[rt-devel] Best practice to add link or custom field

[Matt Zagrabelny]

Hey Bart,

On Mon, Feb 27, 2017 at 4:55 AM, Bart Bunting <bart at bunting.net.au> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> We have been using RT for multiple years and had written our own inhouse
> custom module for tracking customers.  It's based on rt 3.6 so very much
> out of date.
>
> We now have a custom built customer portal and need to link RT 4.4 to it.
>
> I have been considering multiple approaches, one is to use a custom
> field and the other is to create a RT link type that lets us link tickets
> to the external portal.
>
> I know that the custom field approach is well documented and using
> categories  I think I can almost achieve what I'm after but not 100%
> sure.
>
> I want to be able to associate a ticket with multiple customer sites and
> then to be easily able to remove them if desired.
>
> The idea would be that you add a new link or custom field value by first
> choosing the customer then selecting from a list of their sites.

I am nearly 100% sure that this used to exist. It may still, but I
can't find it. IIRC, there is/was a cascading style select boxes where
you choose a category in the first select box and that populates the
next level of select boxes with values based on that category.

> If I do this with a custom link type as we used to do then I have a
> check box that can be used to remove any I no longer want.

For custom fields (CFs), there are different types. For instance, I
think you'll probably want to go with "Select Multiple Values". There
is a "render as" option for "Select Multiple Values" where you can
choose "List" and then it will render as checkboxes. The down-side is
that I don't believe that "categories" work with "render as list". You
could always build a customer abbreviation into the list values:

[x] McD - Sales Department
[ ] McD - Potato Division
[ ] McD - Recruitment
[x] KFC - Coleslaw Research Division
.
.
.
etc.

> I'm not sure how to achieve the same with a custom field.
>
>
> Firstly, is it possible to do what I want using the existing custom
> field infrastructure?

This is just my wild guess of an opinion...

Out of the gate with no customizations, I think you could probably get
80% of what you want. Perhaps your staff would be willing to tweak
their workflow meet at that 80%.

With customizations, I'm sure you could get 100% of what you want with CFs.

> Is it a good or bad idea to do it using a custom link type?

I'm not sure. Sorry.

-m