osTicket is open source software that adds customer support functionality and ticket tracking to your website. Visitors will arrive on your support page (directory where you installed osTicket) and input contact details and a description of the issue. The user can then select a specific department if you’ve created different ones as well as set the priority of the problem. Once the ticket is submitted, an email that you created in the administration area is generated and sent to the user for confirmation of the tickets receipt.
The administration area is so simple and extremely easy to traverse, yet it still has all the necessary and practical components of a fully functional support system. I installed osTicket on a site that got very few visitors, but I didn’t care. I just wanted to play around with a new script. I was more enamored with the idea of being able to respond to people in a professional manner that I just didn’t care it would go unused. And for the most part, it did go unused, and eventually I deleted it from the site, but not before it made quite a lasting impression.
Having osTicket not only made me feel like I was offering help at an enterprise level, I was (or would have been) able to with this simple script. This is a classic example of how open source software can level the playing field for entrepreneurs running a SoHo shop and enable them to effectively compete with larger companies by offering the same (or better) level of support.
If I had to find one thing I did not like about osTicket, it would be the awful default orange button color. It’s quite an unattractive hue. I think osTicket has a good thing going for it if the only glaring ugliness is color which is fairly simple to change. Install it, change the color, and you’re golden (or whatever color you choose).
Have a look at some of the osTicket screen shots that include the client interface, staff control panel, as well as the administrators control panel.