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The product is available for Digital Alpha, Hewlett-Packard HP-UX, IBM RS/6000, Microsoft Windows NT/2000, Linux (x86, 2.x kernels), Sun Solaris, and FreeBSD. At $995 per agent, FootPrints 5.5 is affordable for both internal and external customer support. Its database options, however, are limited: FootPrints can use Microsoft SQL (version 7 and Windows 2000) and Microsoft Access on a Windows platform. All other platforms support FootPrints' custom, indexed GDBM database, which requires 3 MB of space per 1,000 entries in the system -- so plan well. UniPress says it will add support for Oracle as a back-end database in a later release.

I installed a copy of FootPrints 5.5 in our Real-World Labs® in Green Bay, Wis., on a Dell PowerEdge 2400 with dual processors and 512 MB of RAM running Red Hat Linux 6.2 (kernel 2.2.14). The installation took 15 minutes from start to finish, requiring only minor modifications to the Apache 1.3.12 Web server. Because the entire application is Web-based, I had to configure the Web server to recognize the product's directory structure. The additions necessary for the Web server configuration are specified in a readme file, but a simple configuration file generated for the appropriate installation directories and bundled with the aliases would be better. UniPress says it has plans to incorporate this feature in a future release.

PERL 5.005 or greater is also required, and 5.005 is included with the distribution. Once you've put the aliases that point to the FootPrints installation directory in the Web server configuration, you can fire up a browser and begin administration. The application is highly configurable, and all changes are browser-based, making it easy for less technical administrators to modify the product options. You'll have to set up a single administrator account during the installation, so take note of the password entered; you'll need it for the initial configuration once the installation is complete. Additional administrators can be added after the initial configuration.

Using FootPrints with multiple browsers was smooth sailing. The only problem I encountered was with the dynamic menu system and Mozilla Gecko browsers: Because menus were displayed multiple times, navigating was a tad difficult. Microsoft Internet Explorer and Netscape Communicator 4.5 on Windows, as well as Netscape Communicator 4.78 on Linux showed the entire site without a problem.

User Management

I logged in as administrator and created the address book. In FootPrints parlance, address book refers to the place where you manage the list of users given access to the system. The address book can be populated directly by the users, as would be the case with an Internet site that lets anyone sign on as a user -- each person creates an account when he or she signs on. Or an administrator can populate the address book in a more controlled manner by using an external directory, which is common when dealing with intranets and portals that have known members. Address books also can be imported via CSV or other delimited text formats. With this method, the system can be configured to let users create their own accounts, as long as they're in the address book.

I configured FootPrints to use the "User ID" directory attribute, then created a new user and logged in without a hitch. The address book can be maintained internally by FootPrints in a proprietary format or manually through an external LDAP directory. I choose to configure FootPrints to use an external OpenLDAP server as its address-book source.

Help Is on the Way

Enjoying FootPrints' ease of configuration, I changed some of the basic menu settings to make the terminology used throughout the system fit better in my fictional corporate culture. For example, I created the title "Complaint" and added a complementary logo for display on the login page.

When a customer submits an incident report, that report is aligned with the customer automatically, but no agent is assigned until a project administrator selects the appropriate person to handle the incident. I logged in as a customer and reported an incident, then logged out and re-entered the system as the administrator. I then edited the incident report and assigned it to an agent I had created for the project. When an agent responding to a user-incident report creates a request to act upon the incident, that agent's contact information is copied automatically into the incident report.

During the process of assigning the incident to an agent, the administrator specifies who should receive a confirmation e-mail -- the agent and/or the user. I chose both and, as expected, my agent and user received a short descriptive e-mail moments later. Each time a modification is performed in response to the initial incident report, the agent is prompted to choose a notification recipient; this keeps the customer and the agent informed of progress.

Time Is Money

For the sake of tracking ROI, you can configure FootPrints to register automatically the total time spent entering and working on complaints. You also can choose to enter the time spent on any incident manually, assigning hourly rates to each agent, which lets you generate reports detailing the cost of each incident.

The user I created was able to chat with my agent via the system. A refreshingly simple HTML pop-up window and CGI scripts offer an instant-messaging option. The system works well, though the chat sessions aren't logged or attached to their corresponding incidents. UniPress says these options will be available in the next release. For now, the agent can cut and paste from the chat and enter the information in the incident tracking report.

Reports can be generated based on several options -- including by agent, customer, issue, project, cost and time spent -- and can be printed or saved and rerun at a later date. You can create the reports in HTML format for immediate display, in Microsoft Excel or in some other delimited (tab or custom) text file for download.

Another interesting facet of the product is its remote-control capabilities. Distributions of VNC (Virtual Network Computing) are included via download directly from FootPrints. An agent initiates a request for remote control, and subsequently an e-mail requesting remote access and detailing the method for allowing remote access is sent to the designated user. This option requires that the user install a VNC server on his or her desktop, so the usability of this feature depends on your users' desktop-management policies.

For all its merits, FootPrints 5.5 isn't a heavy-duty package -- it doesn't offer integration with fault-management applications, which would allow for the automatic tracking of incidents. It also provides little in the way of monitoring, though its ability to track time and cost makes it easier to figure ROI. For small to midsize enterprises, however, it could be a perfect fit. FootPrints 5.5's affordable price, wide range of highly configurable features, and ability to let both internal and external customers access support from anywhere make it a solid service-desk system.