Ticketer Workflows in a nutshell

— Anna Dowling

A workflow is a sequential process for working through the lifecycle of a ticket in the Ticketer application. It includes a start node (status) which indicates the creation of a ticket and end node (status) which indicates the closure and completion of a ticket. A workflow is configurable at runtime and can make use of state entrance and exit rules or groovlet to control Ticket behaviour.

In order to create a workflow a user needs to have admin privileges as the Workflow Manager tool is located under Admin options in the Ticketer.

Once an admin user navigates into Workflow Manager, they can click on new to create a new workflow from scratch or open to open an existing workflow:

If a user chooses to open an existing workflow they will be shown a pop up which will ask them whether they want to open the published version or the Mock up. Typically a user would click No and open the published most recent version of a workflow unless they have created an unpublihed mock up of a workflow for publication at a later date.

In this walkthrough we are going to examine some of the typical features used within the workflow tool. These are as follows:

1. Node Creation
2. Node Connection
3. Node Properties
4. On State Enter
5. On State Exit
6. Configuring Owners
7. Colors
8. Publishing a Workflow
9. Advanced Settings

In order to create a node or state in a workflow click the Node tab on the left hand pane and then click new. The user will the be prompted to enter a name for this new state:

Next we want to connect the node into the position we want it in in the worklfow i.e.do we want it to be the starting state of the workflow or preceding a particular state in the worklfow.

To connect two states together click the state you want to come first and then click the other state as demonstrated below:

Now that the states to join are highlighted click Connect. This will create a link between the two states as shown below where state 1 is now connected to Info Request:

If a user wanted to disconnect two states they would follow the same procedure but click disconnect instead.

Now that the state has been created, we want to add properties to it. We will now discuss the properties that can be configured for a node.

To view Node Properties double click on the node and a pop up window will appear as demonstrated below:

Start and Final Nodes: A user can set whether this is the start node or final node in the workflow. For the start node, this will mean that when a ticket is created in this workflow by default it will be created in this state, For the end node this will mean that once the ticket is moved to this state it will be considered closed and a closed date will get populated on the ticket. These can be left unselected if we do not want it to be a start or end node.

Sending emails to Owners: By checking the box to send email to Owners, once the ticket enters this state, an email notification will be sent to any users that are configured as owners on this ticket.

Adding a form: By selecting a form from the dropdown Automatically Add Form, a user can attach a form by default when a ticket enters this state in the workflow. There is a also a checkbox to re-add this form if the same one already exists on the ticket. If this is not checked and the ticket enters this state with that form already attached, a new form will not be added.

Escalation: There are also escalation levels which can be defined on a workflow state in the properties. These allow the user to set a time limit on when to run a particular action. Actions defined as escalations are available from the dropdown selections and include: setting a due date, sending an email, adding another form, adding another ticket owner, changing state etc. To escalate the ticket would also notify a more senior NOC team member that the ticket priority has increased.

• The next section of the node properties that can be configured is the On State Enter conditions. This allows the ticket to perform certain actions upon entering that state. This is configured with groovlets and has options to Run a Rule, which essentially just runs a groovy script which could do anything from making updates to the ticket to adding a form and sending emails. Parameters can be passed to this script with the setting with Args.

• Emails can be configured to get sent out upon entering this state by selecting an email template from the Send an Email dropdown.

• A condition can also be set to Create a new Ticket once this state is entered, which has settings for which Workflow to enter and the starting State and Summary for this ticket.

* The next section of the node properties that can be configured is the On State Exit conditions. This allows the ticket to perform certain actions upon exiting that state. This is configured with groovlets and has options to Run a Rule, which essentially just runs a groovy script which could do anything from making updates to the ticket to adding a form and sending emails. Parameters can be passed to this script with the setting with Args.

• Emails can be configured to get sent out upon exiting this state by selecting an email template from the Send an Email dropdown.

• A condition can also be set to Create a new Ticket once this state is exited, which has settings for which Workflow to enter and the starting State and Summary for this ticket.

• Owners can set on a per state basis from the Owners pane. By adding an owner to the state, this will notify them upon entry into this state. To add an owner click on their name from the list on the left and click the right arrow to add them to the list. To remove an owner click the left list.

• Smart Users can also be added. These are essentially owners that are grouped into categories, such as Field Techs, Network Operations Managers.

• To preserve owners that were assigned to a previous state check the Preserve Previous Owners checkbox.

Colors can also be assigned to a particular state. This will mean that when a ticket is in this state it will display in the assigned color in the search results page.

Once you are happy with your changes, to publish the workflow and make it available for selection in the Create Ticket page click publish from the Workflow options dropdown.

In this dropdown there are also some further options relating to the workflow. These include editing the ticket prefix that will display to identify that this workflow is used with the ticket, assigning particular markets to the worklfow and the Advanced Settings page.

The Advanced Settings page allows the users to assign the following to the workflow:

• Allow Child Ticket updates for that worklfow
• Clear the alarm that created the ticket when the ticket enters the workflow closing state.
• Apply a bouncing ticket timeout for cases where the same alarm is received multiple times.
• Add an external element query to query the snmp_manager
• Add specific roles to the workflow which will govern what users can close a ticket in that worflow.
• Configure instances where owners are restricted from being changed.

1. Create a workflow following the above outline in a qa environment.
2. Add a few nodes to the workflow.
3. Configure some node properties on various nodes.
4. Create a ticket in that workflow.
5. Test out moving between states and note the occurence of any behaviour which was configured in the node properties.
6. Add some advanced options to the workflow and again create and note the behaviour in a ticket.