Linking foreign tickets to RT tickets

We would like to implement automatic handling of email messages with
“foreign tickets” in our RT installation.

When we get an email message containing a foreign ticket-id, we will
create a new RT ticket in our system, taken special care to register the
foreign ticket-id. When we get an email message with updated information
about a previously seen foreign ticket-id, we will append/merge this
into the existing RT ticket in our system. Ticket resolution could be
automatic as well.

I found this solution on the wiki, which implements a similar idea.
http://requesttracker.wikia.com/wiki/AutoCloseOnNagiosRecoveryMessages

We would like this to be handled in a generic way. In principle one
ticket in our RT system can refer to several other tickets on different
foreign ticket systems. The first question is how to store the foreign
ticket-id. One possibility is to use one of the Links fields in RT,
another is to create a specific multivalued custom field.

I guess this is a common use-case, and it could probably be implemented
in a generic way, maybe even as an RT extension. I am wondering if
someone has done something like this already.

  • Vegard V -

We would like to implement automatic handling of email messages with
“foreign tickets” in our RT installation.

When we get an email message containing a foreign ticket-id, we will
create a new RT ticket in our system, taken special care to register the
foreign ticket-id. When we get an email message with updated information
about a previously seen foreign ticket-id, we will append/merge this
into the existing RT ticket in our system. Ticket resolution could be
automatic as well.

I found this solution on the wiki, which implements a similar idea.
http://requesttracker.wikia.com/wiki/AutoCloseOnNagiosRecoveryMessages

This has been repackaged as rt-extension-nagios

We would like this to be handled in a generic way. In principle one
ticket in our RT system can refer to several other tickets on different
foreign ticket systems. The first question is how to store the foreign
ticket-id. One possibility is to use one of the Links fields in RT,
another is to create a specific multivalued custom field.

I guess this is a common use-case, and it could probably be implemented
in a generic way, maybe even as an RT extension. I am wondering if
someone has done something like this already.

The problem with the generic solution is usually the
parsing/regenerating of the foreign system’s ticket information.
That tends to vary wildly. I’d probably store the foreign ticket info
in RT using a Custom Field with a Link To setting back into the
foreign system, but a Refers To link would also work.

-kevin