Sure, I can tell a little bit about that: We use Trac for internal tickets, and a gmail account for support and customer service.
The gmail account for support may sound silly, but we actually use Tender (tenderapp.com) on another project (and have experimented with other systems) and have found it easier to keep tabs on conversations and quickly get back to our customers using the gmail account. Less fancy metrics, but also less friction to get a clear overview and punch out a reply. We have our own custom systems to gather and analyze crash reports and software update statistics, and other custom systems to handle sales, licensing and registration, which are integrated with Versions' product website (where you can buy a copy, but also retrieve a lost license key). Finally, we don't have any automated system for feature request voting and instead manually weigh and keep track of popular feature requests. I'm not a big fan of public voting forums, because I believe they can raise false expectations as well as get in the way of having more intricate conversations. The thing we're trying to replace particularly is Google groups. Mostly because Google is slowly removing features from it and have already more or less abandoned ship. We'd like to find a better home for this community of Versions user before Google groups becomes entirely impossible to use. I hope that gives some insight :) All the best, - Dirk On Nov 30, 10:09 pm, Asbjørn Ulsberg <asbjo...@gmail.com> wrote: > Okay. > > What is your current setup wrt bug tracking, tickets, feature requests, > voting, etc.? > > -Asbjørn > > > > On Tue, 30 Nov 2010 21:16:59 +0100, Dirk Stoop <d...@madebysofa.com> wrote: > > Hi Asbjørn, > > > Thanks for your suggestions. > > > One thing I want to reiterate is that we're not looking for a bug > > tracker or a customer support system, we're pretty happy with the way > > we have both set up. > > > We are just looking for something that can host a decent mailing list, > > preferrably with an online forum as well :) > > > Cheers, > > - DIrk > > > On Nov 30, 8:50 pm, Asbjørn Ulsberg <asbjo...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> For support tickets, feature requests, etc., Get Satisfaction and > >> UserVoice are great (the best?) alternatives: > > >>http://getsatisfaction.com/http://uservoice.com/ > > >> Another alternative that works more like a forum, but still has some of > >> the voting features and such as the two above and that you can host > >> yourself, is Tender: > > >>http://tenderapp.com/ > > >> Otherwise I would extremely strongly suggest against using a vanilla > >> forum, since it lacks the features you need to handle feature requests, > >> bug reports., etc in a good (or any at all) way. > > >> Stack Exchange (as in the engine behindhttp://stackoverflow.com/) is > >> also a better alternative than both Google Groups and a vanilla > >> web-based forum. If you move from Google Groups to phpBB or something > >> similar, I can promise I'll stop using Versions instantly. :) > > >> -Asbjørn > > >> On Fri, 12 Nov 2010 14:43:25 +0100, Dirk Stoop <d...@madebysofa.com> > >> wrote: > >> > Hi All, > > >> > Because Google Groups is slowly dropping features – and it wasn't that > >> > great to begin with – we'd like to eventually find a better place to > >> > host this mailing list / online forum. > > >> > I'd like to ask all of you for suggestions about where to go. > > >> > From my point of view (the company's and the moderator's) we'd need at > >> > least the following features: > > >> > - Moderation for posts from new members (there's quite a bit of spam > >> > that would reach the group without this) > >> > - Ways to both view and respond to discussions on the web, as well as > >> > through email > >> > - Ability for members to upload files > > >> > Beyond this it doesn't have to be super powerful, as long as it's easy > >> > for people to join, read and write to it, I think we've met our goals. > > >> > We want this to be a place where people can talk about the app and > >> > related topics, help eachother and exchange experiences. Something > >> > like getsatisfaction.com (emphasis on feature requests, and voting) or > >> > tenderapp.com (emphasis on support tickets, not open discussion) would > >> > definitely not fit the bill. > > >> > Any feedback, either suggestions for a good place or piece of software > >> > to run this on, or about requirements I didn't mention but you think > >> > should be part of the evaluation, is very welcome. > > >> > Thanks! > >> > - Dirk > > >> > the Versions team -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Versions" group. To post to this group, send email to versi...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to versions+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/versions?hl=en.
