[rt-users] Validation of workflow

[Eric Horne]

I'm using RT 3.4.4 fairly successfully at my company to handle day to 
day requests for my group. Some of these requests involve multiple 
groups (setting up for a new build, for example). So we've implemented a 
kind of workflow where the initial ticket is created, work is done, and 
when it reaches a certain milestone (as indicated by the owner of the 
ticket via transaction custom fields) another ticket is created so that 
part of the setup can be started in parallel. That second ticket is 
created in a different queue and copies some of the custom field values 
out of the original.

We've found that there are times when the owner says the work has 
reached the milestone, but have not completely filled in all the 
required custom fields. Interally, we use the custom fields to record 
and communicate attributes of the work (build location, for example), so 
when that information is missing, people get confused.

The owner indicates the milestone as a yes/no custom field on 
transactions. There is a Scrip that fires if there is a transaction 
custom field is set to "yes" and that creates the new ticket in the 
other queue.

What I'd like is one of the following, and I was wondering if anyone has 
either implemented these or has any other ideas.

1)If the custom field was conditionally available on the WebRT form 
based on some generic condition (like the build location is not null), 
we can prevent anyone from indicating that milestone until criteria have 
been met.

2) There is an opportunity to feedback to the user that the milestone 
change is not valid prior to committing the transaction (in other words, 
the transaction is conditionally allowed to proceed). If the transaction 
fails to meet some criteria (generic condition code), it provides 
immediate feedback to the owner about why. This would obviously force 
the owner to meet criteria prior to setting the milestone.

One problem we think we have with using scrips as they exist now is that 
the mechanism to create the second ticket may occur before the 
"milestone is valid" check. We could combine the two scrips into one, 
but then feedback is not very effective (send e-mail saying hey this 
didn't work). The fear is that the owner will in his mind think he is 
done, delete the e-mail stating he's not, resolve the ticket and never 
really create the second ticket.

Any thoughts? Any other suggestions?

Thanks

-Eric






-eric