[Rt-devel] Reworking SavedSearches

[Joby Walker]

I'm interested in the community's interest in a reworking of
SavedSearches that we are considering implementing.

Situation:
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The way we look at saved searches they can be broken down into 3-5 elements:

Query:  the query run to get a list of relevant tickets
Display Format: The columns displayed and any formatting (links, size)
Ordering: Which column(s) to sort by and how.
Rows/page: (part of display format?) #rows to display per page
Refresh Rate: (part of display format?) who often to refresh page

Problem:
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Currently all of these elements (we've added refresh rate) are saved as
part of a saved search.  This means that if you need two saved searches
that have the same query but need a different display format, the query
needs to be duplicated and if a change is needed it must be changed in
two locations.  I'd like to eliminate this duplication of work.

Proposal:
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I'd like to split some of the elements into separately saved attributes.
 This would mean that those parts of the saved search would be
separately composed and saved, and then the saved search would just
indicate which saved attribute it should use.  This would also help
simplify (and speed up) the Query Builder, because the separate parts
could be separate pages.

Saved searches would be composed of:

QueryAttribute -- separate attribute saved as Attr.
DisplayFormatAttribute -- The columns and formatting saved as Attr.
OrderAttribute -- ordering of columns saved as Attr.
RowsPerPage -- # of rows to display (same as current)
RefreshRate -- Add this to standard (UW already have this).

For the web interface this would mean splitting the Current Query
Builder into:

Query Builder -- 'Add Criteria' + 'Query' + Save/Load
Display Builder -- Left part of current 'Display Columns' + Save/Load
Order Builder -- Order by elements + Save/Load
SavedSearch Builder -- Select Query + Select Display + Select Order +
Rows + Refresh Rate + Save/Load.
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Any feedback, interest, etc?


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Joby Walker
ITI SSG, C&C, University of Washington