Directing GLPI energy in its own direction
About 3 months ago in our company, the question of registering users' appeals to the IT department was raised. I was instructed to scan the Internet for an application accounting system, such a helpdesk. The following requirements were submitted:
1. Free (yes, yes, they refused to pay for this system).
2. The ability to collect statistics (for big bosses).
3. A signal to the mail (not only to administrators, but also to users, as well as to all those interested in this application).
4. FAQ and knowledge base.
No sooner said than done. Since all these systems were new to me, on the advice of some of the forums, I chose GLPI. Moreover, this system promised to facilitate the inventory process, which is a pretty good bonus!
In fact, GLPI is, by and large, used for inventory, and, unfortunately, documentation on how to set up the system as a helpdesk, oh, how little. I didn’t find the corresponding articles in Habré either, so I really hope that this post will help someone save 3-4 days of working time!
Installing big problems did not cause, the benefit of information on it abound. Everything started, I logged in and ... what next?
GLPI was pleased with a bunch of settings, most of which only confused. I just want to warn you, if there is an opportunity, to configure better with the English interface. Translation into Russian is implemented almost completely, but somewhat crooked. Some menus had to be translated manually, because they were just confusing.
')
I'll tell you right away that at the moment our helpdesk can:
1. Flexible customizable user profiles - from user to superadmin, with the appropriate rights.
At the moment I have 5 profiles in my system:
- Users. As can be seen from the screenshot below, the user can create an application, and observe its status at the moment.
New - means that the application has been accepted, but no expert has been appointed.
Active (assigned) - the application has been accepted, and a responsible specialist has been appointed.
Active (scheduled) - the date the order was completed by the specialist.
Pending decisions - upon request, feedback is expected from the user, or someone else's confirmation.
Solved - the responsible specialist took steps to solve the problem, and closed it on his part. Looking ahead, I will say that the application is in the “Solved” status for 3 days (at least 20 can be set up). During this time, the user in his office must click one of the 2 buttons: "Make a decision" and "Reject". If the decision is rejected, the user must comment on his actions (where did you close the application? The mail didn’t work and didn’t work). In this case, the application becomes Active.
Closed - the user has confirmed the decision on the application. It is considered completed.
Here is what the admin homepage looks like:
You can also add personal and general planning, notes and display of the history of changes in the settings.
- Super admin: can do everything, everyone and always. I do not advise you to assign the rights of this profile to more than one user. It is very easy to get lost in the settings and break everything to ...
- Admin is our standard admin profile. Maybe everything concerns users, but does not apply to system settings.
- Support - here I brought out our freelancers who do not need to edit applications, look at requests from other groups and users, but need to unsubscribe from decisions.
“Observers — it was assumed that big bosses would live here.” Therefore, this profile is able to view statistics, requests, create applications, but can not edit anything.
Now to set up profiles:
Go to Administration> Profiles. I advise you not to touch "native" profiles, because spear method does not always work in our favor. It is better to create a new one and experiment with it.
So, create a profile "Test" and go to the settings.
The profile interface has 2 types “Normal view” (with a bunch of settings) and “Simplified view” (can be left for users).
Configuring a profile will be similar to my “Supports”, i.e. can read their applications and group applications, can unsubscribe by decision and no more.
Switch to the “All” tab and go through the settings fields.
Equipment, Management, Tools - at your discretion, I can read everything from it.
Support :
- Creation - everywhere "Yes."
- Update - “Edit application” and “Edit all tasks” - no, the rest - yes.
- Delete - no.
- The statement - yes.
- Appointment - “Possession by application” - yes, the rest is not.
- Association - at will.
- Display (Here carefully, we set up the "visibility" and "invisibility" of requests from other groups and users) - "Show assigned applications (personal + groups)", "Show your schedule", "Show all maintenance and tasks (general and personal)" “Statistics” - yes, the rest - no.
The cycle of life applications - here is an interesting moment. The fact is that you can edit the status of the application. I decided to disable the ability to set the “Closed” state manually to employees from this profile. Therefore, here in my “Closed” field “No” is everywhere.
Then there are 3 points left, everything can be closed there (I have it), only the list of users to read for contacts is open.
The remaining settings can be checked by experiment.
