A few small changes I'd like to make to our RT

I’m still evaluating RT for use at Minerva, and I’ve run into a few requests
from IT staff. First, is there any way I can easily hide the comment, brief
headers and full headers, and the Download links from the ticket display
(both for self service and the Admin UI.) Also, I’d like if users can set
the priority of the ticket, instead of IT initially so we can get an idea of
how soon it will be required. Additionally, it doesn’t seem that the
Requestor field is being auto set, which means that tickets don’t show up in
the ticket owner’s self service UI.

Gary L. Greene, Jr.
IT Operations
Minerva Networks, Inc.
Cell: (650) 704-6633
Phone: (408) 240-1239

I’m still evaluating RT for use at Minerva, and I’ve run into a few requests
from IT staff. First, is there any way I can easily hide the comment, brief
headers and full headers, and the Download links from the ticket display
(both for self service and the Admin UI.) Also, I’d like if users can set
the priority of the ticket, instead of IT initially so we can get an idea of
how soon it will be required. Additionally, it doesn’t seem that the
Requestor field is being auto set, which means that tickets don’t show up in
the ticket owner’s self service UI.

Some more information since I last posted this…

I’ve gotten the Forwarding feature disabled as requested by my staff, but I
still cannot seem to turn off the Comment, Full Headers, and Download links.
We still need a way that our users can set the priority since we have a
small IT staff and having a Queue Manager isn’t an option.

This is with RT 3.8.1. Thanks.

Gary L. Greene, Jr.
IT Operations
Minerva Networks, Inc.
Cell: (650) 704-6633
Phone: (408) 240-1239

Sounds like you want to turn off at least “ShowTicketComments” and “ShowOutgoingEmail”.
You might currently have them turned on in Configuration->Group Rights.
For Unpriviledged Users, you might only want CreateTicket, ShowTicket, and maybe ModifyCustomField, SeeCustomField, and no rights at all assigned for “Everyone”. Obviously, this is not right for everyone, but, it might be a starting point for you.-----Original Message-----
From: rt-users-bounces@lists.bestpractical.com [mailto:rt-users-bounces@lists.bestpractical.com] On Behalf Of Gary Greene
Sent: Tuesday, October 20, 2009 2:10 PM
To: Gary Greene; RT Users
Subject: Re: [rt-users] A few small changes I’d like to make to our RT…

On 10/19/09 4:48 PM, “Gary Greene” ggreene@minervanetworks.com wrote:

I’m still evaluating RT for use at Minerva, and I’ve run into a few
requests from IT staff. First, is there any way I can easily hide the
comment, brief headers and full headers, and the Download links from
the ticket display (both for self service and the Admin UI.) Also, I’d
like if users can set the priority of the ticket, instead of IT
initially so we can get an idea of how soon it will be required.
Additionally, it doesn’t seem that the Requestor field is being auto
set, which means that tickets don’t show up in the ticket owner’s self service UI.

Some more information since I last posted this…

I’ve gotten the Forwarding feature disabled as requested by my staff, but I still cannot seem to turn off the Comment, Full Headers, and Download links.
We still need a way that our users can set the priority since we have a small IT staff and having a Queue Manager isn’t an option.

This is with RT 3.8.1. Thanks.

Gary L. Greene, Jr.
IT Operations
Minerva Networks, Inc.
Cell: (650) 704-6633
Phone: (408) 240-1239

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Sounds like you want to turn off at least “ShowTicketComments” and
“ShowOutgoingEmail”.
You might currently have them turned on in Configuration->Group Rights.
For Unpriviledged Users, you might only want CreateTicket, ShowTicket, and
maybe ModifyCustomField, SeeCustomField, and no rights at all assigned for
“Everyone”. Obviously, this is not right for everyone, but, it might be a
starting point for you.

I’ve already done that. It doesn’t seem to be honouring the
ShowTicketComments right however. Once I’d disabled the ShowOutgoingEmail,
that worked as expected, and I’ve also turned off Forwarding, but I’ve still
those small issues remaining with Comments, Headers, and Download on plain
text emails. (I can understand having the download link for non-text
attachments, such as DOC or XLS files, but for the plain text body, it’s a
little silly, imo.)

