[rt-users] Offline Edits Documentation Anywhere?

[Steve_McStravick at BreconRidge.com]

I had problem finding documentation on this as well, but I've managed to
use it to import a pile of ticket from our old WREQ system.
>From what I understand you can't just import a .csv file, you must first
convert it to the RT Template format.  For me I imported the WREQ data into
a temporary database table, then created a script that converted it to the
correct format.
First the format:
"A good example can be found in the "Manual Approvals" document on WIKI.
The template you need is "CreateTickets"
e.g.
===Create-Ticket: <identifier> (note this must be unique for every ticket
in your template
Queue: Desktop Support  (note this must already be defined)
Status: open
Owner:  me                     (note the owners must already be defined in
RT as well)
Requestor : me at dontemailme.com   (these users will be auto created as
watchers, no need to pre-populate)
Content: BLAH BLAH
ENDOFCONTENT
...  (more fields are available, as per the documentation in "Manual
Approvals"
===Create-Ticket: <identifier2>
Queue: Customer Sales
Status: open
Content: BLAH BLAH
ENDOFCONTENT
...

As for the custom field question...yes you can add them too,
First defined them in RT and assign them to the queue(s) you are importing
data to.
Then figure out what the queue id is in RT, then in the template just
include:
i.e. if LOE has a custom field id = 5

CustomField-5: <custom field value>

A couple of issues I had, that didn't work so well, were importing
"Resolved" tickets.  It creates them as status "new", then resolves them,
and resets all of the dates.  The only way I've figured out how to correct
this is to do some direct database updates against the Transactions &
Tickets table to correct the dates after the import.  The open tickets seem
to work ok though.
It's slow, at least when your pulling in a lot of tickets.
Also turn off your email on RT while you import, otherwise all of your
requestors will be emailed on all of their previous requests.

Steve McStravick

I.S.
BreconRidge Manufacturing Solutions
500 Palladium Drive
Ottawa, ON K2V 1C2
613-886-6842

>Hi,
>
>            I wrote in a few weeks ago regarding pre-populating my RT
>database with information that I'm currently tracking in a spreadsheet.
>Someone (thanks, Steve) suggested using the "Tools => Offline Edits"
>functionality.  I'm finally at the point where I'm looking into how to
>do that, but can't seem to find any documentation on the feature.
>Specifically, my questions are:
>
>-Is it possible to populate a custom field?  If so, how do I do so?  I
>don't know what my fields are stored as in the back-end DB, but they're
>called "Target Release" "LOE", and so on.  I imagine the back-end fields
>don't have spaces in them, but am not sure how to set up the template.
>-What format does my upload file need to be in?  I think it's a text
>file, but I don't know how it should be delimited, etc.  I'd rather use
>an Excel spreadsheet, but in any case my guess is that the fields in my
>file need to match up with the fields in the template.
>
>            Any assistance you can provide will be greatly appreciated.
>Thanks in advance for your help...
>
>
>-John
>
>Running RT 3.4.2 on Slackware
>
>--
>John Kaczala
>Upoc Networks, Inc.
>536 Broadway, 3rd Floor
>New York, NY  10012
>johnk at upocnetworks.com <mailto:johnk at upocnetworks.com>
>646-291-6279 (office)
>Upoc handle: jsk