[rt-users] Preserving requestor/user information on a per-ticket basis

[Melanie Humphrey]

I have a request to modify RT to preserve the requestor's user information
(phone, email, department, etc) on a per-ticket basis, in a way that makes
this information sortable, searchable, etc. per ticket. Put another way,
even when the users' info in the users table is updated, the information
that was current at the time the ticket in question was created is
preserved, forevermore, along with the ticket.

This seems easy enough to do by adding global custom fields for the desired
information, and pulling the info into the fields from the users table at
ticket creation. What has been bothering me about this approach is that
there are plans to pull reporting data out of the mysql database directly
with external (non-UNIX) tools. Hence the thought that we should be adding
these columns to the database's ticket table so it more compatible with this
kind of external access at the risk of being less rt-compatible in the
future. 

I am a UNIX sysadmin, not an SQL programmer, so I appeal to those on the
list with database skills. What do y'all think?

/msh


-- 
Melanie Humphrey
UNIX Support Analyst
melanie.humphrey at ualberta.ca
780-492-8618