I added my account to all profiles, and, switching "on the fly" (this feature was realized), I checked everything at once.
2. Automatic appointment of a specialist by category of applications
Here is the page for submitting an application from the super-admin profile:
All fields are customizable and have drop-down menus. GLPI is an interesting system. Here, from anywhere you can go anywhere and I, especially not bothering, set up the fields I needed right from this page.
At the moment we use several fields:
- Customer (Filled in automatically when creating an application. But you can set manually if you fill out an application for someone).
- Assigned (Users are added to the drop-down list for selection, in the profile where the ability to work with requests (support) is set).
- Source of request (mail, phone, in person, etc.)
- Category (The list of categories is edited manually, by pressing the plus sign from below. I even have categories such as “Firing an employee”, especially for our HR :))
The rest we somehow did not stick.
Setup was a background to the automatic scatter of applications by admin.
The fact is that the most convenient for us was to sort the application into categories. And if the category is a general purpose (for example, “Other”), then the Administrators group is appointed as the responsible party, and then whoever grasps the first.
Go to Administration> Rules> Business rules for applications
We are provided with the following options menu:
Everything is simple here - Criterion (we select the criterion by which the sorting will be carried out). I have this "Categories". Next, select a category (empty in the screenshot). Next, the "Action". Because I already have a specialist appointed, for example I have chosen “Assigned - group”. Do not forget to put the rule in the status "Active", otherwise even the test will not work.
As a matter of fact, the whole system of GLPI settings is built according to this logic.
3. Mailbox notification :
Go to Settings> Mail Receiver
Here we enter the data in accordance with your mail server, which will send out all applications.
I made a separate account for us on our mailer, his name is support. I wrote it in the username.
In Settings> Notifications> Email, in “System Administrator Email” we specify our email address. I have the address admin@company.com. From this mailbox I made a redirect to all administrators of our department. In the field “Administrator's Reply Address” I did not indicate anything, because the system for sending messages does not work correctly. In the "Mail server" field, we make settings for your mail, and SMTP login is support (the one that is specified in the mail receiver). Setting up the mailing is over.
Next, set up rules for messages:
Go to Settings> Notifications> Notifications
Here I set up everything related to the “Tickets” notification templates.
Here is an example setup for a new application:
I receive a message about the new application from the Customer (not to be confused with the Author) and the admin profile.
As a matter of fact, the notifications I needed turned out to be: New application, Application closing, New application decision, Application solved.
Everywhere as the recipient is the customer. Admins receive notifications only about the closure of the application and the new decision (the application may be correspondence between the Customer and the Contractor). Updating the application is better to remove from the notification, because A bundle of spam is provided to you.
Above, I have already described who the Customer is and who the Responsible Specialist is, so you can set the settings here as you see fit.
General settings
The Support tab is very useful in this menu.
Here you can specify the following values:
- Mandatory category of the application - “Yes” means that the user will not be able to send an application without specifying a category (which is what we need).
- Mandatory title of the application is the same, but for the title of the application.
- Mandatory content of the application - here, too, everything is clear.
- Automatic appointment of applications - I have “First by category” (for automatic appointment of a specialist).
- Automatically close applications after - this is what I said at the beginning of the article. Here you can set the time for which the user can confirm or deny the decision. I have 3 days. After that, the application closes automatically. It is worth noting that when the application is closed by the admin, the user receives a letter notifying how much the application will wait for his decision.
Here, in fact, all the steps that we must take in order to get a high-quality and convenient system for submitting applications. GLPI has a huge pile of settings and support for additional modules. But this is optional. Also in the database you can store a list of equipment, draw the structure of the network in modules, maintain a knowledge base and much more.
Finally, I will give another tip . I was very much rescued by the habit of making backups of everything and everything and in different places, a little later I really appreciated it.
In the Administration> Maintenance menu, you can unload the SQL. Why is it when setting up if there are no applications and users yet? Will explain. The system settings are also exported to the unloading. Before each experiment, do not be lazy to make backup, you really want to experiment - I guarantee it to you, but it will be more difficult to remember where and what you started. In particular, I ran into a problem when I set up visibility fields for different profiles. I don’t remember where I’ve deleted it, but my users have stopped seeing their requests. The most annoying thing is that I have already killed a lot of time for setting up and debugging and everything worked like a clock, except this one!
