[rt-users] Approvals in 3.8.2

[J Alexson]

On Fri, 2009-02-13 at 13:28 +0000, Alex Young wrote:
> Thanks for the info.
> 
> The way I had hoped to use it was having a "Approval" button on the ticket screen, and when pressed it would send all the info to the create new ticket/depends on screen with "Management Approvals" This bit works. I thought I would need separate approval queues for different groups of people.
> 

My knowledge of the approvals system is admittedly limited, but it
sounds feasible.  Hopefully somebody more knowledgable can comment . . .

> So if I add Queue: ___Approvals to every template in the Management approvals queue, it should work correctly? They are just copies of the ones from the ___Approvals queue.
> 
> So should I remove the scrips from the Management Approvals queue?
> 

To clarify how my system is setup and works (under 3.8.2):

-  I have a queue for every individual who can approve a ticket.
-  Each one of those queues has exactly one template named "Create
Approval".  This template looks almost identical to the examples seen in
the wiki and the RT Essentials book, except the Queue: is always
_Approvals
- Each queue has exactly two scrips:  one that responds to the "On
Create" and the other that responds to the "On Queue Change" events.
(both using the Create Approval template)
- I have no other scrips or templates in the queues
- Other than some cosmetic changes, the templates and scrips in the
___Approvals are pretty much left untouched.
- When a ticket needs to be approved, it can either be created directly
in the approving users' queue, or an existing ticket can be moved there
from the Basics screen.

I'm sure some more complex mods can be setup, such as the one you're
making, but this seems to work pretty well for generic approvals.

Again, hopefully somebody more knowledgable than me can comment on this.

Good luck!

John Alexson

 
> Thanks,
> Alex
> 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: John Alexson [mailto:jalexson at jajxn.net] 
> Sent: 13 February 2009 12:02
> To: Alex Young
> Cc: rt-users at lists.bestpractical.com
> Subject: Re: [rt-users] Approvals in 3.8.2
> 
> On Fri, 2009-02-13 at 10:46 +0000, Alex Young wrote:
> > I had the approval system working in 3.8.1, but for some reason it no
> > longer works in 3.8.2 as expected.
> > 
> >  
> > 
> > If a new ticket is created in our approval queue “Management
> > Approvals” it sends out a normal ticket email, not the approval email.
> > 
> >  
> 
> I was a bit confused by the revamped approvals in 3.8.2 as well --
> especially the lack of scrips for the ___Approvals queue.  It seems
> these actions are now hardcoded into the system -- at least for the
> default actions (I'm sure somebody can elaborate more and far better
> than me on this)
> 
> Here's how I got mine to work:
> 
> - Enable the ___Approvals queue
> - In your templates for your approval queues, ensure that you have
> "Queue: ___Approvals" specified. 
> - Once the approval ticket got created in ___Approvals, everything
> started falling into place.
> 
> Most of the examples I had seen show using a custom queue here, but that
> didn't seem to be necessary with 3.8.2.
> 
> You probably understand this stuff already, but for benefit of other
> confused semi-newbs like myself:
> 
> I suppose my biggest stumbling block to figuring this out was my lack of
> understanding of same of the basic concepts of the Approvals system in
> general. The biggest one being that for every approval, there's actually
> TWO tickets:  The first being the normal ticket itself you want
> approved. This is the one that gets created or moved into your
> "Management Approvals" queue.  The second is a semi-hidden specialized
> ticket that gets put in the __Approvals queue (or possibly a queue you
> created prior to 3.8.2).  This is the ticket you see when clicking on
> the Approvals link and has the Approve, Deny, Notes, etc. fields.
> 
> Like most things, this seems obvious once you know it, but piecing it
> together in the beginning can be a little tricky and frustrating. :-)   
> 
> Good luck!
> 
> John Alexson
> 
> > 
> > In the “Management Approvals” queue there is a scrip:
> > 
> > When an approval ticket is created, notify the Owner and AdminCc of
> > the item awaiting their approval
> >               $self->TicketObj->Type eq 'approval'   and
> > 
> >               $self->TransactionObj->Field eq 'Status'         and
> > 
> >               $self->TransactionObj->NewValue eq 'open'   and
> > 
> >               eval { $T::Approving =
> > ($self->TicketObj->AllDependedOnBy( Type => 'ticket' ))[0] }
> > 
> >  
> > 
> > I had a look at the ___Approvals queue to see if it had changed, to
> > find no Scrips at all. There were some updated templates, which I
> > copied over to “Management Approvals”.
> > 
> >  
> > 
> > I know a small change was listed in the change log for 3.8.2; has this
> > impacted my system?
> > 
> >  
> > 
> > Anyone have a clue why the approvals don’t work as expected? I don’t
> > think they are being marked as an Approval either, as they just show
> > up as a normal ticket and not in the Approvals page.
> > 
> > 
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