Customization is an essential key to creating a software solution that meets different needs because customization lets you connect with the product development process and add features of your own choice. And, when it comes to customizing the help-desk support system, customization is a must.
This is why today in this blog, we will discuss one of the supportive and excellent user-friendly help desk systems i.e. osTicket. This ticketing system is a widely used and trusted open-source help-desk support tool for enhancing your customer’s support service. So, let’s see how you will customize the helpdesk system osTicket.
Let’s start the blog and be with us till the end
osTicket Overview – Introduction
osTicket is an open-source help desk management system for IT asset and ticket management. The system is a widely used and trusted help desk system. Additionally, it has an easy-to-use interface and can be easily customized.
The Help-desk software is most suitable for small and medium-sized customers. The software offers a built-in portal for customers to submit requests and also lets them track the status of their requests. The system allows you to create inquiries from your phones, emails, and web forms. Our company offers numerous options to support all parts of the clients for delivering experiences like comments and email notifications.
Features of osTicket
- Automated Routing
- Customizable Fields
- Customizable Forms
- Self-Service Portal
- Workflow Configuration
- Service Level Agreement
osTicket Customization
After Installing the osTicket, many businesses and people want to customize the osTicket appearance to meet their requirements and maintain the brand. So, here in this section, we provide some instructions for editing the various fields of osTicket.
Check out what kind of customizations can be done for osTicket
Editing the osTicket Header Image
You can customize the header of osTicket where you can replace the osTicket logo image with your brand image.
Editing the osTicket Header Image
You can customize the header of osTicket where you can replace the osTicket logo image with your brand image.
Steps to Edit the Header Image
Step – 1: Upload Your required image to the WordPress
Resize the image to 290px * 59px that you want to upload and then you can upload the resized image via FTP or by logging into WPAdmin > Media > Add New > Upload
Step – 2: Get the Header File
Open the directory in which osTicket is installed and then edit to include /client/header.inc.php.
Step – 3: Locate and Edit the Header Image Code
After doing these all, find the below section in your code
<div id="header">
<a id="logo" href="index.php" title="Support Center"><img src="./images/logos2.jpg" border=0 alt="Support Center"></a>
<p><span>osTicket Support System</span> SYSTEM</p>
</div>Here you can see the SRC attribute, just change the URL logos2.jpg with your logo that you have uploaded in the above step.
Step – 4: Upload on the server
Now, save the header. inc.php file and then upload it back to the server. Now refresh the page and your logo will be changed. Still, if doesn’t rank, then refresh your page clear the cache, and try once again.
Editing the osTicket Footer
You can also customize the footer of the system as per your need, just follow the steps
Step – 1: Locate / Include/ Client/ footer.inc.php
Step – 2: Find the below code and edit the text within the div content with your footer content.
<div id="footer">Copyright © osTicket.com. All rights reserved</div>Editing the Multi-Tenancy
Multitenant means a single instance of the software and its supporting infrastructure serves multiple customers. Here, each customer shares the software application and shares a single database. The instances are logically isolated but they are physically integrated.
It works for multiple departments and it is possible that an organization can have multiple departments. So, they can create multiple tenants for the same applications. So, the Helpdesk system can also be configured for different domains of the same organizations. They can use the same files and the same storage for hundreds of available tenants. This will lower the storage costs and also make the update faster. Here, developers are only required to update the files from one place instead of making changes for each site separately.
How to Implement Multi-Tenant osTicket
- Create a new empty database name as “main_db”
- Then create a table named “tenant” that would contain all the information about the tenants.
- Name the tenants, site_name, URL, db_name
The site_name will include the name of the tenant, the URL field will contain the complete URL of the site, and db_name will contain the name of the database that would be created for each database
After doing these, open /include/ost-config.php file and then add the below code
$url = $_SERVER['SERVER_NAME'];
$conn = new mysqli(DBHOST,DBUSER,DBPASS,DBSITES);
$sql = "select * from ost_sites where url = '$url'";
$res = $conn->query($sql);
$row = $res->fetch_array();
if ($url == $row['url']) {
define('DBNAME',$row['db_name']);
} else {
define('DBNAME','dynabic_osticket');
}This code will update the default database connectivity. And connect with each tenant when required. It will get the first URL of the current tenant and get the name of the database according to the URL. This would connect the database with the correct tenant. For each tenant, different databases would be created. And. the database would be selected based on the tenant URL.
Edit the Custom Field
It took a bit of work to add searching capabilities to the custom user field in osTicket. Because to edit this, you had to change the whole source code. But, with research, we have found the correct way to customize the user fields, so let us have a look.
You just require the variable name of your custom field which you can get from the admin panel. If you don’t know about the customization of the form, you can check it in the osTicket documentation Forms. To customize the custom field, you need to modify the contact information form, you will find the search tab under the user subsection, you just have to find the include/staff/users.inc.php file, and find the code that looks like the below code for the Phone field.
if (UserForm::getInstance()->getField('phone'))
$filter->add(array('cdata__phone__contains' => $search));Copy and paste the code and then change the variable “phone” to your own selected variable name. If you want to create multiple custom fields, you can repeat this code.
if (UserForm::getInstance()->getField('myVariable'))
$filter->add(array('cdata__myVariable__contains' => $search));Although it would create new custom fields for you, still you will find some difficulties like you will not get to see your custom variable. So, Next, you just have to find the file located in the modal dialog box “include/ajax.users.php”. Now find out the following code.
if (UserForm::getInstance()->getField('phone')) {
UserForm::ensureDynamicDataView();
$filter->add(array('cdata__phone__contains' => $q));
}Copy the code and paste and change the variable “phone” with your own selected variable name like these,
if (UserForm::getInstance()->getField('myVariable')) {
UserForm::ensureDynamicDataView();
$filter->add(array('cdata__myVariable__contains' => $q));
}Voila !! Now Your code will work superbly. Doing these when the popup modal would appear on the screen, you can easily type your custom variable there.
Besides these, if you are looking for a Helpdesk system and want to customize it as per your business requirements. You can consult our team UPSQODE – that offers top-level help desk systems at very affordable rates. Our company offers osTicket customization services so that you can tailor the system to your specific needs. We also provide support and maintenance services to ensure that your business runs smoothly. Contact us today to learn more about our services.
The Conclusion
So, osTicket is the best open-source help desk system that contains an easy-to-use interface and can be easily customized as per the business requirements. Here, in this blog, we have learned how you can customize your to implement customized header, footer, tenants, and custom fields. Hope, you are now clear with this blog. So, customize your helpdesk system smoothly.
So, feel free to ask us and consult our UPSQODE team for further information
FAQs
What is the osTicket System?
osTicket system is widely used open-source help-desk supporting system that lets business owners manage their customers’ requests smoothly. It easily scales and streamlines your customer services and enhances your customer experience.
What are the requirements of osTicket?
To install the osTicket, your server must contain,
- Apache/LiteSpeed/IIS webserver
- URL Rewrite module installed/enabled
- PHP 8.1 – 8.2 (8.2 recommended)
- MySQL 5.0 (or better) installed
What is the use of osTicket?
- osTicket helps customers enhance the customer relationship experience and lets businesses acquire customers
- Streamlines the customer service experience
How much does osTicket Costs?
You can begin with the osTicket in two ways You can opt for the open-source version which is free to use. And, the other is a cloud-hosted version that will cost you upto $9 per month. Additionally. It offers a 30-day trial after that it would cost $9.