Access for Requesters and Department Managers

[dschipfel]

Hello FreeITSM Team,

I am currently evaluating how to provide access to the ticket system for end users and department managers, and I would like to understand what options are available.

Requester Access

Is there a way to give a requester access to the ticket portal so that they can:

• Create new tickets
• View their own tickets
• Track the status of their requests
• Add comments or additional information to their tickets

The important point is that users should only be able to see and access their own tickets, not tickets created by other employees.

Department Manager Access

We also have department managers who should have a broader view.

Ideally, a department manager should be able to:

• View all tickets of employees within their department
• See open, pending, and completed requests

Example

For example:

• Employee A creates a ticket and can only see their own tickets.
• The Head of Logistics can see all tickets submitted by employees from the Logistics department.
• The IT team can continue to see and manage all tickets across the organization.

Questions

• Is such a permission concept already available in FreeITSM?
• Are there roles, groups, or department-based permissions that support this scenario?
• If not, are there any recommended workarounds or plans to implement similar functionality in the future?

This would be very valuable for increasing transparency and reducing the need for status inquiries from employees and department managers.

Thank you for your feedback.

Best regards, Daniel

[edmozley]

HI @dschipfel

Long time no speak! I wanted to let you know that this feature request is now at an advanced stage and will be in the next release with a full write-up to accompany it. In the meantime, here's a screenshot so you can see what I've been up to!

[edmozley]

The new System-Managers gives you a good level of control over what managers can see and do

[edmozley]

Here's what the manager will see - ignore the donkey this was me testing portal customisation with logo upload.

[edmozley]

Hi @dschipfel

Good news - department managers are built and will be in release 2.8.0. Taking your example, here is how it works.

Employee A sees only their own tickets. That is how the self-service portal already works: people raise tickets, follow their status and reply, and never see anyone else's.

The Head of Logistics sees Logistics' tickets. In the portal they get a Team tickets tab listing the tickets of the people they manage - open, pending and closed. You decide who they manage in one or both of two ways:

• The Manager field on each person (typed in, or synced from Active Directory's manager attribute) - line managers work with no extra setup, for direct reports only or everyone below them.
• Management lines - give a manager a whole department (so "everyone in Logistics"), particular people, a people group, or everyone in their company, with exclusions that always win ("everyone in Logistics except X").

Lines are set up on a full-screen page per manager, and you can click anyone they can see to find out why they can see them, with a one-click way to change it.

The IT team is unaffected - analysts see and manage tickets exactly as before.

A few things came along with it, because letting someone read other people's tickets needed them:

• Confidential tickets - an HR matter, or a complaint about the manager themselves. A requester can mark a ticket confidential, and an HR mailbox or department can make them confidential automatically. Managers see nothing of them by default.
• Who has seen this ticket - when a manager opens a team ticket, the person who raised it can see that they did.
• System -> Managers - switch it on, choose whether managers may also reply to or close team tickets, and whether they keep seeing the tickets of people who have left.

It is all off until you switch it on, so upgrading changes nothing until you are ready.

The full write-ups:

• Portal managers - how it works and how to set it up, with a checklist for before you switch it on
• Confidential tickets
• Who has seen a ticket
• Self-Service Portal
• And for the technically minded: Portal managers - Developer Guide

Thank you for such a clear request - the Head of Logistics example shaped a lot of it. Let me know how you get on once 2.8.0 is out.

Ed

[edmozley]

@dschipfel quick follow-up - this is now out in FreeITSM 2.8.0: https://github.com/edmozley/freeitsm/releases/tag/v2.8.0

Enjoy!