helpdesk/call centre

[danIT]

Currently managing a number of schools,

there are around four of us here and we all share responsibility and are all capable of doing each others job etc.

What we need to be able to do is to introduce a reliable way of tracking what has been requested and what has been done. Were looking at a helpdesk called 'Heat' anyone heard of it used it?

We make changes to websites, and templates in CSS for the parental reports for individual schools but we need to track individual needs for each school etc

Can anyone recommend anything?

We thought about using a wiki to record procedures request etc, something simple and effective, perhaps schools could log in also to veiw there tickets?

open source prefrable.

[ChrisH]

Help desk software? Something like one and zero or such? Do a search for one and zero and you should find other topics on this subject. A wiki is a good idea for documentation though.

[limbo]

We have used an access database for about seven years - with various upgrades along the way to try and make things even simpler.

About five years ago we wrote a basic web front end to let staff log their calls themselves (and then insisted they did it to cut our work down).

In the current version staff can view the status of any work they have waiting to be done - but I would suggest you do not introduce that until you are all happy with using the system otherwise mistakes are very visible.

I would definately say it was worth writing your own - then it can do whatever you want it to. But start small.

[Geoff]

Here's a couple of forum threads to get you started.

http://www.edugeek.net/index.php?nam...iewtopic&t=760
http://www.edugeek.net/index.php?nam...ewtopic&t=6480

[phreak]

We use heat at the company where I work alongside a goldmine database. The Heat side of things is not to bad but the goldmine side of things seems to cause a few problems and on top of that we have to employ someone full time to maintain that database. But I imagine that if you were using it on a much smaller scale like you are suggesting then it might work just fine.