Arctic Issue Tracker versus eSupport

[PeteV]

I apologize for bringing this one up again, but our management asked these questions (again, to some extent), and we are having a difficult time finding good answers.

Kayako produces and sells eSupport.

Kayako uses Arctic Issue Tracker to track their own bugs.

Jamie mentioend some time ago that Kayako uses Arctic because eSupport is not a bug tracker. That was the short answer (which was sufficient at the time).

However: Which functionality of Arctic can eSupport not perform? That is, by tweaking eSupport (not the code, just the Admin and Staff settings), why can't eSupport be used instead of Arctic?

Of course, eSupport will not be able to mimic Arctic 100%, but most of it should work, or not?

Basically, we were (still) wondering: Wouldn't Kayako try hard to use its own products (eSuppport) instead of third-party products? Afterall, using eSupport as a bug tracker would be good advertisement for eSupport.

Currently, Arctic detracts our management from the fact that we want to use eSupport as a combined bug/issue/request tracker. When comparing eSupport to its competition (leaning towards bug tracking a bit), it is difficult to favor eSupport, if Kayako does not do this.

[Jamie Edwards]

Hi Pete,

Arctic allows for the following that eSupport currently does not;

1) Public and quick display of issues
2) Filtering of issues in a public list
3) Version targetting
4) (From version targetting -) Automatic generation of roadmaps and changelogs
5) Public issue commenting

You could quite easily use eSupport as a private bug tracker; i.e. one where each user can only see the bugs they have reported. You can then use custom statuses and custom fields to mimic a typical bug tracker, and make use of filters (in the staff control panel) to do filtering based on custom field values (such as target versions, reported versions) and so on.

[PeteV]

Dear Jamie.

So the major missing component of eSupport is the "public" part then it seems. Somehow, we overlooked that "little detail".

If eSupport could list Tickets publicly, or if "private" bug tracking is fine, then eSupport could emulate most of what you listed, correct? You could get #3 and #4 via Custom Fields and Filters.

And if we would set users to be managers, then (after logging in to the User CP), users could view and edit all Tickets, correct?

So, depending on the level of public/private access (where fully public is not (yet) possible for eSupport), eSupport could mimic Arctic fairly well, it seems, using different techniques (for example, users = managers, internal users = staff).

Thanks a lot, Jamie!

[Jamie Edwards]

Hi Pete,

That is correct - if every user within a certain group (for example; 'Bug Tracker Users') is made a Manager, they will be able to see each other's tickets ('Bugs').

[trsrw]

Does Arctic integrate easily with Kayako? It would be great to be able to link which support tickets line up with a bug. Thanks!

[Jamie Edwards]

It does not integrate with SupportSuite at all, and a LoginShare module for it does not exist at present.

[trsrw]

Originally Posted by Jamie Edwards

It does not integrate with SupportSuite at all, and a LoginShare module for it does not exist at present.

Are there any bug trackers out there that do integrate with SupportSuite? We currently use Mantis for our bug tracking purposes.

[Jamie Edwards]

Hi there,

Not that I know of, unfortunately.

[jaigupta]

I think a php developer can integrate (common registration and login) Arctic or any other php application easily with help of kayako's login share.