Question by Nick: Help for amateur programmer?
I am an amateur programmer; I can write web based scripts in CGI, PHP and ASP, I of course know HTML and Java Script. I am okay with writing programs in Visual Basic and I know very basic [C++. (IE get data, manipulate data and display data)]
I need to write a program that will take a “ticket” number from a user input, and create an “open” status for that ticket. As long as that ticket is in open status it will email out to an email distribution group every hour (or predetermined time). I have access to an SMTP server or I can run the program locally and connect to an existing exchange server. I also need the ability to “close” the ticket so it will no longer page out on it. It will need to handle multiple tickets, this needs a user interface either graphical or command line to make it easy for people to access.
My initial thought would be to create on a web server and have setup some kind of service in the background to page out; but this is sounding a bit more complex then I want to do as this project just needs to be a quick and dirty program to perform a very basic function.
Any ideas of which would be the best, fastest and easiest way to approach this?
Best answer:
Answer by Chris G
You can go with an open source project to get started, and then modify it to suit your needs…
Open Source Trouble Ticket System
Looks like it’s written in PHP and PERL…
http://otrs.org/
osTicket
Written in PHP, uses MySQL
http://www.osticket.com/index.php
There are several more.. search Google for ‘open source ticket system’
What do you think? Answer below!
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
This might be a good time to learn Ruby on Rails. You can get a quick database driven web app up and working very quickly. Then you just need a simple task that wakes up checks the database for open tickets and sends an email out.
PHP and mysql would be good too. I would go for the database route, you’ll learn a lot and it’s something you can draw on when your next project comes along, and you’ll rise above the rank of amateur programmer.
Separate it into two:
1. a cron job that sends mail to a mailing list depending on the status of a “ticket”
2. a program that will create and close tickets
you need a way to store the ticket status data. If you want to go full blown you could use a database, or you can use a simple flat-file (use lock file to prevent two people from using the second program at the same time and making conflicting edits).