Helpdesk Ticket Management System — API

A role-based support ticket management system built with ASP.NET Core Web API, Entity Framework Core, and SQL Server. Employees raise support tickets, Admins assign them to Developers, and Developers resolve them — a simplified version of an internal company helpdesk.

Frontend (Angular)

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Features

• JWT Authentication with role-based authorization (Employee, Admin, Developer)
• Role-based data access — each role sees only the data relevant to them:
  • Employees see tickets they created
  • Developers see tickets assigned to them
  • Admins see all tickets
• Ticket lifecycle management — Open → In Progress → Resolved → Closed, with transitions restricted by role
• Ticket assignment workflow — Admins assign open tickets to developers
• Dashboard stats — ticket counts by status (Admin only)
• Repository Pattern + Unit of Work for clean separation between business logic and data access
• DTOs for every request/response — entities are never exposed directly
• Password hashing with BCrypt — no plain-text passwords stored

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Tech Stack

Layer	Technology
API	ASP.NET Core Web API (.NET 8)
ORM	Entity Framework Core (Code-First)
Database	SQL Server (local)
Auth	JWT Bearer Authentication
Password Hashing	BCrypt.Net
API Docs	Swagger / OpenAPI

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Architecture

Controller  →  Service  →  Repository (via Unit of Work)  →  DbContext  →  Database

• Controllers — handle HTTP requests/responses only, no business logic
• Services — contain business rules (e.g. status transition rules, ownership checks)
• Repositories — handle all database access, built on a generic repository + entity-specific repositories
• Unit of Work — coordinates repositories and commits changes in a single transaction
• DTOs — define what data enters and leaves the API, keeping entities (and sensitive fields like password hashes) internal

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Roles & Permissions

Action	Employee	Admin	Developer
Create ticket	✅	✅	❌
View own/assigned tickets	✅ (own)	✅ (all)	✅ (assigned)
Edit ticket	✅ (own, while Open)	✅ (any)	❌
Delete ticket	❌	✅	❌
Assign ticket to developer	❌	✅	❌
Change status → Resolved	❌	✅	✅ (own assigned ticket)
Change status → Closed	❌	✅	❌
View dashboard stats	❌	✅	❌

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API Endpoints

Auth

Method	Endpoint	Description
POST	/api/auth/login	Login, returns JWT token

Tickets

Method	Endpoint	Description	Roles
POST	/api/tickets	Create a ticket	Employee
GET	/api/tickets/{id}	Get ticket details	All (own/assigned/any)
PUT	/api/tickets/{id}	Edit a ticket	Employee (own, Open), Admin
DELETE	/api/tickets/{id}	Delete a ticket	Admin
PATCH	/api/tickets/{id}/assign	Assign to a developer	Admin
PATCH	/api/tickets/{id}/status	Change ticket status	Admin, Developer

Users

Method	Endpoint	Description	Roles
GET	/api/users/developers	List developers (for assign dropdown)	Admin

Dashboard

Method	Endpoint	Description	Roles
GET	/api/dashboard/stats	Ticket counts by status	Admin

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Getting Started

Prerequisites

• .NET 8 SDK
• SQL Server (local) or SQLite
• Visual Studio / VS Code

Setup

1. Clone the repo

   git clone https://github.com/deepak9541/helpdesk-api.git
   cd helpdesk-api

2. Copy appsettings.Example.json to appsettings.json and fill in your own values:

   {
     "ConnectionStrings": {
       "DefaultConnection": "Server=YOUR_SERVER;Database=HelpdeskDb;Trusted_Connection=True;TrustServerCertificate=True;"
     },
     "Jwt": {
       "Key": "YOUR_SECRET_KEY_AT_LEAST_32_CHARACTERS",
       "Issuer": "HelpdeskApi",
       "Audience": "HelpdeskClient",
       "ExpiryMinutes": 60
     }
   }

3. Apply migrations

   dotnet ef database update

4. Run the API

   dotnet run

5. Open Swagger UI at https://localhost:<port>/swagger

Test Accounts (seeded)

Role	Email	Password
Admin	admin@helpdesk.com	Password@123
Employee	rahul@helpdesk.com	Password@123
Employee	priya@helpdesk.com	Password@123
Developer	amit@helpdesk.com	Password@123
Developer	neha@helpdesk.com	Password@123

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Project Structure

HelpdeskApi/
├── Controllers/      # API endpoints
├── Services/          # Business logic
├── Repositories/       # Data access (Generic + Unit of Work)
├── Entities/          # Database models
├── DTOs/              # Request/response contracts
├── Enums/             # TicketStatus, TicketPriority, UserRole
└── Data/              # DbContext, migrations

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What This Project Demonstrates

• REST API design with proper HTTP verbs and status codes
• JWT authentication and role-based authorization
• Repository Pattern and Unit of Work for maintainable data access
• DTO-based API contracts (no entity leakage, no password hashes in responses)
• Business rule enforcement in the service layer (ownership checks, status-transition rules)
• EF Core Code-First migrations and relationship configuration (Fluent API)

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Future Improvements

• Ticket comments / activity history
• Filtering, search, and pagination on the ticket list
• Email notifications on assignment/status change
• Angular frontend

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Author

Deepak Gupta GitHub · Angular Developer, transitioning to Full-Stack