this post was submitted on 16 Apr 2024
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47
In search of software for managing my life (like a helpdesk but in a lite format) (lemmy.dbzer0.com)
submitted 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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Hello fellow selfhosters, I tried to find a piece of software that could achieve my goal but maybe I am not searching in the correct areas. So I thought of asking here for suggestions or directions I could take.

What I am looking for:

I am looking for software that could fill a purpose of tracking like a helpdesk ticketing portal but not be a full blown ticketing portal.
For example I want to track current tasks like an RMA I am doing right now with Logitech (currently organized in my email inbox/folders) or keep track of shipments (currently tracked in Google Keep in this format: Shop | MM YYYY | Order-ID | Contents | Tracking:<Shipping Number>)

Features I am specifically looking for:

  • Tracking items (like shipments)
  • Keep track of issues (fix light bulb), Tasks (go to citizen office to renew ID),
    • Optionally: Keeping communication like E-Mails (like go back and see the communication history with Logitech concerning the RMA#999999)

Platforms I use:

Android and Windows.

What I have found so far and seemed to fit:

How I am coming to the conclusion I need something like that

  • As mentioned earlier, I keep track of some stuff like shipments, overtime todo, money I am owing or someone does owe me in Google Keep. It kinda works but I feel like I am straining the borders of it's use case. And I fear Googles Graveyard
  • I keep track of my e-mails via folders (to some extent). But I will probably not find the email of communication I had 5 months ago with that system.
    At work we use a classic ticket helpdesk system. I can more or less find the ticket of an issue a customer had on the phone and correlate it with the problem I have right now.
  • Some of my knowledge base is in Obsidian.md for technical stuff or minor stuff like "find x here", while the stuff related for real life (e.g. recipes) are stored in OneNote.
    It's not necessary to consolidate it but maybe I can remove some of each into the new system?

What I would like to avoid:

Things like creating companies to track tickets with. I would rather just keep track of the issue (maybe with some form of history to go back in time?) and not be lost in endless classification of company number, telephone, contacts etc.

Maybe I am in search of a unicorn-glitter edition^tm^ and just need someone to tell me that doesn't exist or I am not looking for the correct thing or term.
The help is highly appreciated :)

PS: While preferred it doesn't need to be selfhosted. It should be accessible via smartphone (app or web doesnt really matter) and on desktop (program or web).

Update:

Currently in consideration are (thanks for the suggestions so far!):

  • OpenProject
  • Focalboard
  • Vikunja
  • Tarallo
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[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I like freescout.

It is well made and aesthetically pleasing but it has four main problems

  1. The devs are complete assholes. Ask for a clarification because of missing documentation and they ban you from their GitHub repo without even replying.
  2. The program is open source but everything is under closed source paid plugins. Plugin pricing is very cheap and without subscription but in order to get the bare usable minimum you need to spend at least $50 in plugins. I had to compile an excel file with the list of 50+ plugins and rank them, so I could buy the $400 of plugins over an year, buying the most important in the beginning. Then they banned me because after the first purchases I asked help with one of their paid plugins. Well, thanks for let me save $390, I won't buy anything anymore.
  3. Plugins have unfair regional pricing for some reason. $2 becomes €4, even with vat the math doesn't add up. They take the amount in dollars, convert in local currency using unfavorable exchange rate and rounding up, then they add VAT and round up again. With 40 "must have" plugins, this trick becomes expensive for no reason. Why Europeans have to pay double? It's a business expense in 90% of cases, so the vat shouldn't be considered in the price because a business can deduct them.
  4. No support. At all. Even if you are willing to pay for it. They don't want to set a forum, use GitHub discussions or even (ugh, I hate that but better than nothing) discord. For a program that's used for business this is a bit of a problem. How a company can rely on a software where if something is missing from the documentation and you ask for help, you are simply banned&ignored. You discover than you're banned when a week later you go to see if someone replied to you. I don't see why they can't have a $50/hour support package like anyone else.

As an alternative, there's uvdesk. It's similar but when I discovered it I already set freescout with the bare minimum paid plugins like "see all emails", "see list of customers", "send later", "add attachment to the email".

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago

Damn, that's just cancerous