Customer Service Module - tracking changes

[Murray]

Hi,

We are planning on using the Customer Service module as our issue tracking / support ticket system.

Is their any way to have Legrand track and record changes to support tickets/issues?

Its absolutely fundamental to any issue tracking system to have a complete history of an issue stored and available for perusal and metrics gathering. When I initially looked at the software I assumed that the section labelled "Activity Notes" was a history. However it's manual only. Surely It would be fairly to trivial to add an automatic activity note whenever a ticket is updated, with a record of the changes that have been made when the ticket update occurred.

Another thing that it should have is *automatic* e-mail notifications when issues are updated, with all relevant information in that e-mail. Their seems to be some kind of manual system, but It's only triggered on assignment changes, which seems strange and cumbersome.... and buggy.

If a customer phones, I should be able to find out who is looking after an issue, how long they have had it, who had it beforehand, and all the work everyone in the chain did on issue. It should all be in the history, and the issue "owner" and all interested parties, (e.g. line manager, account manager) should be automatically notified whenever progress has been made.

Thanks,


Murray.

[ccorbett]

Hi Murray,

This sort of thing is certainly possible even outside of the application itself.
One of the advantages of MS SQL is being able to setup database triggers. You could, for example, have one setup that creates an activity note automatically with a full log of changes each time a ticket is changed.

We are a partner of Legrand Software and often assist with this type of customisation for our clients and other partner's clients. Would be more than happy to discuss in more detail if you would like.

Our contact details are on our website which is http://www.busapps.com.au/contactus.html

Kind regards,

Chris Corbett

[Murray]

Hi Chris,

Thanks for the reply.

Obviously my first choice would be for Legrand to implement what I consider industry standard functionality in their Customer Service module.

Will database triggers work with the Legrand DB?

If the DB is being updated by an API, then my understanding is that triggers won't work. However if the DB is being updated by a INSERT, UPDATE or DELETE, then it should work.

Do you know which method is used when the Customer Service module is saved?


Murray.

[ccorbett]

Hi Murray,

Understand what you're saying but the use of the module varies alot between different business types and industries. Logging every change to records is not a common request we come across, I can't speak for Legrand development but as it could be accommodated with a database trigger I wouldn't imagine it would be on the agenda.

Legrand CRM uses direct read/write access to the MS SQL database for creating and updating records. This means a trigger can be setup that is activated on insert, update and/or delete functions (as you mentioned). Easiest would be a trigger that is invoked when updating, creating an activity note with full details of the record. This would be date/time stamped and would be recorded against the user who has made the change.