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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Hi Everyone,<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>First, thanks Jesse for soliciting input from the user
community; hopefully this input will improve the quality of the software.
Second, this message is not meant to be critical, as its goal to get the user
community more involved in the Request Tracker development process.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>As I reviewed the responses to this thread the one constant
I saw and kept coming to mind was better technical documentation. A fair amount
of the ideas submitted could have been easily accomplished by writing an
extension to RT or a standalone script in perl. This is easier said than done.
I have written several reporting scripts and added a few code modifications to
Request Tracker to add functionality to the code. I will say writing the code
to do this was not very easy.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>All I had to go on was looking at existing Request Tracker
code, and through trial and error, I was able to code what I wanted to do.
Sometimes the code to get certain data items amounted to less than 10 lines of
code. But, to derive the 10 lines of code could take hours. I also submitted
questions to this forum and there were folks who were very helpful when I truly
got stuck.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>What is sorely needed for Request Tracker is a true and
serious technical documentation manual. A manual that really explains all the
functions and calls used specifically in Request Tracker (libraries, etc.),
including example code. To the uninitiated looked through Request Tracker code
to figure out how to read ticket information, generate reports, etc. is not a
very pleasant experience. Fortunately, I was able to use code from various contributed
software extensions to construct reports and Request Tracker extensions by
extrapolating how something was done and applied it to what I wanted to do.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>I am surprised that there are not more contributions to the
Request Tracker archive; considering the number of sites which use Request
Tracker. Part of this reason is what is embodied in this message. A good, solid
technical manual would go a long way to improve Request Tracker because more
people will be able to understand how to construct viable code.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>In regards to handling mandatory fields, we came up with a
compromise solution. We only have folks who manage tickets the capability to
log into Request Tracker. We created a set of external CGI scripts which
capture the ticket data needed to populate a ticket. All field checking is done
within the CGI. Also, we are free to set up field widths any size we like and
format the CGI form in a more user friendly manner. Once the user submits the
ticket, the ticket is e-mailed directly into Request Tracker through the
ExtarctCustomFieldValues template (available at the Wiki). We just make sure
that the various field values are in the body of the e-mail can be detectable
by the ExtarctCustomFieldValues template. Finally, we set up an unprivileged
account called “guest”, which allows the user to view their new
ticket via e-mail and via the CGI script after they submit the ticket. We
modified all the other e-mail specific templates to include the “guest”
account user name and password in the URL. So far, we have had no issues with
tickets not being filled in properly; which has made many folks lives easier.
Finally, by using a CGI scripts and e-mail there is not direct interaction with
Request Tracker and the database.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>As for reporting, I created several scripts which provide
metrics on our queues. These scripts can produced both text based and
spreadsheet (perl model request) for management and higher up review. These
scripts used some of the programming ideas in RTX::Statistics and rt-remind.pl,
both are available on the Wiki. Some additional programming had to come by
looking at Request Tracker code itself.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>In regards to Asset Tracking and change control, we use Asset
Tracker and have a field called “Change Comments”. When a person
makes a change on the asset, they put something into “Change Comments”
which the value is placed in the Asset history. While this is not very elegant
it gets the job done. In addition, I created a set of scripts which uses SSH
tunnels to obtain configuration information from our UNIX/Linux based systems.
The data is then filtered and a report is created for each host. Another script
parses the reports and updates various custom fields for the appropriate asset
maintained in Asset Tracker. This works 99.99% of the time; however, sometimes
SSH will hang on systems which ran out of disk space. We run this script against
300 systems each night, barring SSH hangs, takes about 20 minutes to complete. With
the exception of updating custom fields in Asset Tracker, virtually all the
code does not require knowledge of the internals of Request Tracker or Asset
Tracker. As for the custom field updates, well this required bothering the
author of Asset Tracker a lot and reading through the code.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Finally, the conclusion one should reach from this message
that if there was a solid technical documentation manual, much of what is being
requested could have been developed by the user community. What is contained
herein are some of my experiences over the past 18 months; beyond that time I
never heard of Request Tracker. I believe there should be means for the user
community to be provided the tool, in this case technical documentation, to
enhance Request Tracker beyond what is provided today.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Nick<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>PS If someone tells me how to put a tar file on the Wiki, I
will be glad to provide some of the reports and code enhancements I mentioned
in this message. I would include in the tar file, a copy of the reports,
modifications to Request Tracker/Asset Tracker, modifications to
RTx::Statistics, the Asset Tracker SSH scripts and the CGI scripts. I also have
a manual I wrote for installing Request Tracker at our site including all the
enhancements we made to the Request Tracker code. My Management believes in
contributing back to the Open Source community so this would not be an issue.
Hopefully, some of these enhancements and changes will make it into Request
Tracker 4.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-indent:-7.5pt'><b><font size=1
face=Arial><span style='font-size:7.5pt;font-family:Arial;font-weight:bold'>---------------------------------------------------------------------------------</span></font></b><o:p></o:p></p>
<p style='margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-indent:-7.5pt'><b><font size=1
face=Arial><span style='font-size:8.0pt;font-family:Arial;font-weight:bold'>Nick
Metrowsky</span></font></b><b><font size=1><span style='font-size:8.0pt;
font-weight:bold'><o:p></o:p></span></font></b></p>
<p style='margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-indent:-7.5pt'><b><font size=1
face=Arial><span style='font-size:8.0pt;font-family:Arial;font-weight:bold'>Consulting
System Administrator</span></font></b><b><font size=1><span style='font-size:
8.0pt;font-weight:bold'><o:p></o:p></span></font></b></p>
<p style='margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-indent:-7.5pt'><b><font size=1
face=Arial><span style='font-size:8.0pt;font-family:Arial;font-weight:bold'>303-684-4785
Office</span></font></b><b><font size=1><span style='font-size:8.0pt;
font-weight:bold'><o:p></o:p></span></font></b></p>
<p style='margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-indent:-7.5pt'><b><font size=1
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bold'><o:p></o:p></span></font></b></p>
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face=Arial><span style='font-size:8.0pt;font-family:Arial;font-weight:bold'><a
href="mailto:nmetrowsky@digitalglobe.com"><font size=1><span style='font-size:
7.5pt'>nmetrowsky@digitalglobe.com</span></font></a></span></font></b><b><font
size=1><span style='font-size:8.0pt;font-weight:bold'><o:p></o:p></span></font></b></p>
<p style='margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-indent:-7.5pt'><b><font size=1
face=Arial><span style='font-size:7.5pt;font-family:Arial;font-weight:bold'>DigitalGlobe
®, An Imaging and Information Company</span></font></b><o:p></o:p></p>
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face=Arial><span style='font-size:8.0pt;font-family:Arial;font-weight:bold'><a
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<p style='margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-indent:-7.5pt'><b><font size=1
face=Arial><span style='font-size:7.5pt;font-family:Arial;font-weight:bold'>---------------------------------------------------------------------------------</span></font></b><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
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