Question

Photo of Derek Mangrum

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Ability to "re-open" work order style Workflows

1

Hello.

I am working on some workflows that are based off of the "IT Support" sample Workflow. The user for this workflow si expressing a desire to be able to 'Re-Open' a ticket that has been resolved. The scenario is that the issue gets fixed and resolved, closing the ticket (and completing the workflow). Then, shortly thereafter, the issue is deemed to NOT be resolved. And, rather than open a new ticket, they want to re-open the exisitng ticket, to have access to the notes and other info captured.

Has anyone tried this? The issue I am coming across is that I, in essence, need to rewind a workflow to a previous state. I would be curious to discuss any solutions you may have come up with for this. I have some ideas, but my 'best' idea requires a Workflow Action that doesn't actually exist (yet?!).

  • Photo of Arran France

    0

    Derek I love this idea. What are you thinking of for the new workflow action? Adding those doesn't seem particularly difficult so it may well be possible.
    • Derek Mangrum

      Derek Mangrum

      I don't want to 'taint the waters', as it were, with my ideas just yet. I am particularly interested in seeing if anyone has solved this problem with the current tools. But, that being said, having a 'Complete Activity' Action that let you target any Activity Type (for instance) would be pretty awesome. The current version of 'Complete Activity' just completes whatever Activity the Action is a part of. It would be useful, and pretty powerful, to be able to Complete remote Activities.


      For me, the complication comes in that I would like for multiple parties (the Requester and the Worker) to be able to re-open a ticket. But, I need them to have a different UI for that. SO, I can't simply assign them both to the same Activity.


      Again, if no one has solved this problem and is willing to share, I can give more details on my proposed solution.

      • Jon Edmiston

        Jon Edmiston

        An action to kill other activities could be tricky as there may be more than one activity of that type running. Knowing which to delete would be hard.


        We talked today about possibly added a 'Reactivate Activity'. This would be set on the workflow type and would allow a 'Completed' workflow to be reactivated by running the selected activity.

        • Derek Mangrum

          Derek Mangrum

          Thank you for putting some cycles on this! :-) I know the ability to re-open a ticket is a powerful and relied-upon feature in our existing system. Thanks again.