Gary L. Greene, Jr.
IT Operations
Minerva Networks, Inc.
Cell: (650) 704-6633
Phone: (408) 240-1239

ShowTicketComments right however. Once I’d disabled the ShowOutgoingEmail,
You have to logout and back in for most rights to take effect.
Also the RightsMatrix and BecomeUser (you’ll need the unofficial
version in my CPAN folder) extensions can be quite handy in debugging
and maintenance of rights.

those small issues remaining with Comments, Headers, and Download on plain
text emails. (I can understand having the download link for non-text
attachments, such as DOC or XLS files, but for the plain text body, it’s a
little silly, imo.)
Although I did not write it, I’d wager it’s included so that:

  • you can fetch large messages that the interface does not display
  • you can get a copy of the message without any possible mangling of
    layout or spacing by your browser
  • you can access other multi-part messages (depending upon your
    configuration settings) e.g; a text/html part or vCard
  • in case the character set gets mangled somehow.

Rather than testing that any of these might be
applicable/second-guessing the user, the system makes the links
available no matter what.

It’s all perl though, you can make a local copy of anything you don’t
like and butcher it to your heart’s content.

Cambridge Energy Alliance: Save money. Save the planet.

The thing here is that the interface is presenting far too much information
for my users (both admin and self service UIs), thus why I’m trying to
I’d recommend just getting used to it.

streamline it as best I can. Would you know which modules these links are
generated by? At least then I can hack them out in the local override
directory.
Not modules, Mason file sin share/html

Alternatively, you might create a custom CSS theme that display:none’s the
icky classes like downloadattachment. While you’re still sending the bytes,
your modifications are more future proof this way.

Another advantage of doing it with CSS is that you can set the default CSS
to the custom theme, but this would still allow power users the ability to
revert to RT “as it ought to be.”
Cambridge Energy Alliance: Save money. Save the planet.

ShowTicketComments right however. Once I’d disabled the
ShowOutgoingEmail,

You have to logout and back in for most rights to take effect.
Also the RightsMatrix and BecomeUser (you’ll need the unofficial
version in my CPAN folder) extensions can be quite handy in debugging
and maintenance of rights.

those small issues remaining with Comments, Headers, and Download on
plain text emails. (I can understand having the download link for
non-text attachments, such as DOC or XLS files, but for the plain text
body, it’s a little silly, imo.)

Although I did not write it, I’d wager it’s included so that:

  • you can fetch large messages that the interface does not display
  • you can get a copy of the message without any possible mangling of
    layout or spacing by your browser
  • you can access other multi-part messages (depending upon your
    configuration settings) e.g; a text/html part or vCard
  • in case the character set gets mangled somehow.

Rather than testing that any of these might be
applicable/second-guessing the user, the system makes the links
available no matter what.

It’s all perl though, you can make a local copy of anything you don’t
like and butcher it to your heart’s content.

The thing here is that the interface is presenting far too much information
for my users (both admin and self service UIs), thus why I’m trying to
streamline it as best I can. Would you know which modules these links are
generated by? At least then I can hack them out in the local override
directory.

Gary L. Greene, Jr.
IT Operations
Minerva Networks, Inc.
Cell: (650) 704-6633
Phone: (408) 240-1239

The thing here is that the interface is presenting far too much information
for my users (both admin and self service UIs), thus why I’m trying to
I’d recommend just getting used to it.

If I had to “just get used to it” as you put it, we’d never move over to
using RT. The corporate culture here is very non-forgiving of IT if we don’t
give them exactly what they want. Thankfully, I’ve managed to do everything
I want with only a couple of small items left on my plate for testing with
more users here.

streamline it as best I can. Would you know which modules these links are
generated by? At least then I can hack them out in the local override
directory.
Not modules, Mason file sin share/html

Yup. This worked beautifully. I’ve successfully hacked up local overrides to
these that do exactly what I wanted.

Alternatively, you might create a custom CSS theme that display:none’s the
icky classes like downloadattachment. While you’re still sending the bytes,
your modifications are more future proof this way.

Another advantage of doing it with CSS is that you can set the default CSS
to the custom theme, but this would still allow power users the ability to
revert to RT “as it ought to be.”

The “as it aught to be” line there is highly subjective. :wink: Thankfully, I’ve
managed to get everything short of the Priorities changes that I want done,
which looks like I have to upgrade to 3.8.4 or higher to use the extension I
need for that (PriorityAsString), plus add a CF for Severity. So far, so
good. :slight_smile:

Gary L. Greene, Jr.
IT Operations
Minerva Networks, Inc.
Cell: (650) 704-6633
Phone: (408) 240-1239

I’ve been messing around with RT for some time at my company and I
have some sort of advice for you: you can change absolutely everything
in RT, you just have to know how.

