It was developed for inventory and order control management of interoffice trunk circuits that interconnect telephone switches.
It grew to encompass and automate many functions required to build the ever-expanding data transport network.
Supporting circuits from POTS and 150 baud modems up through T1, DS3, SONET and DWDM, it continues to evolve today, and unlike many software technologies today, provides complete backward compatibility.
TIRKS was recently updated with a Java GUI, XML API, and WORD Sketch, which provides graphical views of the TIRKS Work Order Record and Details Document as well as SONET and DWDM networks.
TIRKS was one of many OSS technologies transferred to Bell Communications Research as part of the Modification of Final Judgment related to the AT&T divestiture on January 1, 1984.