FogBugz World Tour Results

I was at the Vancouver session yesterday morning. I'm currently satisfied with our infrastructure of TWiki+RT for managing things, but I went in with an open mind.

The software is definitely slick. The UI seems very usable (especially compared to RT). It has some nice AJAX integration as well.

Some of the limitations I saw in the software are:

• You can't do TWiki style Formatted Search blocks. I use this frequently to build dynamic lists of things like projects and servers and to create helpdesk repositories
• The case database does not support custom fields. Joel doesn't like them for some valid reasons, but a little structure is needed at times. I don't want them for an OS drop down box, but I do want them for custom workflow and categorization. For example, keeping track of client id's in customer submitted tickets.
• The unix version is lagging behind (it's still on 5 -- they need to debug 6 as they use a vbs to php compiler)
  

They offer custom importing of existing databases from other ticket tracking software, which is nice. I don't know about the wiki, though. It also integrates into revision control systems, like subversion. I'm sure there are ways to do this with RT.

If I were setting up a new company, I might consider using the hosted version to get off the ground. I'd consider using fogbuzz for helpdesk if there was an easy RT import and I'd consider using the wiki if it supported %SEARCH% blocks. There would have to be some other compelling reason on top of all that, as the pain of ripping RT and TWiki out of our infrastructure would brutal.

It could also be a nice system for tech support/cr, but they depend heavily on customer chat. Right now they use some software that has it all integrated.

Based on the demo, it's a good looking application. I didn't even talk about the evidence based scheduler or doing project management with it. In the end, I'd say check out the software.