[otrs] Merging Multiple Tickets a PITA in OTRS 2.3.2

23 Jan 2009

      Dear OTRS users and devs:

First off, OTRS rocks.  Thank you!

Now for the negativity.  :-)  Constructive criticism really.

Problem #1:
     From time to time I get customers who send in 13 emails in a row about
     the same problem.  I would normally do a bulk-action on their heiney,
     but there is no option for me to merge multiple selected tickets into a
     single ticket.

Solution #1:
     Add a field on the bulk-action page that allows me to specify a ticket
     to merge to.
     Bonus: include a list of tickets from that customer/sender (or
     customers/senders if the selected tickets includes multiple
     senders/customers)

Problem #2:
     From time to time I use search to find a nice subset of tickets I want
     to do something with.  Unfortunately, there's nothing I can do on the
     search results page other than click on each ticket individually, or
     click on the CustomerID.

Solution #2:
     Add a checkbox on the left of search results that allows me to do a
     bulk-action!  (like merge!)

Problem #3:
     Sometimes you can just tell that someone probably sent 9 emails about
     the same issue, but they are spaced out over a weekend, like 5 on
     friday night, 3 more saturday, 14 on sunday and 6 more monday morning
     before you get to it.  Right now, when I hit "Customer" OTRS nicely
     displays all the tickets for that Customer.  But when I hit "Merge" I'm
     left with the inability to view the customer's tickets, so I have to:
         1. Decide to merge
         2. Find the ticket # to merge to
         3. Go back to the ticket that needs merging
         4. Click Zoom
         5. Click Merge
         6. Paste the ticket number in
     Ouch.  I'm left with a merged ticket and a migrane. (dramatic emphasis
     mine)

Solution #3:
     When you click "Merge" on a ticket, it nicely displays all the tickets
     from that Customer, reverse date order (newest at the top).  It puts a
     radio button (or just a link named "Merge Here!") on each of the
     tickets listed below, so I can find the ticket I want to merge to and
     with one click and no previous knowledge of the other tickets for that
     customer merge this ticket.  And no headaches!

Thank you for listening.  If I decide to implement one or more of these on
my own, how should I submit a patch?  And I assume I should patch it
against trunk?  Do you offer access to trunk for 3rd party development?

Beckman
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Peter Beckman                                                  Internet Guy
beckman@angryox.com                                 http://www.angryox.com/
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