What is a ‘ticket’?
A ‘ticket’ is a just an electronically issued document. At CSN staff can use the ticketing system to request IT support, report equipment faults and order consumables. The CSN tickets can also be used to facilitate the IT department in tracking/documenting support workloads and to reduce our response times. It should also serve to minimise the amount of paper used and lower the overall costs associated with IT documentation.

How does the Ticket System work?
OSTicket is an open source support ticket system. Its function is to integrate user-generated enquiries created via email, mobile-phone and web forms into a multi-user web interface. The software allows CSN to manage, organise and archive all staff support requests and responses centrally. The picture below gives you an idea of thow the system is meant to work:

How do I Open a Ticket?
Tickets can be created directly from the CSN website at support.csn.ie or from any mobile smartphone that support web access/MIMe types. It is also possble to email requests directly. Assuming you wish to open a ticket from the CSN website, open a browser window and navigate to the website 'support.csn.ie'. You should now see the following screen:

Please take a moment to read the main paragraph as it outlines the purpose of this facility. Also notice that there are two buttons at the end of the screen. One of the buttons allows you to ‘open’ a new ticket session while the other allows you to check on the status of an existing ‘ticket' session.

To open a new ‘ticket’, click on the Open New Ticket button. You should now see this screen:

As you can see there are a number of blank textfields into which you can enter information relevant to your query/request. The fields with a red asterisk after them indicate that the field is mandatory and therefore must always be filled in. Failure to do this will produce an error page indicating which fields have not been completed correctly.

The first 5 fields are self-explanatory. With regard to the ‘Help Topic’ option, it will be necessary to select one of two chioces from a drop-down list by clicking on the arrow at the extreme right of the field. This action will display the list options as shown above.

• Requests for IT support should be indicated by choosing the ‘Support’ option
• All other enquiries may be indicated by choosing the ‘General Inquiry’ option

For example, suppose you have a issue with a printer in Room 50. In this case you should choose the ‘Support’ option. It would be prudent to provide some information about the nature of the request or enquiry. In this case you may include a relevant Subject message, e.g., 'Printer Issue'. In the textbox marked ‘Message’ you can provide any further details that are relevant. An example is shown below:

Once you have provided some relevant information you simply click the ‘Submit Ticket’ button to send the request electronically to the IT department. Note that the ‘Reset’ button will blank all fields and allow you to start over, while the ‘Cancel’ button terminates the current ticket session. Assuming you have clicked the ‘Submit’ button, you should now be presented with a confirmation screen like so:

As you can see, the system message indicates that your request has been sent successfully. Furthermore, a confirmation email has also been generated and sent to your email account automatically. This email will contain a ticket reference number and a website link which you may use to monitor the progress of your request.