release offers a nice set of new features that will streamline your scheduling and enhance your productivity. You can see some of these in action in the video below.
Demo of new features in RTx::Calendar
Events based on Dates and DateTimes Custom Fields
The new Calendar extension now allows you to use Custom Fields of Date and DateTime types. This powerful feature enables you to create customized date-based fields that can be associated with tickets, making it easier to track important deadlines, events, and maintenance windows within the context of your support and ticketing system. Whether it's tracking project milestones, service level agreements, or customer appointments, the ability to use custom date fields within RT's Calendar extension brings an added layer of flexibility and efficiency to your workflow.
Multiple-Day Events
The display of multi-day events and ongoing tasks is now much nicer with the enhanced Calendar extension. Instead of being limited to single-day events, you can now create and manage events that span multiple days. This feature is invaluable for managing multiple-day maintenance windows, complex changes, extended projects, conferences, or other events that require tracking over an extended period. You can easily visualize these events on the calendar, ensuring that nothing falls through the cracks.
Calendar Portlets for RT Dashboards
In addition to the existing one-week calendar portlet, useful for seeing recent and upcoming events, the new version of the extension also introduces calendar portlets that provide a full-month view right on your RT Dashboards. By integrating the calendar into your dashboard, you can stay organized and up-to-date without the need to navigate to a separate page.
Other Improvements
Finally, there are a set of other smaller updates. Events can be color-coded based on status and a status filter is available in the sidebar for seeing only desired events like "approved" or "rejected" events.
With these exciting new features, Request Tracker's Calendar extension is more versatile and user-friendly than ever before. Whether you're managing support tickets, project timelines, or customer appointments, the enhanced Calendar extension empowers you to stay organized and on top of your schedule. Don't miss out on these valuable additions that can significantly boost your productivity and help you better manage your organization's tasks and events.
As an early Christmas present to the RT community, we are happy to announce the release of a major update to our FormTools extension, which allows you to create custom forms in Request Tracker (RT). Read on for details on why you might want to create custom forms and what’s now available.
There are many ways you can allow people to create new request tickets in RT, the simplest being just telling them the email address of the queue you want the ticket in. Email is very easy and flexible, but it doesn’t allow you to collect organized information. If you’re lucky, the requestor might provide all of the information you need, but it’s in a block of text. If you want to organize this in custom fields, someone needs to manually read the email and update the fields. If you can give users an interface, they can do this work for you.
RT-Extension-FormTools has been available for many years as a library of helper tools for developers to create custom pages in RT. But that was the challenge, you needed a developer. And even when you had one available and got some forms built, updates required you to get their help again and code needed to be updated.
RT is very flexible and has many integration options, including a REST API, support for Zapier, and plain old email. Often users would use a custom external form builder tool to make forms and then use one of these integration methods to get the information into RT. That works, but the forms are usually hosted on a different domain, which can be strange for users, and it can come at an additional cost.
The latest release of FormTools allows RT admins to handle all of this right in RT and right in the browser. It gives you a form designer where you can create form pages with all of the fields you want users to fill out so you can organize and manage their request. And it gives you options to guide their experience, providing helpful instructions and making important fields required before the form can be submitted. We created a video with a quick survey of the new features.
Demo of the FormTools extension in Request Tracker.
We’ve gotten requests for a custom form builder for many years, so we think this will be a popular update. We encourage you to try it out and send feedback via our forum. As always, if you need additional help or have ideas for new features, you can always reach our team at sales@bestpractical.com. Happy holidays!
RT 5.0.5 has a new feature for all of the RT administrators who wish there was an easier way to see logging information while working on customizing a scrip. The new configuration option LogScripsForUser does exactly that, it allows you to enable scrip logging just for your user so you can see what is happening while working on a custom scrip condition or action.
Viewing RT scrip log output in the browser
As shown in the video, you can enable this while working on some new code and output debug information to confirm your code is all working. When you’re done, you can disable the logging again. Or, you might leave logging enabled but set the log level to warning or error. Then you should only see output if the system encounters some kind of error. You can then visit your scrips page occasionally and confirm all of your scrips are running cleanly and without problem.
Still need some help with that custom scrip even with the new logging feature? We’re always here to help. Just send email to sales@bestpractical.com and we’ll get you moving on your next project.
