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List:       kde-kimageshop
Subject:    Re: help desk vs bug tracker
From:       Andy Betts <andy.betts () kde ! org>
Date:       2018-10-29 14:33:51
Message-ID: etPan.5bd71a4f.5bc766f1.5de () kde ! org
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On October 29, 2018 at 8:31:56 AM, Boudewijn Rempt \
(boud@valdyas.org(mailto:boud@valdyas.org)) wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> Right now, we're getting lots of user support questions in bugzilla, and at
> the Krita sprint we were discussing whether it wouldn't be better to have a
> kind of in-between system. Either something that works like a proper helpdesk,
> or something like askbot, or both. But we just cannot handle the need for user
> support with our existing tools anymore.
> 
> Askbot would be a replacement for user support questions in the forums,
> something the forum isn't really suited for since it makes it extremely hard
> find questions that were already asked. https://ask.libreoffice.org/en/
> questions/ shows how that would work. Problem is, we cannot have a single ask
> site for all of KDE, there would have to be specialed sites like
> ask.krita.org, which might be a whole lot of work to maintain.
> 
> As for a helpdesk system vs bugzilla: we get too many user support questions
> in bugzilla, like https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=399639 or https://
> bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=399494.
> 
> Making bugzilla user-friendly is a laudable effort, but it still leads to
> reports that are useless for developers: and answering questions on bugzilla
> is a lot of effort because there's no real flow of question, asking for info,
> giving an answer. There are no canned repsonses, and no "smart" system that
> would suggest the canned response for frequently asked questions, or an easy
> way to link people to the documentation.
> 
> We discussed mitigrating strategies for bugzilla, like including a reporting
> wizard in the application itself, but the problem remains: bugzilla is not
> helpdesk software, but a bug tracker. It's a developmen tool, not a user
> support tool.
> 
> A good helpdesk system would have:
> 
> * no reporter login
> * scriptable "wizards" to get the basic info
> * canned responses
> * ideally, machine learning to suggest the right canned response for faqs
> * a knowledge base where reporters can search (replaces FAQ pages)
> * a q/a site where users can help other uses (included or separately: askbot,
> http://question2answer.org/ or stackexchange)
> * easy conversion from a helpdesk ticket to a bug report
> * easy conversion from a helpdesk ticket to a kb entry
> 
> We looked at vailable open source solutions:
> 
> * helpy.io
> * otrs.org
> * osticket.com
> 
> All of them are open-core opensource solutions :-(. I wonder whether we've
> missed any options. I'm also wondering whether other KDE projects have the
> seem need as we have for Krita, of separating support questions from bug
> reports. If that isn't a big issue for other projects, maybe we should start
> with an ask.krita.org instance and see what happens then.
> 
> 
> --
> https://www.krita.org  

I think this is worth considering. These messages are generally support in nature and \
would be better suited for a ticketing system with community support instead. The \
fact that we get many of this kind denotes that even some of our users don't find \
other alternatives and ping the entire community because there is no better \
alternative.

Thank you,

Andy


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