Wow!! a treasure trove. Thank you all for all of this. It will keep me busy trying to sort it all out, but basically we have the customer piece that tracks the equipment then the trouble piece which generates work orders and post them out to the field engineers, they do whatever is needed add the service data and any parts used and sent it back for billing, billing does their thing and collect the $$ from the customer or if it is a contract, it checks to make sure that all that was done was covered under the contract (actually it will hoot at the FSE if he/she goes to do something out of contract). The present product has an iOS/Android app, which is nice but I use the web site, as I prefer to carry a ThinkPad and work from a full sized screen rather than try to diddle with a small screen. The app is kinda klunky (SP!) anyhow, making the web pages that much more attractive.
The product in question is MhelpDesk, if you go on their web site you will see that they are a big M$ house though they have toned that part down quite a bit, but here is an exert from the page "about us": Enterprise-Level Database – mHelpDesk runs on Microsoft SQL Server, which is arguably one of the most reliable and robust databases on the planet. In addition, database access and queries are all handled using best practices to prevent unauthorized access and attacks. I just never got enamored of MS SQL Server, that is probably due to my experience during my 10 years in the utility industry when they were all moving from paper to electronic. The guy who was doing the gateway was going to do it in Linux, then they hired a guy from IBM to head up development, he killed that one and forced them to use WindowsNT. MS SQL Server was part of it and it was always tossing a lugi and having to be restarted. The company I worked for did software for utilities, it was basically a system to handle work orders Both on the CSR end and on the field end, it also handled inventory on the vehicles and would flag a vehicle if critical parts went low, it also managed the field people matching them to the jobs so that you had a line man on high voltage and a gas tech on gas, you had someone who had residential knowledge on home services. It talked to the customer database and kept everyone up to date on what was going on, if you were out in the field you not only got the work order but any history (dogs, difficult customer, fleas, alligator in ditch [I got to deal with both of those] and any other important info) All of the rest of the system ran on Sun gear or linux boxen, just that idiot gateway was NT. When I was in the glass industry I had a glass container inspector that used MS SQL, it was always having to be updated, it was always going down and the machine had to be many times totally wiped and started with a new install, the db would get so messed up. Yeah, not a fan of MS SQL... Again thank you for all you have sent me, I continue to be open ears for any and all sent. On Wed, Jul 3, 2019 at 3:47 PM Rich Shepard <[email protected]> wrote: > On Wed, 3 Jul 2019, wes wrote: > > > I like RT. https://bestpractical.com/request-tracker > > Might be a little overkill for a small team, but worth a look. > > Well, as long as we're giving Chuck things to do on the holiday these web > sites might be worth a look: > <https://blog.capterra.com/the-7-best-free-help-desk-software-tools/> > < > https://www.predictiveanalyticstoday.com/top-free-open-source-helpdesk-software/ > > > <https://www.linuxlinks.com/troubleticketing/> > > Happy and safe holiday all, > > Rich > _______________________________________________ > PLUG mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug > -- Chuck Hast -- KP4DJT -- I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me. Ph 4:13 KJV Todo lo puedo en Cristo que me fortalece. Fil 4:13 RVR1960 _______________________________________________ PLUG mailing list [email protected] http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug
