<appendix id="rfc1297">
<title>RFC 1297</title>
<para>
Many people do not have an idea what a trouble ticket system is and why you may need one. The <ulink url="http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc1297.html"><citetitle>RFC 1297</citetitle></ulink> is a good start to get an overview.
</para>
<para>
<blockquote>
<attribution>RFC 1297</attribution>
<para>
PURPOSES OF A NOC TROUBLE TICKET SYSTEM
</para>
<para>
   A good Network Operations Trouble Ticket System should serve many
   purposes:
</para>
<para>
     1) SHORT-TERM MEMORY AND COMMUNICATION ("Hospital Chart").  The
      primary purpose of the trouble ticket system is to act as short-
      term memory about specific problems for the NOC as a whole.  In a
      multi-operator or multi-shift NOC, calls and problem updates come
      in without regard to who worked last on a particular problem.
      Problems extend over shifts, and problems may be addressed by
      several different operators on the same shift.  The trouble ticket
      (like a hospital chart) provides a complete history of the
      problem, so that any operator can come up to speed on a problem
      and take the next appropriate step without having to consult with
      other operators who are working on something else, or have gone
      home, or are on vacation.  In single-room NOCs, an operator may
      ask out loud if someone else knows about or is working on a
      problem, but the system should allow for more formal communication
      as well.
 </para>
<para> 
      2) SCHEDULING and WORK ASSIGNMENT.  NOCs typically work with many
      simultaneous problems with different priorities.  An on-line
      trouble ticket system can provide real time (or even constantly
      displayed and updated) lists of open problems, sorted by priority.
      This would allow operators to sort their work at the beginning of
      a shift, and to pick their next task during the shift.  It also
      would allow supervisors and operators to keep track of the current
      NOC workload, and to call in and assign additional staff as
      appropriate.
</para>
<para>
      It may be useful to allow current priorities of tickets change
      according to time of day, or in response to timer alerts.
</para>
<para>
      3) REFERRALS AND DISPATCHING.  If the trouble ticket system is
      thoroughly enough integrated with a mail system, or if the system
      is used by Network Engineers as well as Network Operators, then
      some problems can be dispatched simply by placing the appropriate
      Engineer or Operator name in an "assigned to" field of the trouble
      ticket.
</para>
<para>
      4) ALARM CLOCK.  Typically, most of the time a trouble ticket is
      open, it is waiting for something to happen.  There should almost
      always be a timer associated with every wait.  If a ticket is
      referred to a phone company, there will be an escalation time
      before which the phone company is supposed to call back with an
      update on the problem.  For tickets referred to remote site
      personnel, there may be other more arbitrary timeouts such as
</para>
<para>
      "Monday morning".  Tickets referred to local engineers or
      programmers should also have timeouts ("Check in a couple of days
      if you don't hear back from me").  A good trouble ticket system
      will allow a timeout to be set for each ticket.  This alarm will
      generate an alert for that ticket at the appropriate time.
      Preferably, the system should allow text to be attached to that
      timer with a shorthand message about what the alert involves
      ("Remind Site: TT xxx") (The full story can always be found by
      checking the trouble ticket).  These alerts should feed into the
      NOC's standard alert system.
</para>
<para>
      The Alarm Clock can also assist (or enforce!) administrative
      escalation.  An escalation timer could automatically be set based
      on the type of network, severity of the problem, and the time the
      outage occurred.
</para>
<para>
      5) OVERSIGHT BY ENGINEERS AND CUSTOMER/SITE REPRESENTATIVES.  NOCs
      frequently operate more than one network, or at least have people
      (engineers, customer representatives, etc) who are responsible for
      subsets of the total network.  For these individual
      representatives, summaries of trouble tickets can be filtered by
      network or by node, and delivered electronically to the various
      engineers or site representatives.  Each of these reports includes
      a summary of the previous day's trouble tickets for those sites, a
      listing of older trouble tickets still open, and a section listing
      recurrent problems.  These reports allow the site reps to keep
      aware the current outages and trends for their particular sites.
      The trouble ticket system also allows network access to the the
      details of individual trouble tickets, so those receiving the
      general reports can get more detail on any of their problems by
      referencing the trouble ticket number.
</para>
<para>
      6) STATISTICAL ANALYSIS.  The fixed-form fields of trouble tickets
      allow categorizations of tickets, which are useful for analyzing
      equipment and NOC performance.  These include, Mean Time Between
      Failure and Mean Time to Repair reports for specific equipment.
      The fields may also be of use for generating statistical quality
      control reports, which allow deteriorating equipment to be
      detected and serviced before it fails completely.  Ticket
      breakdowns by network a NOC costs to be apportioned appropriately,
      and help in developing staffing and funding models.  A good
      trouble ticket system should make this statistical information in
      a format suitable for spreadsheets and graphics programs.
</para>
<para>
      7) FILTERING CURRENT ALERTS.  It would be possible to use network
      status information from the trouble ticket system to filter the
      alerts that are displayed on the alert system.  For instance, if
      node XXX is known to be down because the trouble ticket is
</para>
<para>
      currently open on it, the alert display for that node could
      automatically be acknowledged.  Trouble tickets could potentially
      contain much further information useful for expert system analysis
      of current network alert information.
</para>
<para>
      8) ACCOUNTABILITY ("CYA"), FACILITATING CUSTOMER FOLLOW-THROUGH,
      AND NOC IMAGE).  Keeping user-complaint tickets facilities the
      kind of follow through with end-users that generates happy clients
      (and good NOC image) for normal trouble-fixing situations.  But
      also, by their nature, NOCs deal with crises; they occasionally
      find themselves with major outages, and angry users or
      administrators.  The trouble ticket system documents the NOC's
      (and the rest of the organization's) efforts to solve problems in
      case of complaints.
</para>
</blockquote>
</para>
<para>
Of course we added many features to the OTRS which are not mentioned in this RFC. And we will add many features.
</para>
<para>
Anyhow we are keen on your feedback. Please do not hesitate to send us an e-mail to <email>feedback@otrs.org</email>
</para>
<para>
<link linkend="coreteam">Your OTRS core team</link>
</para>
</appendix>
