Request Tracker User Guide

Creating a New Ticket

This section will generally describe how to create a new ticket in RT. Be sure to check with your Queue Administrator for any procedures they have implemented for their queue. For example, the Queue Administrator may not want a user to assign an owner to a ticket.

To create a new ticket, select the queue of your choice from the New ticket in dropdown menu on the top right of the screen and click the New Ticket in button.

The next page displayed will be the Create a new ticket page:

This page (shown above) defaults to Show the basics view with the following fields:

Queue	This should already be filled in for you.
Status	Generally, you'll leave this at the default, new. However, you might sometimes need to create a ticket to record a past occurrence or a problem that's already being worked on, so you might choose one of the other options from the dropdown menu.
Owner	You can give the ticket an owner or leave this blank and let someone claim it later.
Requestors	The default email address will be yours. Fill in any others if needed.
Cc AdminCc	If you don't know what these are for, see the Concepts section in Chapter 1: Introduction.
Subject	A short description of the ticket.
Custom Fields	All custom fields applied to this queue.
Attach file	The location of an attachment to the ticket. Be sure the location is accessible to anyone who has access to the ticket; i.e., on a Share drive.
Description	Explain why this ticket exists.

If you click Show details or scroll to the bottom of the page, you'll be brought to the optional but potentially useful fields Priority, Final Priority, Time Worked, Time Left, fields for dates (Starts and Due), and fields for each relationship (Depends on, Depended on by, Parents, Children, Refers to, Referred to by).

When you're done filling in fields, click the Create button to make the ticket.

Replying and Commenting

There are two ways you can respond to a ticket. By default, a reply can be seen by the public but a comment can be hidden from the requestor or any group. Comments and replies are retained permanently under the ticket's History.

To write something about a ticket, first make sure you are within one of the ticket's edit pages (Display, History, Basics...) then click Comment or Reply in the upper right of the page.
This will display the Reply page:

Note: The Comments page looks the same except that the Update Type is Comments (Not sent to anyone).
You'll see dropdown menus for Status and Owner. You probably won't need to change the defaults here and you must have the “ModifyTicket” privilege to do so.
There will also be a text box for how many minutes the ticket has been worked on. Fill this in if you want to or if you are supposed to be logging your time.
The Update Type dropdown menu will be automatically set to “Comments (Not sent to requestors)” or “Reply to requestors”, depending on whether you clicked Comment or Reply as your first step. You can select the other option if you've changed your mind.
As for the other fields, we'll assume you have a working knowledge of email. RT correspondence has some fields that should be familiar to email users, such as Subject, CC, BCC, Attachments, and Message. The Subject field may be automatically filled in with the name of the ticket.
Note: email addresses in the CC and BCC fields of replies and comments will not automatically receive future updates. These are the “Others” referred to as a recipient option for notifications.
Enter your comment or reply in the Message field, and when everything's done, click the Update Ticket button.
You'll be brought back to the ticket's Display page, with a status message on top that says your comment or reply has been sent/recorded, or that there is a problem and it hasn't.
If you entered a signature in Preferences (in top navigation bar on right) it will appear by default at the bottom of all your comments and replies.
To quote the text of an existing comment or reply, find the existing reply or comment in the ticket’s History section and click on Reply or Comment next to it. The quoted text will appear inline on your reply. Caveat: quoted text is added to the history along with your reply, so use this feature sparingly.
Note: What can confuse users is who gets emails when replies and comments are submitted. By default, RT sends email to all configured recipients except the user who initiated the email (except when a ticket is initially created). A requestor gets a Reply email unless the requestor is the one replying. Comments, by default, are not emailed (except when making a Resolve comment); however, they can be configured to.

Updating Multiple Tickets (Bulk Update)

Sometimes you may need to make a change to several tickets at once.

There's an easy way to do this:

Locate the tickets you want (see the Searching section of this chapter for help) and click Update multiple tickets (bottom right of screen) or Bulk Update (far right of navigation bar).

You'll be sent to a Bulk ticket update page where you can add a comment or reply to all the tickets, or change the tickets' owner, requestors, Cc, Admin Cc, subject, priority, queue, status, start date, due date, resolved date, Custom Fields, and ticket links.

