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Q: Can I change my RT queue's name ?

  • Can I change my RT queue's name?
  • What will break if I change my queue name?
  • How do I rename an RT queue?

Context

  • Request Tracker (RT) an help.mit.edu
  • Request Tracker queue administrators

Answer

As a queue administrator, you can change the name, description, email addresses, and many other configuration items of your queue. In most cases, changes you make take effect immediately and are safe to make as long as you understand the intended changes. Two changes that take a little more planning, however, are changing your queue's name or changing its email address

You can find instructions on how to do this in section 2 below. To prevent errors that could compromise your queue's ability to receive email, please review the background and caveats in section 1.

1. Considerations when changing your queue's name

In addition to its appearance in various RT menus and web application screens, your queue's name is used in several places to route tickets to your queue or limit searches to your queue. These behaviors can be impacted if you change your queue name. However, it is generally still safe to do, as long as you plan the change. You'll want to consider two areas of potential concern:

Routing email to your Queue

The Request Tracker server uses the RT command rt-mailgate to process incoming email, create new tickets from email messages, and append messages to existing tickets. There is an "aliases" file on the server that is used by the server's sendmail program, which actually receives the message, to call the rt-mailgate command with arguments appropriate for the address that the message was received at. One of those arguments is the queue name.

Example: Entry for email sent to tooltime@mit.edu
tooltime: "|rt-mailgate --queue 'Tooltime' --action correspond"

This file needs to be re-generated with updated information if a queue's name is changed. The file is re-generated automatically using a cron job on the RT server, which runs every hour on the 5-minute mark (00:05, 01:05, 02:05, etc.). Between the time you change the queue name in RT's web interface, and the time the aliases file is re-generated, mail delivery to your queue will fail and senders will get error bounces sent back to them. You'll want to time your queue name change to happen just before the 5-minute mark, and ideally outside your normal business hours.

Saved Searches

Saved Searches will often include the queue name in their search terms. If you change the queue name, the saved search will no longer work as intended. Users will not receive an error when they run the search, they will simply not see the desired results.

If, for example, you have a queue called Tooltime::Test Queue and a Saved Search such as the below:

Example: Saved search for "my open tickets"
Queue = 'Tooltime::Test Queue' AND (  Status = 'new' OR Status = 'open' ) AND Owner = '__CurrentUser__'

it will return a list of all your open and new tickets in the queue. If you change the queue name to Tooltime::Sandbox and run the search again, you will get zero matching tickets back, even if there are new or open tickets in the queue owned by you, because the new queue name no longer matches the queue name specified in the saved search.

There is no central way for you to fix all saved searches that might be referencing your queue, because users might have personal saved searches they created for themselves, or folks outside your group might be reporting against your queue if they have access.

However, you will want to at least update any saved searches that you are publishing to your team or group after you change the queue name. You can edit old saved searches at any time and simply change the embedded queue name to the new queue name. It is easiest to do this on the Advanced tab of Query Builder.

2. How to change your queue's name

  1. Log in to RT.
  2. Go to the Tools menu and browse to Configuration, then Queues.
  3. Select your queue from the list.
  4. On the Basics tab of your queue's configuration screen find the field labeled Queue Name.
  5. Enter the new queue name into the field; try to stick to the convention Org Name::Queue or Org Name::Team Name::Queue if possible.
  6. Wait until just before the 5-minute mark of the next hour to click the Save Changes button; try to do this step outside your business hours if possible.

Cleanup steps

  1. Verify email into your queue still works by waiting until just after the 5-minute mark of the hour, sending a test message to your queue, and checking for a new ticket.
  2. Update any saved searches you are aware of to reference the new queue name; be prepared to field questions from your users if they have personal saved searches that no longer return results.
  3. Send a message to your users to let them know the queue name has changed, and remind them to check and update any personal saved searches.

Because of these dependencies it is recommended you change your queue name only rarely. If you anticipate any problems or would like the RT support team to make the change for you, please send mail to tooltime@mit.edu with your request. Be sure to include the exact time you would like the change to take effect, and give the team enough lead time.

See also

IS&T Contributions

Documentation and information provided by IS&T staff members


Last Modified:

July 28, 2021

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