You could have staff use their own address when opening the ticket or you could have everyone use a specific fake address. (phone@yourdomain or refused@yourdomain) This would have the benefit of being track-able later for reporting purposes .
Your other choice would be to alter the source and make it not required. It's important to note that making these changes listed just below will make email not required for everyone. I have no idea what this will do in v1.7x. People have done things like this in 1.6ST successfully.
\include\staff\ticket-open.inc.php
line 22:
<td width="160" class="required">
remove the class=required.
\include\class.ticket.php
line 1594:
$fields = array('type'=>'email', 'required'=>1, 'error'=>'Valid email required');
change 1 to 0
\include\class.ticket.php
line 1848:
$fields = array('type'=>'email', 'required'=>1, 'error'=>'Valid email required');
change 1 to 0.
IMPORTANT NOTE: this change will make it so that clients do not have to enter email addresses also.
A better solution would probably be to change the requirement based on if staff...
something like:
if(defined('OSTSCPINC') || $thisstaff || $ticket)) {
$fields = array('type'=>'email', 'required'=>0, 'error'=>'Valid email required');
}
else {
$fields = array('type'=>'email', 'required'=>1, 'error'=>'Valid email required');
}
I do not advocate or support or recommend that you do any of this, and quite plainly it this breaks your osticket I'm not responsible. Always make backups before you attempt anything like this.