[rt-users] RT <-> Trac integration

[Lander, Scott]

 Jesse,

    We are still working on exactly what we want as far as syncing, or, if that is even what we want to do.   We would much prefer to keep it all within RT, but, right now, I can't see a good way to do it.   There is too much free form information that RT doesn't seem well adapted to taking.

     As an example, when handling a change control, we have to document the servers (want a linked asset), the software, the person handling the change, the time and date of the change, the change description,  the change procedure (usually an attachment, but, could be just a few lines of text for an easy one..), the backout procedure,  testing data, and any procedures modifed (separate linked ticket), along with a few more details, and a raft of signatures....    This is currently done mostly manually, via paper forms.

    I am researching how to do this electronically, and how to use RT to control the whole process.    The signatures part is handled via the Authorize mechanism, and every one seems ok with that.   But, how to capture the rest of this is complicated.

    I have looked at forms (as in Xforms (orbeon), or Web 2.0 forms), and other ideas, and one is trac.   We use trac for other things anyways - more for the wiki then the ticketing, though!   But, a second look at trac makes it look like MAYBE we could use the ticketing side for the docuementation part of this project.   The most obvious problems are that the ticket numbers would not match, so, passing __id__ as part of a link in a CF to bring up the related TRAC ticket won't work.    Someone suggested manually typing the trac ticket into the CF, and using the __customField__ value, and, that works, sort of...   I didn't want the users to have to manually do the linking, and so far, I haven't really found a good way to link back from the trac ticket...   And all this is is a web link.  Nothing very substantial!

  So.....   Anyone have any better ideas?    Either for the whole project, or for the small piece of the project?   I am, essentially, in day one of a fairly large project - just in the research phase of what is possible.   Great time for new ideas!

Thanks
Scott




-----Original Message-----
From: Jesse Vincent [mailto:jesse at bestpractical.com]
Sent: Thursday, September 24, 2009 5:43 PM
To: Lander, Scott
Cc: rt-users at lists.bestpractical.com
Subject: Re: [rt-users] RT <-> Trac integration




On Wed, Sep 23, 2009 at 11:44:25PM -0400, Lander, Scott wrote:
> All,
>
>    I have a need to link together RT tickets and Trac tickets.    Essentially, we do our change control within Trac.   So, in RT, I have a CF "Change Control", which, if  set, I would like to have it link to the Trac ticket.

Can you explain a bit more about how you want the linkage to work? If you're up for trying out some "new" technology, our side-project, "SD", which you can get from http://syncwith.us is a P2P issue tracking system which can sync to RT and can sync to trac. With a little bit of care and a little bit of automation, you could sync all tickets (and ticket
updates) from trac into RT.  If it's important to push updates back to trac, that's doable too.

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