RT creates on it’s folder a subfolder called local, that is pretty
much a mirror of RT directory tree. For what I’ve seem, you can
override almost any RT file with that, without messing up your
installation.

How does it affect you?

Well, my mission is, as yours, to adapt RT to our company needs, and
that includes hiding information from the user and changing the themes
and templates. Some of our changes could not be done only with
permissions, for example: I need to hide the ‘SLA’ custom field on
ticket creation, but need the staff to be able to see it’s auto-set
value after the ticket is already created - but I don’t want staff to
be able to modify it. How did I do it? Simply override the create
ticket template with one that supress that custom field.

You can change the way things are presented, like the menu’s and so,
you can create your own css theme, adapt HTML code to that theme,
include and exclude information. You just have to find from which file
it comes from, copy it “in place” from it’s original folder to the
corresponding folder under ‘local’ and be happy.

It’s not easy stuff, specially if you don’t know perl (as I don’t) but
it’s worth a try.On Thu, Oct 22, 2009 at 8:36 PM, Gary Greene ggreene@minervanetworks.com wrote:

On 10/22/09 3:04 PM, “Jerrad Pierce” jpierce@cambridgeenergyalliance.org wrote:

The thing here is that the interface is presenting far too much information
for my users (both admin and self service UIs), thus why I’m trying to
I’d recommend just getting used to it.

If I had to “just get used to it” as you put it, we’d never move over to
using RT. The corporate culture here is very non-forgiving of IT if we don’t
give them exactly what they want. Thankfully, I’ve managed to do everything
I want with only a couple of small items left on my plate for testing with
more users here.

streamline it as best I can. Would you know which modules these links are
generated by? At least then I can hack them out in the local override
directory.
Not modules, Mason file sin share/html

Yup. This worked beautifully. I’ve successfully hacked up local overrides to
these that do exactly what I wanted.

Alternatively, you might create a custom CSS theme that display:none’s the
icky classes like downloadattachment. While you’re still sending the bytes,
your modifications are more future proof this way.

Another advantage of doing it with CSS is that you can set the default CSS
to the custom theme, but this would still allow power users the ability to
revert to RT “as it ought to be.”

The “as it aught to be” line there is highly subjective. :wink: Thankfully, I’ve
managed to get everything short of the Priorities changes that I want done,
which looks like I have to upgrade to 3.8.4 or higher to use the extension I
need for that (PriorityAsString), plus add a CF for Severity. So far, so
good. :slight_smile:


Gary L. Greene, Jr.
IT Operations
Minerva Networks, Inc.
Cell: (650) 704-6633
Phone: (408) 240-1239


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Gustavo Campos
Sistemas de Informação - UFMG

[snip]

Well, my mission is, as yours, to adapt RT to our company needs, and
that includes hiding information from the user and changing the themes
and templates. Some of our changes could not be done only with
permissions, for example: I need to hide the ‘SLA’ custom field on
ticket creation, but need the staff to be able to see it’s auto-set
value after the ticket is already created - but I don’t want staff to
be able to modify it. How did I do it? Simply override the create
ticket template with one that supress that custom field.

Gustavo, I do believe that this task with SLA CF can be acomplished
by revoking ModifyCustomField right on this CF from all users, just
grant them SeeCustomField.

Even if you can not do that because of some reason then it’s better
to learn about callbacks. I think it’s possible to use callbacks to hide
CFs from Create/Edit/Display pages. Callbacks are easier to port
over RT upgrades, they usually just work.

Even if callback is not there then another way is to patch file/move
it to local just to add a callback. It’s also easier upgrade as callback
addition is an one-line change.

Best regards, Ruslan.

The thing here is that the interface is presenting far too much
information
for my users (both admin and self service UIs), thus why I’m trying to
I’d recommend just getting used to it.

If I had to “just get used to it” as you put it, we’d never move over to
using RT. The corporate culture here is very non-forgiving of IT if we
don’t
give them exactly what they want. Thankfully, I’ve managed to do everything
I want with only a couple of small items left on my plate for testing with
more users here.

Bestpractical has consultants that can help you streamline your RT
installation to your users’ wishes:
http://bestpractical.com/services/development.html

I mean, it’s open source, but it does not have to cost zero, does it? Other
solutions cost a lot and you don’t even get the chance to change the
functionality.

That is the typical solution for other software solution in environments
like yours anyway, I am surprised I even have to point it to you :slight_smile:

Natxo