[rt-users] Using RT to track outgoing requests

[Adam Clarke]

On 27/04/2011, at 2:38 PM, Nathan Ward wrote:

> I imagine this is a common problem, but I can't find anything by searching the archives - I've tried a number of different search terms but don't hit anything useful.
> 
> I support a number of customers who I look after various IT things for. I often want to send an email to someone who I need to work with for a customer, for example, I manage a web/email server for a customer and need to email the company who runs the customer's desktop machines etc. as a new request initiated by me ("I've noticed this problem, here's what we should do to fix" type of thing).
> 
> If I create a new ticket in the web interface and add the 3rd party as a requestor, they get a somewhat confusing Autoreply message back. That's not ideal.
> If I create a new ticket in the web interface and add the 3rd party as a CC, and myself as a requestor, that works OK but I have to reply to a ticket in order to get the email to the customer.
> 
> I could also create a ticket with email, and CC the other person, but they'll hit reply to all (or just reply) and emails will go outside the ticketing system and/or create new tickets which is not ideal.
> 
> 
> I have wanted to do this in the past in other situations, for example as an ISP I've wanted to send a message to another ISP, or to a transit provider or something, to arrange a change in our interconnection/peering. I'd prefer these thing to be tracked in RT, instead of my personal mail.
> 
> 
> What are other people doing for this sort of thing?

We produced a template called AutoreplyOrCorresponence. It checks to see if the creator is the same as one of the requestors on ticket creation. If so it just loads and processes the Autoreply template searching first in the current queue and if there isn't one there resorting to our global version.

If the requestor is not the creator then it processes the Correspondence template instead doing the same search as above.

The effect of using this template is that if a ticket is created on behalf of a customer they receive the message you create (on ticket creation) as if it is a reply rather than the default cryptic auto-reply. I think this is exactly what you are looking for?

If so we'll spend a bit of time adding a few comments and document our setup on the RT Wiki.

Cheers
--
Adam Clarke
www.strategicdata.com.au
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