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iTop Extensions

Auto dispatch ticket to a team

name:
Auto dispatch ticket to a team
description:
Automatically dispatch tickets based on the configurable OQL rules.
version:
1.0.13
release:
2023-07-13
itop-version-min:
2.7.0
code:
combodo-autodispatch-ticket
state:
stable
diffusion:
iTop Hub
php-version-max:
PHP 8.1

Automatically dispatch tickets to teams when entering a state.

Features

Allow to dispatch automatically Ticket based on predefined Dispatch rules, to a team and trigger a transition.

Each time a Ticket enter a state, iTop searched for Dispatch rules which apply to this class and state. If it finds one, then it uses each Team rules in order to retrieve a team. The Ticket is assigned to the first team found and Ticket is moved to a different state. If no team is found, the Ticket is left unchanged.

Example: when a Ticket is created, it is automatically dispatched to the team with role 'Support level1' defined on the customer Delivery Model, and moved to status 'Dispatch'.

This extension allows to define:

  • different rules for different sub-class of Ticket,
  • ordered queries to retrieve the team to use,
  • force an automatic transition, if a team was set (thus triggering notification)
Team can be assigned based on:
  • customer of the ticket
  • service or sub-service of the ticket
  • location of the caller
  • current time and applicable coverage windows
  • or any other logic you may need…

And any combination of those.

If more than one team is returned, first will be used without guarantee that it will always be the same one.

Revision History

Date Version Description
2023-07-13 1.0.13 * N°5488 - Improve error message for invalid DM class in auto-dispatch rules
* Updated german translations by Lars Kaltefleiter
2022-03-17 1.0.12 * N°4967 - don't update if no modification
2021-12-20 1.0.11 * Update ES translations
2020-03-06 1.0.9 * Update DE translations
2019-06-16 1.0.8 * When team rules return no team and ticket is not dispatched, don't log success in ticket's log
* When a stimulus is not applicable, log the error and pursue the object's operation
* Fix inactive target rules being used for matching
* Fix a bug when creating coverage window within a dispatch rule
2019-03-19 1.0.7 Fix dispatch rule not working for Tickets created by a user with silos
2019-01-17 1.0.6 Add Combodo license
2018-12-07 1.0.4 Update translations
2018-06-26 1.0.3 Fix english translation
2017-10-27 1.0.2 Added German translation. (thanks to ITOMIG GmbH)
2017-09-26 1.0.0 First official version.

Limitations

This extension is executed after combodo-approval-light or combodo-approval-extended, therefore if an Approval rule changes the object's state, Dispatch rules that should have been applied on the previous state will not be computed.

Dispatch rules must be defined on each final class, not on abstract class. This extension is not designed to set a team without changing the state.

Requirements

  • iTop 2.4 or later
  • Extension SLA considering business hours v2.1 or more

Installation

Use the Standard installation process for this extension.

Configuration

This extension does nothing out of the box, until you have created Dispatch rules to express when a Ticket should automatically assigned to a team and which team to use.

Dispatch Rule

A dispatch rule is defined for one Class of Ticket. It must contain at least one Team rule and one State rule.

First create a new Dispatch rule by opening the corresponding menu under Service Management.

 Approval process automation approval rule

Name Mandatory Description
Name Mandatory A name describing the dispatch rule
Class Mandatory Ticket class the rule will apply to
Team attribute Mandatory Attribute code of the Ticket Class that will be set by the matching Team rule
Explain log attribute Optional Attribute code of the Ticket Class that will be set with a text explaining how a Team rule matched
Disabled contexts Optional A CSV list of context tags in which the Dispatch rule will be inactive. Typically a portal (“GUI:Portal”), cron tab (“CRON”), a rest/json call (“REST/JSON”), …
Do not enter any space between contexts values, which must be coma separated

State Rule

A State rule defines the state in which you want to auto-assign a team, and which transition must be applied if a team was found.

Create at least one State rule in the States tab.

 Auto dispatch ticket to team state rule

Name Mandatory Description
State code Mandatory Code of the Ticket state. Entering this state will trigger the Dispatch rule
Stimulus code Mandatory Code of the Stimulus that will be applied if a team is found

Team Rule

A Team rule defines how to retrieve the team to assign.

Create at least one Team rule in the corresponding tab.

