PVS‑Studio Helpdesk — Support System

Project Context

By 2020, PVS‑Studio had a global customer base. Support ran via email and scripts, causing: lost threads, no full history, unclear statuses, duplicated work, and lack of metrics.

Business asked for a professional helpdesk that centralizes tickets, gives transparency, integrates with existing infra, and adapts to PVS‑Studio’s support specifics.

Platform Evaluation

• Zendesk — strong SaaS but costly, lock‑in, limited customization.
• Jira Service Desk — powerful but overkill and expensive.
• OTRS — open‑source, heavy Perl stack, hard to maintain.
• osTicket — open‑source, PHP/MySQL (easy to customize), active community; chosen.

Selection criteria: control/security, TCO, customization, maintainability, scalability.

Implementation

• Deploy osTicket, customize workflows, roles, and SLAs
• Email integration, templates, categories, auto‑assignment
• Knowledge base structure, reporting and analytics

Results

• Centralized ticketing and visibility
• Improved response and resolution times
• Clear metrics for management

Lessons

Pick tools the team can own; adapt to the business process first, and customize lightly.