Grievance and request forms with PDF output for a union help desk

The challenge

A US airline flight attendants' union ran its member support desk on an open-source ticketing system. Members and representatives could raise tickets, but two of the union's most important processes, filing a grievance and submitting a formal request form, still lived outside the system. The union wanted both forms captured inside the help desk, tied to the relevant ticket and available as clean, printable documents.

The standard ticketing screens weren't designed for this. The forms needed their own layouts, a printable view without the help desk's header and navigation, PDF output, and grievance numbers that increment automatically so each case has a unique reference. Everything also had to match the union's own visual theme.

What we did

• Themed front end. We built the HTML for the new forms and screens around the theme artwork supplied by the union, so they sat naturally alongside the existing osTicket interface.
• Grievance and request forms. We added two custom forms linked to tickets, letting staff record a grievance or a request against the case it belongs to rather than in a separate document.
• Printable pages and PDF output. Each saved form opens on a dedicated printable page without the help desk's header, and can be produced as a PDF for filing or sharing.
• Automatic grievance numbering. Grievance numbers increment automatically, giving every case a consistent reference.
• Feedback rounds. After the union's first review we changed the date format to the US MM/DD/YYYY style and refined how the forms behave on the ticket screen.

Tech stack

PHP, HTML, osTicket