The first thing you need to do is install CFTicket, setup some CFTicket configuration settings, and take some security steps.
We highly recommend you delete your /upgrade/ and /install/ directories after installing or upgrading. We also recommend you read your webserver's documentation and make the /system/ folder inaccessible from the web. Your XML settings file is there, and if readable by everyone, could give away security information.
After completing the security steps, you can login with the username sa and password password. The first thing you should do is change the initial settings by going to the Configuration tab and then the Settings area. Then choose Main Settings and set your settings. See the in-program help for descriptions on individual settings. The domain setting must point to the URL that CFTicket is installed to.
You can then setup your first Queue by going to Configuration -> Queues and editing the sample queue created for you.
These settings must be filled out correctly in order for certain functionality of CFTicket to work properly.
The check interval is the time, in minutes, that CFTicket should check for new tickets automatically.
The domain is the actual URL CFTicket is installed to. For example, http://www.mydomain.com/cfticket2/
Notify on Ownership will send a notification to a user when they are assigned a ticket. For example, if a sales manager assigns a ticket to a salesperson, the salesperson will receive an email telling them they have been assigned to the ticket. This setting will override the Notify on Ownership checkbox available in each users options. If this is checked, then no matter what the user's options are set to they will be notified on ownership.
Attachment path needs to point to a valid directory on the server that ColdFusion can read/write to. This directory is a fully qualified path, ie c:\wwwroot\attachments\ (Windows) or /wwwroot/attachments (UNIX).
Banned attachments is a list of attachment extensions that should not be allowed in CFTicket.
Log System Messages will allow you to log all notifications sent automatically by CFTicket. This includes any open notifications, closed notifications, and any status update messages.
Escalation Email is the email address that will be used to send emails from when the escalation notifications are sent, if escalation is turned on.
Default Queue Access is the default permission given to newly created users. In the default installation of CFTicket, a permission of None.
Errors To Delete is a list of partial error strings that, if encountered while checking mail, will automatically delete the email which caused the error. These errors apply to individual emails that may cause problems, such as invalid encoding types, or emails which contain malformed headers. If an error occurs while simply checking for new messages, no messages will be deleted.
Queues are a group of POP3 email accounts. Each Queue can contain any number of POP3 accounts. For example, you could have a Support queue that has 2 different POP3 accounts associated with it, support@domain.com and help@domain.com.
CFTicket will automatically check these Queues for you for new tickets and insert them automatically. You can also choose to send a reply to the user when the ticket is first created, and you can choose to be notified yourself when new tickets arrive. Each Queue is customized with individual settings.
Each Queue must have a name, email address, and prefix associated with it. These help represent a Queue internally and also to your customers. For a Queue to do anything, you must setup an account to be associated with it. These POP3 accounts will be checked periodically for new tickets.
If you create a Queue after Users have already been created, the Users will have a default access of none to the new Queue. You will have to go to each User individually and give each one the necessary access level for the new Queue.
Filters can be used to help sort and route tickets appropriately. Filters can be used to automatically assign tickets to users, delete specific threads, and change priority. For example, a ticket with the subject of Help can automatically be assigned the highest priority, moved to a special folder, and assigned to a specific user. See the in-program help for more details on the specific actions and criteria associated with filters.
Just like all operating systems, CFTicket has folders which can be used to organize tickets meaningfully. Folders can be nested to any level.
CFTicket comes with 2 built-in folders, a Filtered Items and an Inbox folder. Each folder that you create must be placed under the Inbox. The Filtered Items folder is a special folder that has unique characteristics. Any ticket that is placed into the Filtered Items folder, say via a filter, will not send a new notification. This is especially useful to counter infinite loops caused by undeliverable email. A filter can be created which searches the subject for specific keywords and if found will place the ticket into the Filtered Items folder. As stated, no new notification will be sent. If you later decide to move a ticket from the Filtered Items folder to another folder, and no new notification message has been sent, then one will be sent during the move.
Statuses are used to help describe the state of the ticket. There are 4 built-in statuses New, Open, Resolved, and Dead. These statuses help describe a ticket. When a ticket first arrives it is given a status of New. When a a response is sent, the status is changed to Open. When a ticket has been resolved, you can change the status to Resolved which will automatically trigger a Resolved Notification being sent to the user, if applicable.
Just like the special message that is sent out when a ticket is Resolved, you can choose to send out a message when you change the status of a ticket to any custom status that you create. This will allow you to send incremental updates to the original ticket creator without you having to manually send an update message. These messages are logged as threads in each ticket.
Notification messages are used to tell you when certain things happen. For example, the Escalation Message is used to tell you when certain tickets have been escalated (if applicable). You can customize each notification message which will be used as a template for email messages to notify you. Each message has its own set of available variables which can be used to represent different aspects of the action taking place.
The escalating of messages is a way for you to be "reminded" about a ticket that has yet to be resolved. You may choose to remind certain people, or change ticket properties, when a certain condition is not met within a given amount of time. For example, any ticket that is not resolved in 5 days could be escalated, and a manager could be notified about the unresolved ticket. Escalation helps ensure that all tickets are completed and are not forgotten about.
Users are the actual people who will be using CFTicket to complete their work. Each user is given a unique username which identifies him/her in the system. This user is assigned to certain groups based on permissions, is granted access to queues in the system, and is able to login and view these tickets and modify them. Each user is independent and can be given their own permissions or security access.
You can also specify a user to require approval when replying to a message. This means that any message (reply/forward) created by this user will not be immediately sent. Instead, a notification to the Queue Approvers will be sent at which point one of the approvers must approve the message before it will be sent. This is a good way to maintain and ensure quality assurance of the work by these users.
If you create a Queue after Users have already been created, the Users will have a default access of none to the new Queue. You will have to go to each User individually and give each one the necessary access level for the new Queue.
Groups are a way to lump together users into a certain groups with certain permissions. Each user should be associated with at least 1 group. Groups may be given different permissions to access different parts of CFTicket. A user may belong to multiple groups. For example, you could have a Staff and a Temporary Staff groups where each had the same permissions, except members of the Temporary Staff group could not change ticket properties.
New in CFTicket 2.0 is the ability to define custom fields that can be used to give further detail about tickets. Custom fields can be created to specify things such as operating systems, product versions, or simply for notes. Each custom field can be specified as a single line of text, multiple lines of text, or a drop-down select box.
You can then use these custom fields to further define tickets. These new custom fields will show up on the Ticket Properties page and also on the Search page where you will be able to search the fields.
Note: You may define an unlimited number of custom fields, but each field is limited to only 255 characters of text per field. If more characters are needed, please create more fields.
Email templates can be created to quickly store often-used messages which you can quickly insert into any message.