Service Desk Knowledgebase: Request Tracker (RT)

This is the Request Tracker (RT) content page of the CL Wiki Service Desk Knowledgebase. Its purpose is to provide information to the Service Desk team on how to handle problems and requests about this CL service. If you are involved with the provision of this CL service please feel free to add to the knowledge about that it.

If CL staff need to tell the Service Desk team about problems with this service please email
sys-admin-aside@cl.cam.ac.uk.

Return to the Service Desk Knowledgebase SERVICE PORTFOLIO

Key Service Description & URLs

• Info on The RT ticketing system
• The RT system is at https://rt.cl.cam.ac.uk
• Local System Information
• Email rôle addresses within the department
• Computer Laboratory News (Twitter use @UC_CL_SysAdm)

CL Customer Documentation

• N/A

Further CL Sys-Admin Documentation

• The RT system is at https://rt.cl.cam.ac.uk

Underpinning Services

• N/A

Customer-base for this Service

• All staff and students of the Computer Laboratory

Costs

• Free to all current staff and students of the Computer Laboratory

SLA

• N/A

General Service Desk Call Handling Procedure

• RT Queues to be monitored by the Help Desk are: sys-admin & email-admin to do that best configure the searches below.

• All queries concerning the operation of RT itself should go to rt-admin@cl.cam.ac.uk (AKA Chris Hadley)

• COMMENT WARNING: Do NOT CC third parties in RT Comments as they cannot reply to the email! (The reply is bounced by RT with Message not recorded (Comment)). If you need to email a third party you have to use Reply and then CC them

• Taking some actions on a ticket (e.g. Reply) automatically makes you the owner

• Stalling Tickets: To delay a ticket for automatic re-activation on a given date set the Status to Stalled then use Dates to set a Due: date and [Save Changes]. If you don't the ticket will automatically change Open overnight! [NOTE: "Due" doesn't work on the UIS RT!]

• Re-stalling tickets: If a ticket opens after being stalled you can ask: Is this an appropriate time to bring this matter up again or shall I stall the RT ticket again until a time of your choosing? and re-stall the ticket giving enough time for the requestor to reply.

• Modify the subject line in RT tickets so that it has the most meaningful keywords in it for any Subject searches (as you can't search the Content of tickets).

• Forward doesn't forward the contents so it's probably easier to use Comment and CC the email address instead.

• If an RT Ticket relates to another ticket use Links and Refers to to make the relationship obvious.

• sys-admin-aside@cl.cam.ac.uk gets emailed all the comments & replies on tickets.

• The editor in CL RT will lose what you have typed if you use the web-browser's backwards & forwards feature so copy first!

• See Service_Desk_Knowledgebase:_Request_Tracker_(RT)#Configuring_CL_RT Configuring CL RT for how to get CL RT more like UIS RT.

Contacts

Primary

• rt-admin@cl.cam.ac.uk (AKA Chris Hadley)

Availability

• Monday:
• Tuesday:
• Wednesday:
• Thursday:
• Friday:
• Saturday: Closed
• Sunday: Closed

Hints, Tips & Known Issues

Simple Search

Graham Titmus (02/06/15)

Simple search only searches tickets that are not resolved!

To get around this do the following:

1. Search, Tickets, Simple Search
2. Type what you are searching for in the search box
3. Click on the [Search] button
4. Click on Edit Search
5. In the Current search box click on the first (
6. Click the [Delete] button
7. Click on Show Results and the ticket should show up.

Configuring CL RT

Vince Woodley (20/03/15)

The following probably need configuring in the default instance of CL RT to make it more like UIS RT:

1) Turn off the HTML editor & re-order the events:
Logged in as CRSid , Settings, Preferences, Ticket composition, WYSIWYG message composer: (*) No, Ticket display, Show oldest history first: (*) No, [Save Changes]

2) Create a search of the sys-admin & email-admin queues:
Search, Tickets, New Search, Advanced, paste in the following:

 ( Queue = 'sys-admin' OR Queue = 'email-admin' ) 
 AND Owner = 'Nobody' 
 AND (  Status = 'new' OR Status = 'open' )

[Apply], Description: Unowned Sys/Email-Admin Tickets, [Save]

3) Create a search of the non-rejected/resolved sys-admin & email-admin tickets:
Search, Tickets, New Search, Advanced, paste in the following:

 ( Queue = 'sys-admin' OR Queue = 'email-admin' ) 
 AND Owner = 'Nobody'
 AND Status != 'rejected' 
 AND Status != 'resolved'

[Apply], Description: All non-rejected/resolved sys-admin & email-admin tickets, [Save]

4) Monitor the sys-admin & email-admin queues:
Logged in as CRSid , Settings, RT at a glance, RT at a glance: body then:

• In Available: select Saved Search: Unowned Sys/Email-Admin Tickets, [-->], in the right-hand box select Saved Search: All non-rejected/resolved sys-admin & email-admin tickets, [up-arrow] to above Unowned Systems Tickets
• In Available: select Saved Search: All non-rejected/resolved sys-admin & email-admin tickets, [-->], in the right-hand box select Saved Search: Unowned Sys/Email-Admin Tickets, [up-arrow] to below Unowned Systems Tickets

finish with Rows per box: 100, [Save]

Categorising Keywords

• Request Tracker RT Job-ticketing System