I hope that someone this information will be useful!
1. Free (yes, yes, they refused to pay for this system).
2. The ability to collect statistics (for big bosses).
3. A signal to the mail (not only to administrators, but also to users, as well as to all those interested in this application).
4. FAQ and knowledge base.
No sooner said than done. Since all these systems were new to me, on the advice of some of the forums, I chose GLPI. Moreover, this system promised to facilitate the inventory process, which is a pretty good bonus!
In fact, GLPI is, by and large, used for inventory, and, unfortunately, documentation on how to set up the system as a helpdesk, oh, how little. I didn’t find the corresponding articles in Habré either, so I really hope that this post will help someone save 3-4 days of working time!
Installing big problems did not cause, the benefit of information on it abound. Everything started, I logged in and ... what next?
GLPI was pleased with a bunch of settings, most of which only confused. I just want to warn you, if there is an opportunity, to configure better with the English interface. Translation into Russian is implemented almost completely, but somewhat crooked. Some menus had to be translated manually, because they were just confusing.
')
I'll tell you right away that at the moment our helpdesk can:
1. Flexible customizable user profiles - from user to superadmin, with the appropriate rights.
At the moment I have 5 profiles in my system:
- Users. As can be seen from the screenshot below, the user can create an application, and observe its status at the moment.
New - means that the application has been accepted, but no expert has been appointed.
Active (assigned) - the application has been accepted, and a responsible specialist has been appointed.
Active (scheduled) - the date the order was completed by the specialist.
Pending decisions - upon request, feedback is expected from the user, or someone else's confirmation.
Solved - the responsible specialist took steps to solve the problem, and closed it on his part. Looking ahead, I will say that the application is in the “Solved” status for 3 days (at least 20 can be set up). During this time, the user in his office must click one of the 2 buttons: "Make a decision" and "Reject". If the decision is rejected, the user must comment on his actions (where did you close the application? The mail didn’t work and didn’t work). In this case, the application becomes Active.
Closed - the user has confirmed the decision on the application. It is considered completed.
Here is what the admin homepage looks like:
You can also add personal and general planning, notes and display of the history of changes in the settings.
- Super admin: can do everything, everyone and always. I do not advise you to assign the rights of this profile to more than one user. It is very easy to get lost in the settings and break everything to ...
- Admin is our standard admin profile. Maybe everything concerns users, but does not apply to system settings.
- Support - here I brought out our freelancers who do not need to edit applications, look at requests from other groups and users, but need to unsubscribe from decisions.
“Observers — it was assumed that big bosses would live here.” Therefore, this profile is able to view statistics, requests, create applications, but can not edit anything.
Now to set up profiles:
Go to Administration> Profiles. I advise you not to touch "native" profiles, because spear method does not always work in our favor. It is better to create a new one and experiment with it.
So, create a profile "Test" and go to the settings.
The profile interface has 2 types “Normal view” (with a bunch of settings) and “Simplified view” (can be left for users).
Configuring a profile will be similar to my “Supports”, i.e. can read their applications and group applications, can unsubscribe by decision and no more.
Switch to the “All” tab and go through the settings fields.
Equipment, Management, Tools - at your discretion, I can read everything from it.
Support :
- Creation - everywhere "Yes."
- Update - “Edit application” and “Edit all tasks” - no, the rest - yes.
- Delete - no.
- The statement - yes.
- Appointment - “Possession by application” - yes, the rest is not.
- Association - at will.
- Display (Here carefully, we set up the "visibility" and "invisibility" of requests from other groups and users) - "Show assigned applications (personal + groups)", "Show your schedule", "Show all maintenance and tasks (general and personal)" “Statistics” - yes, the rest - no.
The cycle of life applications - here is an interesting moment. The fact is that you can edit the status of the application. I decided to disable the ability to set the “Closed” state manually to employees from this profile. Therefore, here in my “Closed” field “No” is everywhere.
Then there are 3 points left, everything can be closed there (I have it), only the list of users to read for contacts is open.
The remaining settings can be checked by experiment.
I added my account to all profiles, and, switching "on the fly" (this feature was realized), I checked everything at once.
