Merged Is it possible to set up Kunena as a help desk / job ticketing system?

G'day, Nick.

I think there could be significant interest in this and many other ideas that people may have that contributes to and enhances the functionality of Kunena.. I recall, in a general sense, that I've replied in the past to questions, suggestions, comments (and complaints) from people who have wanted to use Kunena as a job ticketing system. Indeed, raising the hope that your help could realise this ambition couldn't have come at a better time.

In my opinion, the best way that you (and others who may have ideas for developing new features for Kunena) can assist us is to contact Matias whose address is given on our team page or, if you like, apply to join the team as a developer by using the link to the application form that is given, also, on that page.

Thanks a lot, Nick. You guys do great work. (It was delightful to meet Rod Martin at Noordwijkerhout a few weeks ago and, if you are talking to him, please give him my regards.)

Thank you, sozzled! Great information! I emailed Matias

Thanks for the kind words! I passed on your regards to Rod (via a message since he's training today).

Cheers,
Nick

Version: Kunena 2.0.4 on a Joomla 2.5.11 series platform.
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I have a situation where having a category that facilitates private discussions [post and reply] between a specified user and a specified team leader with the possibility of allowing access to other specified users regardless of group memberships is required. [auto access to super admin]

The situation:
I am building a training site for IT volunteers. The forum facilitates general discussion using the multi group access strategy.
However what the group or access level system fails to do is allow individual users by username to be allocated to a category so that they can have a discussion with their team leader with out interruption by other volunteers and preferably in a private setting.

Currently I believe the only way to facilitate this is to use an individual group for each individual volunteer username and when talking about a large number of volunteers this becomes ineffective and unmanageable.

Ideally what would be nice is if there was in the permissions section of each category an option to select individual users with at least two [ volunteer and trainer ] or many.

Questions:
Is there a way to easily tweek the software to allow for the above?
Is there currently a plugin that can be installed for the above purpose?
Any ideas of suggestions are most welcome.

To get a better idea of the situation please visit the first draft production at:
itvolunteers.net

G'day, bizzymate, and welcome to the forum.

Yes, this is an interesting scenario and the problems you have stem from the fact that Joomla access permissions are not based on an individual user's account (like you have with the Microsoft Windows operating system where objects are protected by ACLs held in the PC's registry or, more broadly, through another mechanisms like Active Directory ).

We've had similar discussions like this one in the past (see User Groups, User Group Privileges, ACLs and, although as you correctly say, it's possible to manage these things by allocating each user to their own Joomla ACL group and creating categories that are protected based on that ACL, the technique is cumbersome and becomes increasingly difficult to manage when the population of your site grows.

In this case it would seem that a forum-based solution is probably not the ideal one for you. Although, I should add, a general forum would still be of use for questions where it is not necessary to keep things "private".

The short answer to your question is no; it is probably not feasible to use Joomla ACLs to control the protection over forum categories to the degree that you want to control them. There are, however, other mechanisms that may be more appropriate to your case.

There are other Joomla extensions that may be of use to you. JomSocial Groups has features that allow your members to create their own private discussions, to invite other members to participate in those discussions, and to control who is allowed to be part of those discussions. Community Builder has similar features with their GroupJive product and you might like to do some research with those products. There's always private messaging, too, and help desk applications that may be useful.

Thank you very much for your informative response!
You are correct when you say that there are other avenues to achieve the "core ware" to support private discussions and I shall look into it.
I fully intend to maintain Kunena forum support for the site, if at all possible, due to it's excellent integration with other components/extensions and the Joomla platform generally.
However you mention reference to Microsoft style ACL and this may be an avenue of research as I feel the site will most definitely and inevitably need a very robust "username" orientated approach to access.
CB [which I currently run may be able to offer a way, possibly through a modified profile blog tab system... however this is subject to feasibility and trialing. [the limitations on "utility" for the CB blog compared to the forum is the issue. [ file sharing, containing information, categorizing etc etc.]
Possibly running another forum system along side kunena may be useful such as PHPBB or other.
Again, thank you for your insights....

Edit: thinking on it, a stripped down forum bulletin board system that could be installed as private CB Tab is where I think I will head....

It is interesting to note that CB Group jive offers nothing more than what Kunena already offers by way of making categories private to a given group.
As as far as I can tell from reading the support literature it does not reduce privacy down to an individual user and selected "Other members". [staying purely group focused] Facebook type ACL offers something along the lines of what I am looking for I think...