A large part of our effort at revamping our organization has been to get tools that are not only efficient, but work with each other to serve the customer.  Since our main work is in development, we obivously need to be able to document both our work for the customer and the customer's responses (and ours) to any issues with that development.  So we've been looking at, testing, and dogfooding many Help Desk / Bug Tracker applications including: Gemini (http://www.countersoft.com/), HelpSpot (http://www.userscape.com/products/helpspot/) , FogBugz (http://www.fogcreek.com/FogBugz/), HelpDeskPro (http://www.helpdeskpro.net), Polar Help Desk (http://www.polarsoftware.com/products/servicedesk/index.asp), BugTracker.NET (http://www.ifdefined.com/bugtrackernet.html), Libernum (http://www.liberum.org/), and ZenTrack (www.zentrack.net).

First, we do have some basic issues we need to deal with.  First, Help Desk software does not necessarily mean Bug Tracker / Software Development Tool.  Ian Landsman makes this point in his blog (http://www.userscape.com/blog/index.php/site/comments/fogbugz_vs_helpspot_as_a_help_desk/), but does not quite finish the thought.  HELP DESK SOFTWARE IS INHERENTLY CUSTOMER/PEOPLE-CENTRIC WHILE BUG TRACKING/DEVELOPMENT SOFTWARE IS INHERENTLY SOFTWARE-CENTRIC.  Any tool that can accomplish both of these together is VERY expensive.

So the next question is: Does a Help Desk have the ability to interact with a Bug Tracker ?  Is it out-of-the-box ready to do this?  For every one we looked at, the answer was a resounding "NO"!  Here is a more detailed list of our requirements:

1. Is it a Help Desk with all that implies (Customer-centric. Multiple Clients, Public Submissions, EMail responses and ticket updates, Time/Issue Tracking, Customizable Issues and Support Assignments, Knowledgebase, etc.)?
2. Is it a Bug Tracker / Development Software with all that implied (Software-centric, Multiple Projects, Versioning, Respository integrated, Notification and Viewing of Updates including new releases and patches, scheduling, etc.)?
3. If the product fits into either of the first 2 categories, can it do the other?  If not, can it integrate with another?
4. If the answer to 3 is no, can it be made to integrate with a minimum of fuss and a maximum customizability / extensibility?  If so what is the nature of the API or interface?

There was only one product in our list that appeared to work: CounterSoft's Gemini.  We've been following this product off-and-on for 2 years and have even used it in production for a while - then dropped it.  However, a look and test drive of the newest version (2.2.x) incorporates many of the features we need.  While it is primarily for Bug / Software Tracking, Gemini has recently incorporated many extensible parts to make it customizable to a point that we believe we can get both out of it with a minimum of programming - the fact that it is written in .NET means we should be able to quickly get it up to speed.  We post how it goes and if you have other options you use, leave a comment!