[Foundation-l] OTRS (II)

[Anthere]

I think there is a major problem with the way OTRS seems to work.
 
I say "seem" because I am not entirely sure it works the way I think it works. Here is the problem : 
 
Yesterday, an editor contacted me to ask me what my opinion was on one of his mail.
 
"uh, which mail ?"
 
After digging in my personal email, then in the mailing list, it came to my understanding it was a mail sent to the OTRS, at board at wikimedia.org address.
So, I went to OTRS. I could not find the mail.
 
After I was given the number of the ticket by the editor, I looked for the ticket, and got a rather bland message "you are not permitted to view this ticket".
 
Ach so ?
 
I was told that Angela had already answered it, and this is how I realised something I had not till now.
 
When a message gets in OTRS, all board members can see it. Once a person answers the message, it is automatically transferred in his personal list, and blocked. It seems that from this moment, it becomes non accessible to others. That means neither the original message, nor the answer can be seen by others. I think it becomes visible again when the message is closed, but it seems that when it is not closed, permission to access it is just denied. The benefit of the personal file is that the owner of the message receives a personal warning if there is an answer sent in response to his answer.
 
I have a serious problem with this.
 
Previous to the OTRS system, we all received the mails sent to the board address.
The benefit was that we all were aware of mails sent to us.
The drawback was double. First it filled up the mail box. Second, if the one answering did not put us in copy, we had no way to know the mail was answered.
 
Now, with the OTRS system, these two problems could be solved IF all mails stayed in the main file where all members can see the mails coming in, as well as the answers given to it.
This is not the case.
Currently, once one person answers a mail, the others have no idea what the answer is. And if they did not have the time to come before the mail was answered, they even have no idea which mails were sent to the board, what they were about, who wrote them.
 
Or if there is a way to see the mails in the file of other members, I just could not find it. And I do not think Jimbo knows either. We are very confused about this system I fear :-)
 
I fear it would be unrealistic for us to always answer these mails with a global united voice. We just do not have time to discuss each mail before answering (sometimes we do of course). But generally, it is best that only one of us answer. However, I think it is absolutely mandatory that all of us are aware a mail was sent and on which topic and by who. And I think we should be able to see what the other member answered, if only to say privately to them we do not agree, or on the contrary to second the answer provided.
 
I think that people who write us to this address expect that we all have the opportunity to see at least the mail once, even if we do not answer it. Currently, we do not have this opportunity. And once some one has answered a mail, the others cannot answer it any more. There is something really not fitting here. I know not if the OTRS allows to change the preferences here. I think two options would be best : 
* Either by default, all the answered mails are kept in the general board file, and from time to time, we close tickets.
* Or we could have a second file, hosting the mails we already answered to. These mails could have an owner to be warned possibly, but they should be accessible for read and write by all other members.
 
I think this should be default working for all OTRS files. I just do not very well understand the notion of "ownership" of a mail :-)
 
Now, if I just understood nothing of how OTRS works, and it is possible to see all mails somewhere, please inform me, because I feel really lost in this system. If too complicated, it ain't worth it. HELP PLEASE :-)
 
Ant
 


		
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