/ 
RT-Extension-RepeatTicket-0.03
River stage zero No dependents
/ RT::Extension::RepeatTicket

NAME

RT::Extension::RepeatTicket - Repeat tickets based on schedule

INSTALLATION

To install this module, run the following commands:

perl Makefile.PL
make
make install # May need sudo/root
make initdb  # May need sudo/root

add RT::Extension::RepeatTicket to @Plugins in RT's etc/RT_SiteConfig.pm:

Set( @Plugins, qw(... RT::Extension::RepeatTicket) );
Set( $RepeatTicketCoexistentNumber, 1 ); # Optional
Set( $RepeatTicketLeadTime, 14 ); # Optional

add bin/rt-repeat-ticket to the daily cron job.

DESCRIPTION

The RepeatTicket extension allows you to set up recurring tickets so new tickets are automatically created based on a schedule. The new tickets are populated with the subject and initial content of the original ticket in the recurrence.

After you activate the plugin by adding it to your RT_SiteConfig.pm file, all tickets will have a Recurrence tab on the create and edit pages. To set up a repeating ticket, click the checkbox to "Enable Recurrence" and fill out the schedule for the new tickets.

New tickets are created when you initially save the recurrence, if new tickets are needed, and when your daily cron job runs the rt-repeat-ticket script.

$RepeatTicketCoexistentNumber

The $RepeatTicketCoexistentNumber determines how many tickets can be in an active status for a recurrence at any time. A value of 1 means one ticket at a time can be active. New tickets will not be created until the current active ticket is resolved or set to some other inactive status. You can also set this value per recurrence, overriding this config value. The extension default is 1 ticket.

$RepeatTicketLeadTime

The $RepeatTicketLeadTime becomes the ticket Starts value and sets how far in advance of a ticket's Due date you want the ticket to be created. This essentially is how long you want to give people to work on the ticket.

For example, if you create a weekly recurrence scheduled on Mondays and set the lead time to 7 days, each Monday a ticket will be created with the Starts date set to that Monday and a Due date of the following Monday.

The value you set in RT_SiteConfig.pm becomes the system default, but you can set this value on each ticket as well. The extension default is 14 days.

rt-repeat-ticket

The rt-repeat-ticket utility evaluates all of your repeating tickets and creates any new tickets that are needed. With no parameters, it runs for "today" each day. You can also pass a --date value in the form YYYY-MM-DD to run the script for a specific day.

bin/rt-repeat-ticket --date 2012-07-25

This can be handy if your cron job doesn't run for some reason and you want to make sure no repeating tickets have been missed. Just go back and run the script for the days you missed. You can also pass dates in the future which might be handy if you want to experiment with recurrences in a test environment.

USAGE

Initial Tickets

The initial ticket you create for a recurrence stores the schedule and other details for the recurrence. If you need to change the recurrence in the future, to make it more frequent or less frequent or anything else, make the changes on the original ticket. To help you find this initial ticket, which may have been resolved long ago, a custom field is created on each ticket in the recurrence with link called "Original Ticket."

When setting up the recurrence, you can use the original ticket as an actual work ticket. When doing this, you'll need to set the Starts and Due dates when you create the ticket. Scheduled tickets created subsequently will set these values based on the recurrence. Resolving the original ticket does not cancel the recurrence.

Start Value

You can set a Start date for a new recurrence. If you don't, it defaults to the day you create the recurrence.

Cancelling Recurrences

You can cancel or end a recurrence in two ways:

  • Go to the original ticket in the recurrence and uncheck the Enable Recurrence checkbox.

  • Set ending conditions on the recurrence with either a set number of recurrences or an end date.

Recursive Recurrences

Creating recurrences on recurrences isn't supported and may do strange things.

FAQ

I'm not seeing new recurrences. Why not?

A few things to check:

  • Do you have rt-repeat-tickets scheduled in cron? Is it running?

  • Do you have previous tickets still in an active state? Resolve those tickets or increase the concurrent active tickets value.

  • Is it the right day? Remember to subtract the lead time value to determine the day new tickets should be created.

  • If you set a start date and another criteria like day of the week, the new ticket will be created on the first time that day of the week occurs after the start date you set (if the start date isn't on that day of the week).

METHODS

Run( RT::Attribute $attr, DateTime $checkday )

Repeat the ticket if $checkday meets the repeat settings. It also tries to repeat more to meet config RepeatTicketCoexistentNumber.

Return ids of new created tickets.

Repeat ( RT::Attribute $attr, DateTime $checkday_1, DateTime $checkday_2, ... )

Repeat the ticket for the check days that meet repeat settings.

Return ids of new created tickets.

MaybeRepeatMore ( RT::Attribute $attr )

Try to repeat more tickets to meet the coexistent ticket number.

Return ids of new created tickets.

SetRepeatAttribute ( RT::Ticket $ticket, %args )

Save %args to the ticket's "RepeatTicketSettings" attribute.

Return ( RT::Attribute, UPDATE MESSAGE )

AUTHOR

sunnavy, <sunnavy at bestpractical.com>

Jim Brandt, <jbrandt at bestpractical.com>

LICENSE AND COPYRIGHT

Copyright 2013 Best Practical Solutions, LLC.

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of either: the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; or the Artistic License.

See http://dev.perl.org/licenses/ for more information.