Customized request forms

This module provides the capability to add dynamically additional fields on a User Request in order to better qualify it. The additional fields proposed will be different based on the selected Service / Service Subcategory.

For instance when a user asks for a “new virtual machine”, then we may want him to provide the number of CPUs, the quantity of RAM and the type of OS in structured fields rather than hoping that the user will provide them by himself, in the Description field.

You just have to define your template and then when a user creates a ticket, the additional fields will appear in the ticket edition form, based on the selected service subcategory.

A request template is related to a service subcategory. A request template can add one or multiple additional fields to User Requests. The additional fields can be of the following types:

• Date and Date Time
• String (formated with regular expression if needed)
• Text area
• CSV list
• List based on OQL query
• Duration
• Readonly/hidden fields

The placeholders will not work with iTop 2.3.1 and older.

• Download the package and expand its content into the “extensions” directory of iTop.

• If you have already installed iTop, make sure that the configuration file config-itop in conf/production is NOT read-only.
• Point your web browser to http(s)://<your_itop_root>/setup and follow the wizard instructions. Make sure that you select the option to “Upgrade an existing iTop instance”:
• Finally check the module “Request template” in the list of extensions at the end of the interactive wizard. Then complete the installation.

The following settings can be adjusted in the iTop configuration file, in the section itop-request-template:

The following settings can be adjusted in the iTop configuration file, in the section templates-base:

Parameter	Type	Description	Default Value
hidden_fields_profiles	string	CSV list of profiles. If the user has ANY of the listed profile, she will NOT see the fields of type “hidden”.	Portal user
reset_fields_on_template_change	boolean	If set to “true”, fields value will be reset when changing template, even if some of the fields have the same code.	false
view_extra_data	string		relations

From the Service Management menu, click on “Request template”:

The pages show a list of already defined request templates. Click on the button “new” to create a new one:

A request template is identified by its name the related service and service sub category.

The label is used on the portal to select a template if several are defined for a given service sub category.

The tab “Fields” is used to define the fields of the template:

Click on “Create a new field” to define a new one:

Here is a complete description of the properties:

The input type can have one of the following values:

The tab “Preview” displays a preview of the template as it will be displayed in the console:

If a end-user selects a service sub-category on the customer portal which is related to a request template, the specific fields for this template are displayed, grouped under the denomination Service details.

This additional information is copied into the Public log when the User Request is created:

It is also possible for a Support Agent to see or edit the information in the details of the User Request, from the console:

In a notification template, or anywhere else where a template can be used, the following placeholders will be available.

Assuming that this is a UserRequest:

• $this->service_details$: a plain text representation of the selected values. This is suitable for a plain text email. Though it seems possible to use it within an HTML document, by using a PRE tag, this is NOT recommended because HTML entities (like <) still need to be escaped.
• $this->html(service_details)$: an HTML representation of the selected values.

Hidden fields are forcibly excluded from the placeholders.

When a template value corresponds to an object selected into iTop, the returned value will be the friendly name of the object.

Question: Can I get the UserRequest which do not have a associated Request Template
Answer: Yes & No.

Query like this will fails

 SELECT UserRequest WHERE ISNULL(service_details) = 1

While such query will work, with the limitation that if you have added or removed Request Template to service subcategories after the creation of User Request using those service Subcategories, then the result will be wrong.

SELECT u,rt FROM UserRequest AS u
JOIN ServiceSubcategory AS ss ON u.servicesubcategory_id=ss.id
JOIN RequestTemplate AS rt ON rt.servicesubcategory_id=ss.id
WHERE ISNULL(rt.name) = 1