How do I make the content of a custom field a link in RT 4

Context

• Request Tracker (RT) 4.0
• Ticket tracking at MIT
• Queue administrators in RT on help.mit.edu

Solution

If you are the administrator for one or more custom fields attached to your queues in RT, RT4 gives you several new options to choose from for custom field configurations. One of these is the option to turn certain custom fields into clickable hyperlinks on the Ticket Display screen.

• Navigate to one of your queues by going to the "Tools" button and selecting "Configuration", then "Queues", and finally "Select"
• Click on the name of your queue
• Click on the "Ticket Custom Fields" tab on your queue's configuration screen
• Click on the custom field you want to modify to get to the Editing Custom Field screen

The Editing Custom Field screen will look slightly different depending on what kind of custom field it is, but the ability to create a hyperlink from a value should be in the same place for all types.

• Locate the text box labeled Link values to
• Enter the URL you want to link to into the text box
• Click Save Changes

Options

You can use two placeholders in the URL for which RT will substitute information dynamically based on the context. They are:

This can be used to construct links that are relevant to the current ticket or a chosen value.

Example 1: A Google Search based on a field's value

Let's say you have a custom field called "Email Client" which allows you to select an email client from a list. The available values are "Outlook", "Apple Mail", and "Gmail". You would like to set it up so that after an email client is chosen, the custom field becomes a clickable link to a Google search for that email client. You would follow the instructions outlined above and then enter the URL for the "Link values to" box as:

http://www.google.com/#hl=en&q=__CustomField__

When someone sets the custom field to, for example, "Outlook", RT will turn it into a link to:

http://www.google.com/#hl=en&q=Outlook

Example 2: Pulling up an SAP Purchase Order

In this example you have a custom field that's a text entry box which is used to track an SAP purchase order number associated with a ticket. We can change the custom field to allow you to click on the link and immediately open the PO from Atlas. You would again follow the steps above to locate and edit your custom field.

In the text box "Link values to" enter:

https://insidemit-apps.mit.edu/apps/po/PoDisplayAction.do?PoFromSearch=__CustomField__&returnTo=req

When someone enters a PO number into the custom field as a value, the Ticket Display screen will then render this as a link. For example, if you were to enter PO# 4501319675, the resultant link would be:

https://insidemit-apps.mit.edu/apps/po/PoDisplayAction.do?PoFromSearch=4501319675&returnTo=req

Caveats

It's important to realize that RT can only show you a clickable link on screens that display custom fields for viewing, not screens that allow you to edit custom fields. Edit screens will have selection lists, which can't contain links.

In practice this means the Ticket "Display" screen is the most useful screen for clickable links. If most of the staff working on tickets in your queue do not use that screen, but use the Call Center or Jumbo screens instead, this feature will be of limited use to you, or require two steps to take advantage of it. (First clicking on "Display", then clicking on the link.)

Tips

• In all cases, clicking on such a link will open a new browser window or tab, not overwrite your current one
• If you frequently use other systems that might know about RT ticket numbers, for example if you use JIRA for bug and software issue tracking, and you can look up related things by ticket number, the _id_ substitution feature may be useful to you