AthenaRMS 5.0 Prerelease 1
Copyright (C) 2003 Media Net Link, Inc., http://mnl.com

LICENSE 

AthenaRMS is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it 
under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the 
Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at 
your option) any later version. 

AthenaRMS is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but 
WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of 
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. 
See the GNU General Public License for more details. 

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License 
along with AthenaRMS; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, 
Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA  02111-1307  USA


INTRODUCTION

AthenaRMS is a request management system that was developed internally
at Media Net Link as a tool to help manage web site support for
some of its clients.  The primary goal of AthenaRMS has always been to
treat the end user with quality care, while being able to efficiently 
treat common problems in mass.

ABOUT REQUEST MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS

The simplest way to understand request management systems is to think
of them as a system for managing todo lists.  Whereas items in a
todo list are normally self generated, aka "I need to do this", items
in an RMS system are entered as requests, aka "Please do this".

Typical uses of RMSs include such things as bug tracking, customer support, 
and workflow management.  In such an environment, a request is entered into 
the system by email, or through a web form, and is assigned a ticket number
and a support owner.  The support owner then manages the request through
completion, updating the database and providing status to the request
originator as  new information becomes available. 

ABOUT ATHENARMS

AthenaRMS It is designed around the concept of a ticket object that 
includes the original request and default fields that define the 
problem type and ticket status.  Comments can be added to the ticket 
as the issue is being resolved, and optionally sent via email back to 
the originator, or any other  person that may need status, or be 
involved in resolution of the problem.   AthenaRMS can be extended 
with additional fields (attributes) to allow you to track just 
about anything.  


EXAMPLE USES

a) Web site support

* Bob has lost his way. He can't find the latest specs for Wisiwig 582
  on his favorite widget web site.  He does, however, find the support
  page that asks Bob "Are you having a problem finding something?"
  So Bob fills in the form, checking the box for "Wisiwig 582s", and 
  submits the form.

* AthenaRMS records the results as a new ticket, and instructs Bob to
  go to a one time URL to obtain status on his issue. It also sends him
  an email with the URL, in case he forgets to write it down.

* On the back end, Billy, the default support person, gets an email 
  notifying him of the new ticket.  Upon review of the ticket, he sees that 
  Bob is not happy, and that the ticket is associated with Wisiwig 582s.
  Billy changes the support owner to Judy, the 582 expert, who looks into
  the problem, and sees that someone has removed the specs from the web 
  site. She personally sends Bob a copy of the spec, and notifies the web 
  site administrators to update the site with the spec.  Her email is 
  logged  as part of the ticket history, and the ticket is closed.

b) Workflow management

* Mark is a typical systems administrator. Everyone in the organization
  is asking him to solve their  hardware and software problems.
  His boss knows he's busy, but doesn't know exactly what he is doing, or
  whether things get done on time.  To track his workflow, and to help
  prioritize his requests, Mark sets up an AthenaRMS instance and asks
  everyone to submit their requests through the system.

* To aid in performing triage, Mark adds an additional field to the
  instance called "priority" and assigns it four possible values, low,
  medium, high, and critical. To further help in prioritizing, he defines
  his problem types as "staff request", "client request", and "general
  maintenance", giving higher importance to clients, then staff, then
  those never ending general maintenance issues.

* People start using the system, and soon his productivity increases in
  a visible way.  His end users are happy, his boss is happy, and in turn,
  this makes Mark happy.

ATHENARMS CORE FEATURES

Customer Care

AthenaRMS allows customers to be treated as individuals, while treating 
common problems and requests in mass.

    * It puts customers in control of their own request.
    * Customers can view request status at any time.
    * AthenaRMS maintains full correspondence history for each request.
    * Tickets may be reopened by the customer.
    * Responses to common problems can be sent to multiple recipients   
      simultaneously, updating and closing tickets if so desired.

Technical Flexibility

Designed with HTML and PHP, AthenaRMS can be easily customized to look the way 
you want it to, and track the data that is important to you.

    * AthenaRMS accepts from any web form and email, including attachments 
      of any file type.
    * Multiple levels of customization exist, from the look and feel of 
      administrative pages, to the data model itself.
    * Multiple instances of AthenaRMS can interact - great for departments, 
      where ownership of an issue may move from organization to 
      organization.

Speed of Deployment

    * New instances can be set up in less than 8 hours.
    * A complete solution can be set up in less than a day, including 
      installation, web form integration, email setup, testing and role 
      assignment.

Price Performance

Because AthenaRMS was designed using Open Source software, what you really 
pay for is service. 

    * Starting with version 5.0, AthenaRMS can be downloaded for free from 
      the athenarms.com website.  
    * Core software includes PostgreSQL, PHP scripting language, Apache, 
      Sendmail, and qmail.
    * For those that don't want to set it up and manage it 
      themselves, monthly hosting starts at $25 per user account (five 
      minimum).
    * AthenaRMS is dedicated to an Open Source product development path.
    * Support resources are available as service contracts, or by the
      hour for consulting and customization.


TERMINOLOGY

RMS -- Request Management System. A tool for managing support requests
and problem incidents.

Athena Instance -- A single workflow queue within an Athena installation,
including its tickets, support staff, and additional fields.

Ticket --  A single request within an Athena instance.

Comments -- Follow up information added to a ticket by either the support
owner, or ticket originator.

One Time URLs -- An encrypted URL that is hard to guess, providing the 
ticket originator access to an individual ticket. 

Email Blast -- A single response sent to multiple tickets in response to
a common problem.

Default Attributes -- The set of fields associated with a ticket that
come standard with Athena. 

Extended Attributes -- Any custom fields added to an Athena instance.
 
End User -- The ticket originator.

Support Owner -- The person responsible for managing the request to 
completion.

Support Admin -- A support person that has the ability to modify certain
characteristics of an athena instance, including defining
problem types and adding additional RMS attributes.

Super Admin -- A support admin that can also assign new people to an
Athena instance and create new instances.

Problems -- A default attribute that defines the type of support request.

Sources -- A default attribute that tracks the origin of the request to
a specific web page or email, or call in.

Default Templates -- Application pages or screens that come standard
with AthenaRMS.

Custom Templates -- Application pages that have been customized for the
specific Athena instance to reflect style, or include references to
 extended attributes.

ABOUT THIS RELEASE

This is a pre-release of Athena 5.0. It is the first open source release
of AthenaRMS.  Modifications were made to the core Athena code base to 
standardize on Open Source libraries so that further development within 
the open source community would be easy to manage, and to make Athena 
database neutral.

We have removed all dependencies on Postgres specific features, including
transactions, views, triggers, stored procedures, and sub selects.  We
have encountered a number of subtle differences between Postgres and
MySQL  and are continuing to clean these up before releasing the official
Athena 5.0 stable. . Once released, Athena 5.0 should be compatible with 
Postgres, MySQL and Oracle.
 
AthenaRMS is available for download at http://athenarms.com/download/
