Skip to main content

Request Tracker

Request Tracker is the ticketing system used by the OCF. It is the main way of keeping track of OCF-related activity. Some tickets are automatically created when emails are received at the queue's name (e.g. help@, devnull@, etc.). Staff can also create tickets by logging in directly to the web UI.

Queues​

Tickets are assigned to queues, or organized boards. Manually-created tickets are found under:

  • bod for meeting topics
  • bureaucracy for officer-related issues
  • operations for Operations Strategist work (opstaff)
  • projects for long-term activities
  • techtalks for Tech Talk ideas and organization
  • todo for shorter-term items

Tickets​

Comment vs Reply​

Much like the issues between Reply and Reply-All, the difference between Comment and Reply has led to some mishaps. In the RT interface, Reply directly communicates with the poster, so look for the last communication with the ticket opener. Comment doesn't directly communicate and is generally for internal discussion. This can also be done through email, as RT defaults the reply-to field with the queue mailing lists. Be careful here though: to comment through email, send the email to {queue}-comment (i.e. help@ vs help-comment@). Also make sure that your reply does not include any of the comments, as in make sure the trimmed comment is all the information you want released.

Creation​

They can be manually created through the New Ticket in button on the top right of the page. If doing so to communicate to people outside of the OCF, add their email to the requestors field of the ticket and leave the body blank. Afterwards, reply to the ticket to actually communicate with the person as the ticket creation doesn't send emails to the requestor but does to staff. Staff mailing lists are attached to the queue, so they usually don't have to be CC'd (i.e. help to help@). You can set people to be owner, allowing people to keep track of assignments better.

Modification​

With any created ticket, it can be modified further. For queues like bod, some tickets should be discussed more urgently than others. In the individual ticket page, one can change a ticket's priority value ([-10, 100] recommended) by clicking on The Basics. Ownership is modified through Reminders and mailing list settings can be modified through People.

Tickets may reference each other or there may be redundant tickets. If so, ticket relationships and merging can be done under Links for the ticket you want to keep/set relations for.

Statuses​

  • new: New tickets without staff responses
  • open: Responded tickets
  • stalled: Held back due to other things. Turns to open on thread update.
  • resolved: Manual resolution
  • rejected: Rejection usually without comments
  • deleted: Use sparingly, and generally used on obvious spam.

Searching​

By default, the queues only show open or new tickets. To see other tickets, either search the ticket number in the top right or use New Search to do more advanced searching. If using the latter, don't forget to press either Add these terms and Search or Update formate and Search. Search arguments can also be saved for later use, as seen with the ocfstaff saved searches (bother a staff member to see these searches).