 Auto dispatch ticket to team new team rule

Name Mandatory Description
Name Mandatory Free name of the rule, for humans.
OQL Mandatory Query which must return Team objects
Coverage window Optional The Team rule will be used only if we are within the Coverage window
Rank Mandatory Order for using the Team rules, lowest number first.
Active Mandatory Allow to prepare Team rules, without activating them. Rules with 'No' will not be used.

Examples of usage

Criteria to assign a team

Remember that, there is a filter on Ticket.team_id:

SELECT Team AS t 
  JOIN lnkDeliveryModelToContact AS l1 ON l1.contact_id=t.id 
  JOIN DeliveryModel AS dm ON l1.deliverymodel_id=dm.id 
  JOIN Organization AS o ON o.deliverymodel_id=dm.id 
WHERE o.id = :this->org_id
Teams auto-assigned on a Ticket should be compliant with the filter defined on Ticket.team_id
You may have to change that filter or to put all applicable teams under the Delivery Model

Default Team

In beta version of auto-dispatch, iTop assigned a team using this logic

SELECT Team AS t 
  JOIN lnkDeliveryModelToContact AS l1 ON l1.contact_id=t.id 
  JOIN ContactType AS ct ON l1.role_id=ct.id
  JOIN DeliveryModel AS dm ON l1.deliverymodel_id = dm.id 
  JOIN Organization AS o ON o.deliverymodel_id=dm.id 
WHERE o.id=:this->org_id AND ct.name='Support level1'

Assigning a team based on Service

You may want to define a support team per Service,
in which case, the easiest is to link the applicable team to each Service and ensure that always one and one only team is linked to each service.

SELECT Team AS t 
  JOIN lnkContactToService AS l1 ON l1.contact_id=t.id 
  JOIN Service AS s ON l1.service_id=s.id 
WHERE s.id=:this->service_id

The best would be to add a new attribute support_team_id on Service, as an ExternalKey to a Team.

You may want to use the team defined on the Service when there is one, otherwise use the default team defined on the delivery model of the customer. In which case you will create 2 Team rules, one based on Service with the lowest rank and the other using the OQL above.

Disabled contexts

In some case you want to disable the Auto-assignment mechanism. For example, it is quite common that you want to Auto-Dispatch tickets created by users through the Portal, Ticket creation from Email, but do not want to do it, when the ticket is created by a synchro, a script or maybe an agent in the console.
That's the purpose of the Disabled contexts field.

It is even possible to disable a Dispatch rule just for one particular Portal or a particular DataSynchro. The syntax to use is:

  • Portal:<portal-id> where <portal-id> is the portal id defined in the XML
  • Synchro:<synchro-name> where <synchro-name> is the name of that particular Datasynchro

Examples: Let's say you have created a special portal for your agents and you want Tickets created through that portal not to be auto-dispatched.

  <portals>
    <portal id="agent-portal" _delta="define">
    ...

Then to disable the Dispatch rule, set Disabled contexts = Portal:agent-portal.

Usage

As soon as a Dispatch rule is active, the transitions buttons while creating a User Request are hidden

This behavior is designed to prevent Dispatching rules to be workaround by an agent by mistake.

In order to manually dispatched or assign a Request, the agent will have to create the Request first, then to apply the wanted transition, using the transitions actions.

Questions & Answers

Q: Can I auto-assign the Ticket using a criteria set in a Request template?
A: Yes if that criteria is an iTop object, so a drop-down list Field, which values are defined by an OQL.

For example, if you have define a Request Template Field location which propose the user to choose a site SELECT Location within the Request Template

  • Then you have customized the Location class to add a team_id external key to the Team class, representing the Hands & Eyes team for that location
  • Then you want to automatically dispatch Ticket which do have a Request Template with a location Field documented to the Hands & Eyes team for that location
  • Then define a Team rule with this OQL
SELECT Team AS T 
  JOIN Location AS L ON L.team_id = T.id
  JOIN TemplateFieldValueLnk AS F ON F.field_target_key = L.id 
WHERE F.obj_class='UserRequest' 
  AND F.field_target_class = 'Location'
  AND F.obj_key = :this->id
  AND F.field_code = 'location'

In the picture below, it's even simpler, we use the Team provided by the Request Template as soon as there is one

extensions/combodo-autodispatch-ticket.txt · Last modified: 2023/07/19 15:35 (external edit)
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