Ticket Management systems

[Utilitrack]

Just wondering pro's and con's from field perspective on ticket management systems. Our company is kicking the tires on some of the off the shelf products- Korterra and Translore and want to make sure that locators have no issues using thes types of systems. Any advice would be appreciated.

[GWJ_CAS]

Translore is a waste of time. We tried it two years ago, made a wholesale switch after running on their "demo" system. Once we were switched onto the main system, it hung up, dragged, failed to respond, delivered emergency notices hours and sometimes days late. Learned the inside scoop that USIC apparently negotiated priority rights for their users, meaning if you are on the system and a USIC user needs to get on, it will bump any non-USIC user off the system to ensure their priority use rights. Translore claims a big bunker of servers and redundant back up servers...they do not exist...I would stay away if I were you.

Korterra may be the better of the two. USIC used to use the Korterra system before switching to Translore. We tried it, but it did not offer enough features without having to pay big up-charges. We also tried Irth, it works well but was consistently more expensive than other systems out there. Teledig has some cool features and may be a good option to consider. We use Digtrack. No system offers the features for the money that Digtrack offers. We get automated positive response, locator / ticket routing, full mapping, unlimited picture and video attachment, instant on-screen and text message notification of emergencies, invoicing and a damage investigation module, all for less per ticket than the others who don't offer unlimited picture and video attachment and offer no damage investigation module.

Check them out for yourself. Digtrack, Teledig

[FiosKing]

ive used many different ticket management systems... personally i like translore the best... we have only had one problem in the past 3 years with translore (went down for 2 hours) and that has been it, very simple to read and setup... as long as you have the proper setup on all computers you should be good with translore.... for me its very simple to use and attach photos prints ect

the system onvision uses is ok as well (cant remember the name of it) but i still prefer translore

[yahoo]

I don't even know the name of our system....other than Q-manager??????

[FiosKing]

that is probably it i have not worked for onevision in 3 years so i forgot the name.

[SignalStrength]

I worked with CLS which is currently known as USIC. You are mistaken, CLS had no priority rights, CLS had in-house IT personnel and housed their own servers in Willow Grove PA, they had over 1,800 users on Translore. As for the “big bunker of servers” I have been to their data center and seen them! I can’t speak to your connectivity issues sound like you had a cheap data plan and air cards! We have never had those issues here.

[GWJ_CAS]

I worked with CLS which is currently known as USIC. You are mistaken, CLS had no priority rights, CLS had in-house IT personnel and housed their own servers in Willow Grove PA, they had over 1,800 users on Translore. As for the “big bunker of servers” I have been to their data center and seen them! I can’t speak to your connectivity issues sound like you had a cheap data plan and air cards! We have never had those issues here.

You obviously need to get a clue. USIC may have hosted the front end access of the Translore software on their servers, but the backend is hosted in Witchita, Kansas by CSS Group. Perhaps you are mistaken about what you saw, it was more than likely Asplundh's server room for their One Call operations. As for the priority access rights, we got that information straight from Eric Dahlinger of CSS Group (Tranlore).

Click the link to see Translore's own picture of their "server technology"
http://www.translore.com/damage_prev...technology.htm

Here is MY main server room, each of our branch offices have a similar but smaller server room...


We have in-house IT personnel and host websites and GIS databases for several municipalities. Not that it matters, but we use Verizon aircards and unlimited data plans. Our South Florida guys are also now beta users on Verizon's LTE data system, with speeds of 50 to 100 times faster than 3G aircards...

[GWJ_CAS]

[GWJ_CAS]

Picture did not want to load, so here it is...

[Mke]

I do believe that GWJ_CAS just laid the smack down.

[UULC]

Greg said how it is.

[GWJ_CAS]

I do believe that GWJ_CAS just laid the smack down.

In this case I prefer "setting the record straight" over smackdown...it really irritates me when some wanker comes on here talking boldly about things they no very little, or in this case, absolutely nothing about...

[orangeboots]

WANKER i love that word its soooo fitting

[TheCableVine]

You have to wonder when a person shows up and their only post is to jump into a conversation feet first.

[ProfessionalLocator]

Wost ticket manager I have seen is something called Polaris.

It refreshes the screen every 90 seconds, often more. Every 90 seconds, which I suppose is configurable, it transmits via wireless and this by itself will cause the screen to refresh. If you have only a few tickets this is an annoyance, if you have a heavy workload it is a big problem. If your laptop has a slow processor or is short on memory this can slow up or even freeze other programs.

You can sort your tickets on screen by date due, map grid, address, type of work, etc. But when the screen refreshes, every 90 seconds, the sort is gone and it goes to default. When you are trying to route your work this is a big problem and slows down the process considerably. The more work you have the more time this thing eats up.

Another problem it has is when you status the ticket as anything other than completed. The ticket will disappear from the screen and will reappear sometime later. Sometime later can be an hour or not until the next day. So if you are putting extensions on tickets, or making them ongoing, they disappear. This removes the possibility of your still being able to work them before the day is over. So if you are putting extensions on tickets anticipating you may not get all of them you cannot status your tickets until the end of the day when you cannot work any longer.

The note attachment to the ticket is limited to 250 characters including blank spaces. The note is not just for that date and time, it is for the entire life of the ticket. If you add to the note the next day you continue by adding to the existing note which makes the 250 character limit to small. Worse yet is that the original first note may now be altered or erased making the record system questionable.

The worst thing about the note system is that a miss-stroke of the keyboard tends to wipe out the entire note leaving it blank as if nothing was ever written again making the records questionable. Also it sometimes takes tow or more effort to get the note recorded.

The note system seems to not be fully Windows compatible and does not support cut and paste.

Overall the system has no history file where the locator can look up a previously done locate, see what you did and read your old notes. And as many locators know if is VERY useful to look up the locates you performed earlier and figure out which house you left some tool or your transmitter hooked up to.


I have heard other locators say they have used Polaris and found it good, perhaps their IT department knew how to configure it. Based on what I have seen I would only promote it's use to my competitors.