Source: Own illustration
In this article we will familiarise you with the functions and background of our ticket tool. We will also tell you about the big upcoming upgrade of our ticket tool in the period from September 12 to 13, 2023 and the associated service restrictions. But don’t panic: We will remain loyal to you during this period and will be available despite the restrictions during the upgrade. 🙂
It Costs Nothing to Ask – The IT-ServiceDesk
Since January 1st, 2010, the IT Center has been offering the IT-ServiceDesk as a single point of contact for all questions regarding the IT services of the IT Center for students, employees, institutions, affiliated institutes and cooperation partners of RWTH Aachen University. The IT Service Desk consists of a competent team from the “Service & Communication” department and accepts your concerns and questions regarding our IT services.
Since September 2011, the IT service management tool, Tickettool or ticket system for short, has been in use and supports the IT Service Desk in processing incoming enquiries and solving problems. The ticket tool ensures that every incoming customer enquiry is answered via chat, e-mail or telephone and that every ticket is reliably resolved.
Our Ticket Tool – Your Helper in Case of Need
Our ticket tool is your central point of contact for non-technical concerns as well as for all support requests regarding the IT services of the IT Center.
Whether you need help with software installations, network connections (eduroam), hardware problems or other IT-related issues such as using the RWTH email address. You can reach us as follows:
- Contact us by email: mailto:servicedesk@itc.rwth.aachen.de,
- phone us on 0241 80 24680 or
- chat with us via the Chat Support.
For more information on our opening hours, please see our IT Center Help documentation portal.
Advantages of the Ticket Tool
Our ticket tool is a central communication point between you and the IT Center. Through the ticket tool, your enquiries, also called tickets, are processed in a structured, targeted and quickest possible manner or forwarded to the respective specialist department. The tickets are given a unique ticket number in the format #XXXXXXXXXX-XXXX, classified by us either as a “service request” or as an “incident” and categorised thematically.
Incidents are processed as quickly as possible with high priority and urgency. The urgency of a request generally depends on the user’s ability to work. If the resolution time available according to priority is exceeded, an escalation (in the form of an e-mail) is automatically triggered to a defined group of people. Different escalation levels are divided according to defined criteria (priority and urgency), which help us to process the tickets accordingly.
Another advantage of the ticket tool is that your support requests that arrive in the ticket tool can also contain images. This allows you to underline your concerns with screenshots. However, the e-mail must not be larger than 20.48 MB.
Optimal E-mail Formatting for the Ticket Tool
Please note that, for technical reasons, encrypted e-mails cannot be processed directly by the ticket tool and therefore no confirmation of receipt will be sent to you. However, the requests will not be lost and will be processed by us with a time delay.
We would also like to inform you that, for technical reasons, outgoing e-mails from our ticket tool are always sent as HTML. However, you can set your e-mail client so that HTML e-mails are only displayed as text. Our ticket tool cannot display the formatting in HTML and therefore it will be lost. Therefore, it is better to send us your request by text mail.
Tickets With Resubmission Times
When we need more information about a concern and expect feedback, we work with resubmission times. After we send an email with queries, we set the resubmission time to one week by default. If we do not receive a reply, we close the ticket after one week as usual with a closing notification. In the case of incidents or other special cases, the resubmission time may differ. Tickets can also be reopened by you 40 days after closure with a reply to the original ticket. This is especially helpful if the solution we offered did not lead to the desired result. Tickets are anonymised on a weekly basis for all transactions that have been completed and for which the last change was made more than two years ago.
Overview in the Ticket Jungle
Do you have questions about your case? Then check your mailbox! All e-mails you receive from us regarding a case have the ticket number in the subject line. Then either reply to the e-mail or call us and tell us the ticket number! Then we can help you quickly.
Announcement: Major Ticket Tool Upgrade
From September 12 to 13, 2023, a major upgrade of our ticket tool is scheduled. During this period, we will only be able to process incoming requests with a significant delay. During the upgrade, we will still be available via chat and telephone. Of course, you can also meet us in person at our offices at Seffenter Weg 23 and SuperC at Templergraben 57. Your incoming e-mails will not be lost during the upgrade. However, they will probably not be processed continuously until September 14, 2023. The ticket portal will also be unavailable during this period. We ask for your understanding in advance and for your patience in answering your questions and concerns.
You can also check the status of the ticket tool upgrade via our status massage portal. (*)
In the second part of our Ticket Tool-Info series, we will dive into the advantages of our ticket portal and present the latest information on the upcoming upgrade. Stay tuned! 🙂
Responsible for the content of this article is Lina-Louise Kaulbach.
(*) The paragraph was updated on September 11, 2023.
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