[rt-users] Custom Field issue

[John A. Walker]

OK ... We are running RT 3.4.5 and I'm having trouble trying to achieve 
something that we want to do.  I think I'm close but I just need a little 
help to get over the edge.

Basically, for specific queues, we have a custom field that contains a list 
of users.  The list of users is a list of people that can approve 
tickets.  When a user is selected an approval ticket is generated for the 
specified user.  If no one is selected (no value) then it creates the 
ticket normally.  This part works fine.

We realized that if someone might create the ticket initially not thinking 
that it needs to be approved and then discover that it approval is 
required.  We wanted to make it so a user could go back and select an 
approver and generate the approval request as it would if it were done at 
the original creation of the ticket.

What I was thinking I could do is compare the old value of the custom field 
with the current value of the custom field and if they had changed I could 
return 1 and run the approval template.  If this can be done, I would also 
want to check to see if the new value was "no value" and if it were then I 
would return 0.

I have searched the archives and can come up with stuff that is close but 
nothing that actually does a check on the old value of a custom field 
within the scrip.  Part of the problem is that I'm not entirely sure what 
the proper syntax of referring to the fields and their values.  So if there 
is some place that can give me a break down of how to do this that would be 
great.


Here is the contents of the User Defined Condition as it works on the 
creation of a ticket:

if (($self->TransactionObj->Type eq "Create") and 
($self->TicketObj->FirstCustomFieldValue('Approval required by:') =~ /\w/)) {
      return 1;
}
return 0;


Here is the contents of the template that is called by the above scrip:

===Create-Ticket: manager-approval
Subject:     Approval of { $Tickets{'TOP'}->Subject() }
Queue:       ___Approvals
Type:        approval
Owner:       { $Tickets{'TOP'}->FirstCustomFieldValue('Approval required 
by:') }
Depended-On-By:  { $Tickets{'TOP'}->Id() }
RefersTo:    { $Tickets{'TOP'}->Id() }
Content:     Please review and approve this request.
ENDOFCONTENT



I was attempting to add further checks in the scrip that basically look to 
see if the transaction type is not equal to "Create" .  If that was the 
case then I would look at the custom field value ('Approval required by:') 
and see if it had changed.

I sure hope someone has something I can run with.  I don't even have to 
have the complete answer.  Just point me in the right direction.  Any help 
would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks
John