2. Automatic appointment of a specialist by category of applications
Here is the page for submitting an application from the super-admin profile:
All fields are customizable and have drop-down menus. GLPI is an interesting system. Here, from anywhere you can go anywhere and I, especially not bothering, set up the fields I needed right from this page.
At the moment we use several fields:
- Customer (Filled in automatically when creating an application. But you can set manually if you fill out an application for someone).
- Assigned (Users are added to the drop-down list for selection, in the profile where the ability to work with requests (support) is set).
- Source of request (mail, phone, in person, etc.)
- Category (The list of categories is edited manually, by pressing the plus sign from below. I even have categories such as “Firing an employee”, especially for our HR :))
The rest we somehow did not stick.
Setup was a background to the automatic scatter of applications by admin.
The fact is that the most convenient for us was to sort the application into categories. And if the category is a general purpose (for example, “Other”), then the Administrators group is appointed as the responsible party, and then whoever grasps the first.
Go to Administration> Rules> Business rules for applications
We are provided with the following options menu:
Everything is simple here - Criterion (we select the criterion by which the sorting will be carried out). I have this "Categories". Next, select a category (empty in the screenshot). Next, the "Action". Because I already have a specialist appointed, for example I have chosen “Assigned - group”. Do not forget to put the rule in the status "Active", otherwise even the test will not work.
As a matter of fact, the whole system of GLPI settings is built according to this logic.
3. Mailbox notification :
Go to Settings> Mail Receiver
Here we enter the data in accordance with your mail server, which will send out all applications.
I made a separate account for us on our mailer, his name is support. I wrote it in the username.
In Settings> Notifications> Email, in “System Administrator Email” we specify our email address. I have the address admin@company.com. From this mailbox I made a redirect to all administrators of our department. In the field “Administrator's Reply Address” I did not indicate anything, because the system for sending messages does not work correctly. In the "Mail server" field, we make settings for your mail, and SMTP login is support (the one that is specified in the mail receiver). Setting up the mailing is over.
Next, set up rules for messages:
Go to Settings> Notifications> Notifications
Here I set up everything related to the “Tickets” notification templates.
Here is an example setup for a new application:
I receive a message about the new application from the Customer (not to be confused with the Author) and the admin profile.
As a matter of fact, the notifications I needed turned out to be: New application, Application closing, New application decision, Application solved.
Everywhere as the recipient is the customer. Admins receive notifications only about the closure of the application and the new decision (the application may be correspondence between the Customer and the Contractor). Updating the application is better to remove from the notification, because A bundle of spam is provided to you.
Above, I have already described who the Customer is and who the Responsible Specialist is, so you can set the settings here as you see fit.
General settings
The Support tab is very useful in this menu.
Here you can specify the following values:
- Mandatory category of the application - “Yes” means that the user will not be able to send an application without specifying a category (which is what we need).
- Mandatory title of the application is the same, but for the title of the application.
- Mandatory content of the application - here, too, everything is clear.
- Automatic appointment of applications - I have “First by category” (for automatic appointment of a specialist).
- Automatically close applications after - this is what I said at the beginning of the article. Here you can set the time for which the user can confirm or deny the decision. I have 3 days. After that, the application closes automatically. It is worth noting that when the application is closed by the admin, the user receives a letter notifying how much the application will wait for his decision.
Here, in fact, all the steps that we must take in order to get a high-quality and convenient system for submitting applications. GLPI has a huge pile of settings and support for additional modules. But this is optional. Also in the database you can store a list of equipment, draw the structure of the network in modules, maintain a knowledge base and much more.
Finally, I will give another tip . I was very much rescued by the habit of making backups of everything and everything and in different places, a little later I really appreciated it.
In the Administration> Maintenance menu, you can unload the SQL. Why is it when setting up if there are no applications and users yet? Will explain. The system settings are also exported to the unloading. Before each experiment, do not be lazy to make backup, you really want to experiment - I guarantee it to you, but it will be more difficult to remember where and what you started. In particular, I ran into a problem when I set up visibility fields for different profiles. I don’t remember where I’ve deleted it, but my users have stopped seeing their requests. The most annoying thing is that I have already killed a lot of time for setting up and debugging and everything worked like a clock, except this one!
I hope that someone this information will be useful!
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/128343/
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