I know I asked this a while back but that's now part of the old hacked database.

Where I work we get requests for help coming in from all over Europe that cover an absolute mountain of products, both hardware and software related. The 2 departments here that pickup these requests do it in such a bad way that you simply don't know who may have picked up the request and is dealing with it, if it's already been answered and nobody else CC'd in to the reply etc. etc. For example we may get a request for help with a Mac or a color issue which everyone knows I'll pick up, but they don't know for sure, it's just assumed. This also means a lot of questions are repeated because there's no central database of what's been asked or answered.

Basically it's a mess. I've tried before to get the departments to use a better system but had no support from above so both times it's hit a dead end.

Finally something happened last week and basically the sh*t has hit the fan because the request wasn't answered, (surprised it took this long to happen to be fair). A director has come to my boss asking for something to be setup to stop this happening again. My boss is flapping and doesn't have a clue, so I intend to set something up to show him how easy it can be done.

They don't want to pay big $$$ for it either!

So my question is this: What job ticketing software could you recommend for the above scenario? We need cheapo software that can help us track requests for assistance and leave a trail to follow up.

I'm also looking at plugins for VBulletin or IPB forum software because I believe forums are a great way to do this for us and our internal techies throughout Europe.