The OTRS Group, a provider of open source Help Desk and ITIL V3 compatible IT Service Management (ITSM) solutions, released OTRS Help Desk 3.1 and OTRS ITSM 3.1, available for immediate download.

The newest version of OTRS includes major enhancements that improve interconnectivity of the product with other data systems, and that improve the Agent and Administrator experience while using and configuring OTRS.

One highlight of the new release is the Generic Interface, a flexible framework that allows the connection and integration of OTRS with third party applications via web services. Involving connectors such as the OTRS Solution Manager-Connector (SolMan) or the Ticket-Connector process data can be synchronized with SAP Solution Manager or other systems. An additional connector for the linkage with the Hard- and Software Inventory Tool FusionInventory is planned for release by the end of February 2012.

Another highlight of the new release is Dynamic Fields, a feature that enables users to create custom forms in OTRS and replaces the inflexible structure of FreeText and FreeTime fields.

OTRS Help Desk 3.1 is now also available as OnDemand version featuring quick and easy setup, cloud-based delivery, and the possibility to export data anytime via Pack&Go.

André Mindermann, co-founder and CEO of the OTRS Group, described the strategic approach of the new release. "OTRS is with approximately 100.000 installation in 32 languages worldwide the most famous Help Desk solution, enabling tens of thousands of organizations to improve their service delivery. However, data integration between information systems is the key for success, and lies in an easy integration of OTRS in common third-party solutions such as SAP or CRM platforms. The new innovations in OTRS 3.1 are the foundation for that."

In addition to the Generic Interface and Dynamic Fields, numerous other enhancements in OTRS 3.1 improve the Agent and Administrator experience. These include but are not limited to:

- Extending the number of supported languages to 34, with improved translations of OTRS in Finnish, Serbian, Polish and Japanese.

- Further innovations in OTRS Help Desk 3.1 to enable users to paste pictures from the clipboard into the rich text editor.

- Agent enhancements, so the author of a ticket or article is displayed now. Rendering performance for pages with large amount of data is dramatically improved.

- For OTRS ITSM 3.1 it is now possible to use a mirror database in Change Management for searching changes and work orders, and a newly implemented cache speeds up the condition action backends.

Note that OTRS ITSM 3.1 requires the installation of OTRS Help Desk 3.1.