Click the Update All button when you're done.

Resolving a Ticket

If a ticket has been completed and doesn't need any more work, you can resolve it by clicking Resolve in the upper right of one of the ticket's edit pages (Display, History, Basics...).

This takes you to a comment form (see above Replying and Commenting section) but sets the Status dropdown menu to Resolved.

You're encouraged to use the Message text box to explain why you're resolving the ticket. In this instance, DO NOT change the “Update Type” to “Reply”. Leave it as “Comment (not sent to requestors)”. Normally, comments are not sent to requestors. However, in this instance we made an exception and modified the Resolve notification to include the Resolve comment into the notification.
When you're done, click the “Update Ticket” button, not the “Save Ticket” button.
You'll be brought to the ticket's Display page and told the comment has been recorded and ticket has been resolved (or not, if there is a problem).

Chapter 7:

Email Interface

The earliest versions of RT worked almost exclusively by email and it is still possible to interact with RT almost entirely by email.
Each queue in RT is assigned a specific email address. That email address can be used to communicate with the queue. You can send email to RT and RT can respond by sending email back to you.
New users to RT must log into the RT web interface before they can send email to RT. This is required to validate new users (LDAP password) and activate their RT accounts. RT will not accept email without this activation.
Important: Signature files must be removed from emails sent to RT. Such emails will be rejected.

Creating a Ticket (using E_mail interface)

The easiest way to create a ticket in RT is to send an email to a queue’s email address. The email subject becomes the ticket subject and the body of the email is entered into the ticket history. The person sending the email is logged as the Requestor and receives an email back from RT that a ticket was created. It’s as simple as that.

Queue Administrators decide if they want users to send email requests directly to RT or not and will set privileges accordingly. If you are not sure if you have this capability, check with the Queue Administrator for the queue you want to use.
Note: Some RT users will forward an email request to RT and cc: other users in the same email. If you do this, you should warn the cc:ed users to NOT REPLY ALL if they want to respond to your email. If they REPLY ALL, their reply will be sent to RT possibly triggering RT to create another new ticket.
It is best to place the RT queue email address in the BCC portion of your email message. This way if users reply back to your message, RT will not trigger a new ticket.

Appending to an Existing Ticket

You can send an email to your queue and have the contents of the email (including attachments) appended to an existing ticket. To do this, you must include on the subject line of the email:

[xxx.xxx #NNNN]
where NNNN is the existing ticket number.

Any deviation from this format will result in the creation of a new ticket. It may appear anywhere on the subject line. As long as it is formatted correctly, the email contents will append to the proper ticket history.

Correspondence

Correspondence for tickets triggers email from RT. A reply in RT is emailed to the Requestor and to any other watchers that have been configured (see Notifications) for that queue or added to the reply. Comments are not, by default, emailed; however, they can be configured so that they are.

Notifications

Notifications are emails generated by RT in response to some action and/or condition. For example, when a ticket is resolved, an email is sent to the Requestor notifying them that the work has been completed.

If you are not getting the kind of correspondence you would like for your tickets, then contact your Queue Administrator and discuss it.

Chapter 8:

Support

The IS Technical Services group is responsible for the general administration and maintenance of the Request Tracker application. They will create and configure queues and groups and coordinate any customizations as appropriate for use in IS. They will also help troubleshoot any problems you have.
Because many problems can be traced to access privileges, please contact your Queue Administrator first when reporting a problem. For example, if you cannot change the value of a field, it may be because the Queue Administrator did not give you that privilege.

Support Website

An excellent source for Request Tracker information is the support website:

https://your web-site/systems/rt/
You will find this document there along with other additional documentation: how to request a new queue or custom field, what the RT Support Team is working on, or review tips and frequently asked questions.
Tip: The latest revisions of documentation and other RT news will always be available on this website. Always check here first.

Reporting Problems

To report Request Tracker problems, sent email to “your email address”.

To contact someone in person, call a member of the RT Project Team.

• 
  Bob1, x9999
  
• 
  Bob2, x9999
  
• 
  Bob3, x9999
  

R equest Tracker v 3.6.4 User Guide Rev. December 15, 2007