SiT! Introduction and Resources

Support Incident Tracker, also known as SiT! or sitracker, is an incident tracking program. It’s designed for use on IT help desks (or service desks, depending on your approach), and is available free of charge under the GNU Public Liense.

Ivan Lucas, who goes by the moniker “ericthefish,” is the developer behind the SiT! project. He originally developed a Java version in 1998, with the PHP beta version following in 2001. In 2005, SiT! was first released under the GNU Public License.

The SiT! website is not in operation, and the application has not officially been updated since 2013. However, there is evidence to suggest that the code is being maintained in a limited capacity. SiT! remains a good help desk option, with the caveat that future plans for the project are uncertain.

SiT! Features

SiT! brings together a number of features that are commonly found in help desk applications, but it differs from many in that it’s open source. It can be installed on any Linux or Windows server with PHP and MySQL, although its development has always encouraged the use of Linux. SiT! can be deployed on many inexpensive hosting accounts, often as a one-click install. It’s primarily used and managed through a regular web browser.

SiT! is intended to track support requests, known as “incidents,” that come in via telephone and email. A designated help desk team can interact with incidents, updating notes and assigning incidents to their colleagues. Administrators are responsible for setting the system up, and configuring the various components.

SiT! is capable of managing data on distinct sections of your operation:

Contacts: people that your help desk team will interact with in their daily tasks
Sites: offices, departments or remote locations
Contracts: SLAs, service agreements, and other paperwork that specifies the nature of the relationship between two companies.

SiT! also includes these core functions:

Incident management: users can log problems, view updates and attach files.
LDAP compatible authentication: SiT! can be used with Active Directory.

The program works by creating relationships between sites, vendors, contracts, and so on. Incidents can be created within the application, or pulled in via email from a pre-defined support mailbox. Plugins allow you to enhance the default functionality.

SiT! also sends emails automatically (for example, when the status of an incident changes, an automatic notification can be sent). It has built-in backup tools, and can be expanded with dashlets.

The software is also available in multiple languages, including English, Russian, Catalan, Danish, Spanish, and Portuguese translations.

Project Status

The last update on the SiT! blog was posted in October 2013, to mark the release of SiT! v 3.90, Beta 1.

The Sourceforge project has been maintained by a team of 11, including Paul Heaney, who has committed recent changes to Github and appears to have a relatively large amount of input into the code. However, there seems to be no recent development input from Ivan Lucas, the project lead.

SiT! remains a very useful helpdesk system, with features that rival many large commercial alternatives. The free, open source aspect of SiT! makes it ideal for small team projects, but large businesses may find that it eventually becomes a security risk if new versions are not released. Moving from one help desk system to another can be challenging, both in terms of data retention and user training, so it’s worth reviewing the status before proceeding with a major install.

SiT! Alternatives

If you are leery of the SiT! development status, there are other options that you can look at:

Resources

While SiT! has an official website, it isn’t currently operational. We found some other resources from around the web that can help you to understand how to install and use it.

Videos

Install SiT! on Linux: this video takes you through a typical installation.
Using Sites, Contacts and Contacts: this YouTube video explains how to create vendors (and associated products), sites, contacts and contracts.
Introduction to Triggers: a quick introduction on creating triggers in Sit!
SiT — Expanding VM Disk: how to expand a disk in the SiT! virtual machine, or add a new one.

Development resources

SiT! at Sourceforge: download the latest release here
SiT! blog: covers SiT! updates and releases between 2009 and 2013
SiT! on Github: another download site
SiT! Bug Tracker: MantisBT bug tracker for SiT!
Mailing List: view archived discussions on these three Sourceforge mailing lists. All are still open, but there is little recent activity.

SiT! Team

The Crypt: Ivan Lucas’ personal website
Interview with Ivan Lucas: 2009 interview with Ivan Lucas at the Trophées du Libre Awards
SiT! Tracker Twitter
Paul Heaney Twitter.

Conclusion

SiT! is still a powerful system for support management. But it’s future is uncertain. It would make a good platform to build a new system from. As a system for a new user, it is probably not the optimal choice.