Akeeba Ticket System

Tuesday, 19 October 2021 08:18 CDT

Hello,

Apologies if I should have submitted 3 separate tickets. I have questions regarding the following features:

Manager Notes:

In our use case we have 8 different case managers with unique areas of expertise. It is common that a case is passed from one manager to another. We have found that Manager Notes are a great way to keep ticket information with the ticket and also allow non-assigned managers the ability to review tickets and offer troubleshooting guidance.

Is there a mechanism to allow notifications to go to the assigned case manager (and not the ticket owner) when manager notes are updated? If not, is this a feature that you would consider adding in future releases?

Time Spent:

In our use case, it is common for case managers to update and close tickets at the end of the day. Many times it is not practical to do this during the day. It is encouraged that case managers update the time spent on tickets as we want to get better metrics over time.

It seems that in order to enter a value (not using the start/stop) and update the "Time Spent" on a ticket, the "Send a Reply" button must clicked. Unfortunately, this also sends a "null" email notification to the ticket owner. Is there a method that allows updating "Time Spent" without triggering any notifications to the ticket owner?

Canned Replies:

In our installation, it seems that Canned Replies are not able to be inserted while creating a new post on the back-end. Does the back-end support inserting Canned Replies on new posts?

Once again, thanks in advance for your support and great product. We are seeing a transformation of our services and increasing our end-user experience.

Eric J

Tuesday, 19 October 2021 09:26 CDT

nicholas

Before I reply please let me remind you about the Joomla 3 / 4 situation. Joomla 4 was released August 17th, 2021. At the same time the clock started ticking for Joomla 3; it will become end of life on August 17th, 2023 meaning it will no longer receive any updates, not even security updates. As a result all our Joomla 3 software is now considered ‘legacy’. We are not implementing any new features for it. Any new features will only be implemented in the Joomla 4 only versions.

Akeeba Ticket System has not been converted for Joomla 4 yet; we are currently working for it. We expect to have version 5.0 ready before Christmas.

So, it would make sense for you to start planning the migration of your site to Joomla 4 so that you can use the latest versions of our software which include new features.

Now, back to your questions.

Manager notes: you cannot currently send notifications when Manager Notes are added. This can be considered for inclusion in version 5. It was actually something I was contemplating two days ago when I was working on Manager Notes.

Time spent: the time spent is tracked per post. Please tell your case managers to edit their last reply. The time spent field is right under the last post. Editing a post does NOT notify the user. It only prints an “edited by username on such and such date and time” message at the bottom of the reply text when viewing the ticket.

Canned replies: This seems to be a JavaScript error. I will take a look at it and fix it in a future version of the 4.x release that's available for Joomla 3.

So, the only feature you won't get until you upgrade to Joomla 4 is notifications on Manager Notes.

Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos

Lead Developer and Director

🇬🇷Greek: native 🇬🇧English: excellent 🇫🇷French: basic • 🕐 My time zone is Europe / Athens
Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!

Tuesday, 19 October 2021 12:19 CDT

[email protected]

Nicholas,

Thanks for the prompt response. Yes...the migration to Joomla 4.x is top of mind. Unfortunately, our Helix3 template isn't scheduled for Joomla 4 compatibility in the near future, so we are looking to change our site template.

Totally understand the need to get off the version 3.x.

Manager Notes:

Great to hear you are considering adding notifications in future releases. It might be nice to have the option to toggle "Assigned Manager" or "All Managers" for notifications

Canned Replies:

Thanks for looking into this!

Time Spent:

I tried your approach but the "Time Spent" did not update on the front end. I had tried several times to no avail. I made a brief screen recording here:

https://watch.screencastify.com/v/CZRW3yGGdnIRM1NOynZ3

However, when viewing the same ticket in the back-end I see that the time spent has been updating. See attached screenshot.

Thanks again for your support!

Eric

Edited by on 2021-11-18 20:45 CST

Wednesday, 20 October 2021 01:44 CDT

nicholas

Emails: we'll see what we can do. The problem is that determining which users are managers to a category is never accurate unless we calculate the privileges for all users. What we do now to send emails to “all managers” is a bit of a hack which works in most but not all cases. I'll have to think if we want to do that for manager notes or not.

Ticket time: yes, editing the time on the post currently does not update the time on the ticket. This can't be changed in version 4 due to an architectural issue. It has already been fixed in version 5. The Time Cards will still be correct, though.

Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos

Lead Developer and Director

🇬🇷Greek: native 🇬🇧English: excellent 🇫🇷French: basic • 🕐 My time zone is Europe / Athens
Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!

Wednesday, 20 October 2021 08:32 CDT

[email protected]

Nicholas,

Thanks for your consider on my requests. I understand that feature enhancements are something that requires careful consideration and there are limitations imposed by many factors.

I look forward to the next release of ATS and wish you and your team well!

I will close the case now.

Thanks,

Eric Johnson

Support