I've been reading several old threads on this frequently requested feature, and I've noticed that there always seems to be an unanswered question from the management to people requesting this feature: how would you handle collision responses, i.e. multiple agents answering at the same time, potentially with different answers?
The simplest answer is that we don't care about this scenario. It's an internal policy decision, and not one that could or should be made globally.
One reason we don't care is that our long-standing procedures (long before we switched to OSTicket) have only one single person on duty answering tickets at a time. This person answers all tickets, handling them personally or assigning them to someone with the proper expertise for the issue. Once assigned, agents don't jump on other people's tickets without a request for help (which is usually a reassignment).
We do have off-duty time when tickets can come in and may be answered by some random off-duty agent, but the chances for collisions here are low. But even if we do have collisions, the answer is likely to be the same or similar from any agent.
The second main reason is that we are running an internal helpdesk and our "customers" are our co-workers, who we interact with daily. There is no need for strict formality in our communications, and if a miscommunication happens we simply explain what went wrong and there's no real harm.
All this is balanced against our need to sometimes answer high-priority issues in off hours while an agent is out-and-about and only has their cell phone, or is at a site where they can't get to our VPN to connect with our helpdesk. This need far outweighs any marginal theoretical issue about colliding answers.
I certainly understand that OSTicket is used by many people in more formal and complex situations where these things aren't true.
I'm not going to tell you that you "must" implement this feature, or that it's a deal-breaker if you don't (we're already using OSTicket). I just wanted a full answer to this question on the record for your future consideration regarding this feature request. In essence, it's a sort of policy choice that ought to be made locally based on individual helpdesk needs, rather than globally. And based on how often this thread has appeared, it's one that comes up for many groups out there.
Thank you for your consideration, and thank you for a great product.
