Book excerpt: In a typical organization, there's always plenty that to do such as: pay vendors, invoice customers, answer customer inquiries, and fix bugs in hardware or software. You need to know who wants what and keep track of what is left to do. This is where a ticketing system comes in. A ticketing system allows you to check the status of various tasks: when they were requested, who requested them and why, when they were completed, and more. RT is a high-level, open source ticketing system efficiently enabling a group of people to manage tasks, issues, and requests submitted by a community of users. RT Essentials, co-written by one of the RT's original core developers, Jesse Vincent, starts off with a quick background lesson about ticketing systems and then shows you how to install and configure RT. This comprehensive guide explains how to perform day-to-day tasks to turn your RT server into a highly useful tracking tool. One way it does this is by examining how a company could use RT to manage its internal processes. Advanced chapters focus on developing add-on tools and utilities using Perl and Mason. There's also chapter filled with suggested uses for RT inside your organization. No matter what kind of data your organization tracks--from sales inquiries to security incidents or anything in between--RT Essentials helps you use RT to provide order when you need it most.