RT version 5.0.5 is now available, along with RT 4.4.7. In addition to a batch of updates, new features, and fixes, there are several important 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.
We are also recommending an update to your web server configuration. Your Apache or nginx (or other web server) configuration is managed outside of RT, so we can’t update it automatically as part of the upgrade. Details on the recommended changes are in the forum post and also in our updated documentation.
Select Different Users for Saved Searches
But this release isn't only about security updates, we have some new features also. One is a new dashboard component that allows you to select a different user to display tickets in searches like "10 Highest Priority Tickets I Own". Normally that search shows tickets owned by the currently logged in user, so you'll see your own tickets. Using the new __SelectedUser__ placeholder and the new dashboard component, you can now get that type of search to show tickets owned by other people. Check out the video below to see it in action.
We think this will be very helpful for project managers keeping track of tickets for multiple different team members. We've been using it in our RT for a few months and it's a big help.
Upgrade Planning for the 4.4 Series
As you plan your upgrade, note that the 4.4 series is very much in maintenance mode and receiving only important bug fixes. For example, the new feature above is only available in RT 5.0.5.
We are not announcing the end of life yet, but if you are still running version 4.4, you should start working on your plans to upgrade to RT 5. Plus you’ll get a bunch of new features!
Need Help?
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 to let us handle the upgrades for you.
Before you even get a chance to roll your eyes, let’s make sure of one thing: we’re not talking about multitasking. That’s been talked about forever, mulled over, and thoroughly dissected. And while multitasking is a pain, a source of frustration, and a rabid consumer of productivity, we’re not here to talk about that. We’re here to talk about its younger sibling--the even more annoying one. We’re talking about context switching.
While context switching is a form of multitasking, it’s certainly not the traditional form of multitasking you’re used to. This isn’t about distractedly trying to answer emails during a conference call. Shaving while you’re driving. Texting while walking the dog. It doesn’t take a supergenius to know that the quality of each task suffers, but the extent of the problem might come as a shock.
As the American Psychological Association points out, there are three types of multitasking:
• Classic multitasking: Trying to perform more than one task at a time.
• Rapid task switching: Going from one task to another in quick succession.
• Interrupted task switching: The worst. Having to switch from one task to another, before the first task is complete.
Interrupted task switching is particularly bad because it’s often the most distracting, is almost always controlled by external factors, and is likely the most harmful offender in terms of both actual productivity and the *feeling* of productivity. While the first one is pegged by Inc. as costing something like $4.5b, that latter feeling just might cost you your long term wellbeing.
Even worse than that (and this is where the diabolical little sibling part comes in)? Most people aren’t even aware this thing exists. They can hardly name or recognize this process. Interrupted task switching, a.k.a. context switching, costs a lot. Again from Inc.:
• We spend an average of just 1 minute and 15 seconds on a task before being interrupted.
• It takes an average of 25 minutes to resume a task after being interrupted.
• Heavily multitasking can temporarily lower your IQ by up to 15 points. Crazy, right? It’s literally making us dumber.
So clearly, the only thing we can do is abolish all interruptions by living inside a bubble on the top of an unpopulated mountain. Well, kind of, actually. It turns out that it’s pretty hard for all of us to focus intently on one thing and then shift to deep focus on another. We can mitigate this harshness by combining like-minded tasks. Try to have all your meetings in one day, for example. I, personally, like to do all the paperwork sorts of things on one particular day. Or maybe you have a social media responsibility. Try to do the catching up, the scheduling, and the posting together. Research shows that “batching” like-minded tasks makes us able to tackle more initiatives—and, better yet, finish them!
We’d be remiss if we didn’t talk about the elephant. It’s email. Email is one of the biggest distractions of our day. As the Harvard Business Review points out, you shouldn’t use your email inbox as a task list or tracker. Email is probably contributing to more task switching than you realize. That’s why you ought to schedule email triage time.
This is where the game can be changed: send everything to Request Tracker! Whether the bulk of your emails relate to ongoing projects, new tasks, or customer service-related things, Request Tracker ensures every email, request, and action item gets the attention it deserves. All the to-do mail gets sorted automatically. Even better, you can silence those pesky notifications that play on your FOMO. It’s worth noting that even having just notifications come through can foment some FOMO feelings. Best to simply flip your phone over and close out of email when you’re not in triage mode.
