[rt-users] editing tickets (comments and replies) - I know the answer, but dont understand why...

[Adrian Carter]

At the risk of Biting...

I support the "NO" basis, even though I regularly go "Doh... if only I 
could edit that..." . Management used to complain a bit.. but theres a 
simple solution: Tell them its just like an Accounting System: No 
Deletion, Only Adjustments. As soon as they see the parrallels between a 
ticketing system used to track events and maintain an 'audit trail' and 
their 'oh so precious' Accounting system that essentially behaves the 
same in this regard its all good.

And why is it important ? Because RT provides full audit trails, and 
other things which are very handy from a legal perspective. More than 
once I've dagged tickets and their entire comment history out and 
managed to 'head someone off at the pass' purely with the data that can 
be provided and can be provided "as presented" with no possibility of it 
having been altered.

The moment you add the 'concept' even of being able to edit 'inplace' 
tickets, it breaks the whole potnetial integrity of the historical 
accuracy of the tickets - How can you prove that was the original ticket 
and not an altered/doctored version if any old person could edit it?

This is why, like with accounting, nothing is ever "deleted".. even 
monumental stuff ups... They just get "adjusted".

I guess it also comes down to use. I use RT for tracking user support 
queries, processing some tasks, and tracking some orders between 
vendors. For this reason, I dont want it to be ABLE to be altered.

Maybe if you understand the full ramifications and potential impacts and 
pitfalls of having editable tickets, and see it as no issue for 
yourself, then go for it, and implement it yourself. Its not that 
difficult - in fact I think there is some contrib patches floating 
around to enable you to do what you want.

Thats my whole $0.02 worth

Adrian

Duncan Shannon wrote:

> Hi-
>
> I'd like to discuss why RT doesnt allow for editing the the comments 
> and correspondance for any give ticket.
>  
> I searched thru the archives, and there are a couple threads that when 
> people ask if you can, the answer is one of two things:
>  
> 1) No.
>  
> 2) No, its against the "philosophy" or RT3 (or Ticketing Systems).
>  
> Is anyone up for a discussion on why the answers are that way? I feel 
> that the capability should be there, and should be a permissions setting.
>  
> I dont see any reason why the editing of ticket comments or 
> correspondance shouldnt be a feature of RT (or ticketing systems).
>  
> Done right, it can be a very good thing. It can provide:
>  
> * cleaning up of tickets for readability
> * condensing tickets to take out any fluff
> * removing of mistakes (oops, i replied to the wrong ticket kind of thing)
>  
> Sure, I get that it could be used for evil, but so could other parts 
> of the system.
>  
> So, i know that the archives say the answer is NO, but i'd like to 
> challenge that and see if anyone will bite and debate it.
>  
> duncan
>
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-- 
Adrian Carter
Technical Manager
Leading Edge Internet

Web	  http://www.lei.net.au http://support.lei.net.au
Direct    +61 2 6163 6162  Support 1 300 662 415
E-mail    cartera at lei.net.au


-- 
Adrian Carter
Technical Manager
Leading Edge Internet

Web	  http://www.lei.net.au http://support.lei.net.au
Direct    +61 2 6163 6162  Support 1 300 662 415
E-mail    cartera at lei.net.au

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