A trouble ticket is comparable to a medical report for a hospital
patient. A medical report is generated when the patient visits the
hospital for the first time. All important data about the patient, such as personal
data and facts about the medical problem, are noted in the medical report.
Each doctor adds to the medical report information on the illness and any medication
so that all doctors and the whole nursing staff can get a quick
and detailed overview about the patient's problem. When the patient has
recovered and leaves hospital, the medical report gets closed and all
information get archived.
Trouble ticket systems like OTRS, handle trouble tickets like normal email.
The messages are saved in the system. When a customer sends a request, a new
ticket is generated by the system which is comparable to a new medical
report being opened. The
answer to this new ticket can be compared to a doctor's entry in
the medical report, a new answer to a change in the
clinical picture of the patient. A ticket is finished if an
answer is send back to the customer or if the ticket is closed by the
system. If a customer sends an answer for a already closed ticket, the ticket
will be reopened and the new information will be added. To keep the
consistency of all data in the system, every ticket is stored and archived
with all relevant information. Since tickets are handled like normal
emails, attachments will be stored, too. Notes can be added as additional
information to every email. All tickets are stored on the hard drive or in
the database of the system. Also additional information like notes,
dates, employees involved, working time needed for a ticket etc. are stored. All
tickets can be sorted and it is possible to search through all data.