Beyond triage and at another, deeper level of email management, Request Tracker provides a comprehensive toolset for request and task management compared to traditional email:
Centralized Task Management: Unlike scattered email threads, RT provides a centralized system for email and, well, lots of things! Viola! Less clutter, more clarity.
• Due Dates and Service Level Agreements (SLAs): Request Tracker allows you to set and highlight due dates and can also be configured to adhere to SLAs. Much like the squeaky wheel, flagged tickets approaching or exceeding their resolution times more often get the grease.
•Internal Comments & Collaboration: RT offers a suite of features where team members can add internal comments not visible to the client or end-user. This allows for private team discussions and brainstorming within the same ticket interface. Multiple team members can simultaneously work on a ticket, and all history is kept there for everyone’s benefit..
• Custom Fields: Unlike normal email, which has a standard set of fields, RT allows you to add custom fields tailored to your specific needs, enabling more detailed ticket categorization and tracking.
Which brings up a final thought: if you’re fried, brain dead, or otherwise spent? Don’t give up on staying useful! Everyone has tasks that are necessary to do, but don’t require much critical thinking. Tackle those when you realize it’s the best you can do. Focusing on a mundane task actually centers your brain, and allows you to start thinking more clearly again.
We can’t eliminate interruptions, in the end. Honestly? We probably wouldn’t want to. A lot of the good stuff in life happens there. But we’d be better off to make sure we have the right tools around us, like Request Tracker, a decent plan, and the willingness to implement what we know can make the proverbial lemonade. It’s quite possible to control things on our end to make interruptions work better *with* you, rather than against you.
Got experiences to share? We’re all ears! Good or bad, we’d love to hear your thoughts. Find us on Twitter (@bestpractical)! Even better—can we help your team ditch the shared email inbox? Schedule a demo today!
Let’s say you have a sales team of 16. Janie has a laptop, a phone, a desktop, and an old iPad she scrounged from an intern’s desk for a one-time need. Jamal has two phones (don’t ask), one new and one “broken” laptop, and keeps insisting he needs a desktop even though he’s never in the office. Ron, on the other hand, is something of a Luddite, uses an old flip-phone he owns himself, and barely does his reporting at all—let alone on his laptop.
Do any of these people sound familiar? Are you in an office or lab like this? Your company, presumably, owns these assets (and a pretty vast number of others), paid for them, and is (or ought to) managing them. But who’s really doing that? Who’s putting on the IT inventory hat to keep up with an unending, ever-changing landscape?
Historically, most of the IT assets rested within an organization’s domain. However, now with a boom in remote work and the lessons from Covid, the challenges of managing IT assets have multiplied. Hardware has left the building and new apps and services multiply. One of the biggest challenges with the proliferation of services and technology is that assets often get tracked in a lot of different places by a lot of different people. Often, no single person owns everything, let alone has visibility into all the systems. And without the right tools in place, no single platform collects and centralizes asset data across your organization. How can you make informed decisions without a clear picture? This is where a robust solution is critical. Your boss’ Excel spreadsheet is not a robust solution, by the way.
It’s worth noting here that many organizations don’t merely have a need for better asset management–they have a mandate. Recently in New York state, a school district was audited for its inability to locate any number of pieces of hardware. In this case, at least, they had tools in place, but used them inefficiently. Many organizations simply do not know what assets they own, what shape they’re in, or where they’re located.
The good news is that implementing a system for robust asset management doesn’t have to be either complicated or costly. Request Tracker is a widely supported, open source asset tracking system, among other things. You and your team can confidently know what assets you have, who has your assets, and where your assets are—all from one place. You can even easily import your boss’ Excel spreadsheet! With options for email and self-service portals and built-in reporting, you could even build a documentation culture! Imagine that! Anyone can play along!
One of the most powerful advantages to using Request Tracker (RT) is that it’s almost infinitely customizable. You get to set up an asset management system that works for you. As always, and unlike other products in the market today, RT never gates its features. Your team gets every feature there is right out of the box. Also, being open source, there are no per seat charges. RT scales at your pace.
Perhaps best of all? Request Tracker offers a free trial so that you can spend actual time in a fully-functioning program. See how your team can explore new asset tracking capabilities with Request Tracker.
