Looking For a Few Testers

[Mike McCall]

I’ve been building a shop system called Murphy’s Bench (pun intended), and I’m getting close to the point where I’d like a few outside eyes on it.

It’s a self-hosted ticket and work-order system for small computer repair / field-service shops. I built it to run my own shop, and it is already doing real work here: customer requests, tickets, work orders, notes, labor/parts, repair reports, estimates, a small Register, and handoff to Invoice Ninja.

This is not a public launch yet. I’m looking for maybe 3-5 people here who understand this kind of shop workflow and would be willing to test it front to back.

I expect to be ready next week.

What I’d like tested:

• installing it from the docs on a fresh Ubuntu box or VM
• first login and basic configuration
• creating fake clients, contacts, devices/assets
• running tickets through work orders
• trying estimates/quotes and the Register
• testing backup and restore
• calling out anything confusing, broken, poorly explained, or not how another real shop would expect it to work

The install/configuration part is very much part of the test. If the docs make you stop and guess, I want to know that.

For now I’m keeping the GitHub repo private and will invite selected testers directly. I also have a small Discord set up for install notes, bug reports, screenshots, and general feedback.

If this sounds like something you’d be willing to kick around, reply here or send me a message and I’ll follow up when I’m ready to open it up.

 

[trevm999]

I might be able to take a look

 

[Mike McCall]

I might be able to take a look

Thank you. PM me your contact information and I'll fill you in a bit more. Thanks for your willingness to try it out!

 

[Mike McCall]

I'm being overly cautious (nerves). Murphy's Bench is now publicly available at:

https://github.com/murphys-bench/murphys-bench

Please feel free to kick the tires and tell me what you think.

 

[HCHTech]

One feature that is invaluable to us is the ability to create tickets with incoming emails. We use this extensively for device alerting. Any chance that feature is included or on the roadmap?

 

[Mike McCall]

One feature that is invaluable to us is the ability to create tickets with incoming emails. We use this extensively for device alerting. Any chance that feature is included or on the roadmap?

Email ingestion is the primary way tickets come in. Most RMM's can send alerts by email as well.

Initially, I wanted to back into this in an abundance of caution, driven largely by my own insecurities. I soon realized that I was making this harder for both myself and those who might actually try it. So, I made the decision yesterday to make it publicly available on Github. Please see the README.md available here, there's even a few screenshots at the bottom:

https://github.com/murphys-bench/murphys-bench/blob/main/README.md

No application is perfect, and Murphy's Bench isn't either. It's still young. If anyone does give it a try, my hope is that they will evaluate it on its own merits.

 

[trevm999]

I've only taken a quick look so far, and haven't actually done a full setup. But a couple of notes I've made:

- Seems weird to run the full test suite on install (Install.md - 6. Initialize the Application)
- Felt awkward to have to remember the `unsorted/unverified` specific name to find a WO without name at the Register
- I was able to do a walk-in sale with cash, but couldn't bill a WO in cash, got `Invoice Ninja is not enabled in Settings.`
- The /sales/ route and view exists, but no link to it on the menu
- Didn't see a way to make a Help Topic
- I feel like Tickets are missing easy ways to record time/work. I.e. someone calls in and just needs logged out of a terminal service you manage or something, someone's not going to bother to both create a ticket and convert it to a work order if they're not getting billed, and that work done/time taken is going to become invisible because it was too much effort to record. Or alert tickets came in, in the morning someone takes a look, determines things are fine/don't need work orders, resolves it with a note, but no time for that gets recorded, and it's going to get hard to report on that non-billable work.

 

[Mike McCall]

I've only taken a quick look so far, and haven't actually done a full setup. But a couple of notes I've made:

- Seems weird to run the full test suite on install (Install.md - 6. Initialize the Application)
- Felt awkward to have to remember the `unsorted/unverified` specific name to find a WO without name at the Register
- I was able to do a walk-in sale with cash, but couldn't bill a WO in cash, got `Invoice Ninja is not enabled in Settings.`
- The /sales/ route and view exists, but no link to it on the menu
- Didn't see a way to make a Help Topic
- I feel like Tickets are missing easy ways to record time/work. I.e. someone calls in and just needs logged out of a terminal service you manage or something, someone's not going to bother to both create a ticket and convert it to a work order if they're not getting billed, and that work done/time taken is going to become invisible because it was too much effort to record. Or alert tickets came in, in the morning someone takes a look, determines things are fine/don't need work orders, resolves it with a note, but no time for that gets recorded, and it's going to get hard to report on that non-billable work.

Good catches, all of them! On the Sales link, is it the Register name in the sidebar that's the issue?



The ability to add a Help Topic is there, but it's ugly. It's on my list.

Completely missed Tickets not tracking time/work. That's exactly why outside eyes are needed.

Working on these, Thanks!

 

[trevm999]

So Register gets me to here:


But /pos/ doesn't show me a sale I just did.

Wow, somehow I missed the whole Tickets & Work Items section in Settings. That's on me.

 

[Mike McCall]

The "Sales" page was orphaned because it was part of a larger reorganization of the Reports/Financial sections. As I looked at your list I realized I needed to move them up on the todo list. I'm working on them now.

The Financial section is being expanded to cover the basic invoicing, sales, reporting one needs to function without something like Invoice Ninja.

That said, once a sale is completed you should see a print preview of the receipt, unless you're connected to Invoice Ninja (or another similar app to be built for later), where it will be the financial authority. Invoice Ninja is what currently is supported because that's what I use, so I built for that first.

There's quite a bit in the Admin section.

Edit: Murphy's Bench can send a draft invoice to Invoice Ninja to be finalized there. Murphy's bench does not touch money directly. IN can initiate charges to a payment gateway such as Square, Stripe, etc., If an established client has their card-on-file with the gateway, Murphy's Bench can initiate the Auto Bill feature built-into Invoice Ninja and automatically charge your managed clients on the date in their contract. I think most bill on the first, but there may be variances and I wanted to account for that.

 

[Mike McCall]

Made some changes.

https://github.com/murphys-bench/murphys-bench/blob/main/CHANGELOG.md

Go to Admn>Maintenance>Software Updates> Check For Updates

You should have a backup location set up as Murphy's Bench will automatically backup before updating itself. If anything should go wrong during an update, it will automatically roll back to the previous version.

 

[Mike McCall]

- I feel like Tickets are missing easy ways to record time/work. I.e. someone calls in and just needs logged out of a terminal service you manage or something, someone's not going to bother to both create a ticket and convert it to a work order if they're not getting billed, and that work done/time taken is going to become invisible because it was too much effort to record. Or alert tickets came in, in the morning someone takes a look, determines things are fine/don't need work orders, resolves it with a note, but no time for that gets recorded, and it's going to get hard to report on that non-billable work.

I could put the timer that's already on work orders on tickets. I could also add a drop down with selectable increments.