[whups] new to whups

[Gary Weinreb]

At 11:27 AM 11/5/2002 -0500, Chuck Hagenbuch wrote:
>The lists stuff sounds good to me. I'm kind of still waiting to see where
>you think the notification stuff should go, too. :)

Well, as I "hack" at it,I'm finding that I'm going with what I can get to 
work, not necessarily what I think I want.  As a fairly new PHP programmer, 
and hacking other's code, I often follow the path of least 
resistance...  Not necessarily bad.  Actually not bad at all.  I'm very 
impressed with the code.  Just wish it was more thoroughly commented <g>...

Basically I want to create triggers at every State and Priority change, to 
notify whoever you (admin) want to preordain, drawing from people 
designated at the Module(Client) level (Account Manager, Client Liaison, 
etc.), and at the Type level (Production Manager, Dept. Managers, etc.), 
with the ability to add/remove people at every Notification Trigger.  I'm 
seeing some sort of table interface, maybe a table for each "contactee", 
with a row for each State, and columns of Priorities with check 
boxes...  Something like that.   I want to be able to notify "BigBoss" if 
we go into "Priority Red" no matter what State we're in, again when we 
leave "Priority Red", if we go into "Priority Orange" in a Production 
State, but not a Sales State, and never at "Priority Green" in any 
State.  It seems that the Notification interface should be on a level 
comparable with States and Priorities, under Types.

I'd also like to be able to setup templates for notification, so that, for 
example, the Client Liaison could get a nicer email message than the 
standard notification, with a place for a real-time comment, but 
essentially pre-written.  Likewise, not all notifications should be email, 
some people should be called on the phone by a person (someone assigned a 
task), and some people should be called on the phone by an automated IVR 
application (gaining popularity in the medical industry).  (Yes I actually 
do custom CTI applications, and I have ideas of creating a Horde module to 
drive the Artisoft Televantage Client API <g>)  Some people should be 
"text-messaged" if "Priority-Red", but emailed otherwise...

I'd like to be able to work towards this degree of flexibility.

Incidentally, I want to be able to programmatically toggle Priority if a 
Project stays in a State for too long a period of time, or if there is no 
activity for a certain period.

> > I see that you are working on this stuff currently, so I'll just try and
> > contain my enthusiasm to constructive feedback...
>
>Don't be too complacent. ;) I'm doing my best, but I have a lot of other
>things to work on and am, at this point, mainly trying to get things in
>good enough shape to have Whups running bugs.horde.org.

I understand.  That certainly seems a worthy priority.  Hopefully not all 
of my contributions will be so Project oriented that they fail to augment 
Bug Tracking...   Incidentally, I think I missed responding to a question 
of yours:  Yes, I think it highly likely that within a single installation, 
multiple "Contexts' of Whups would be utilized.  That seems to be the 
feedback that I'm seeing as well...

>I think you mean serialize/unserialize - http://www.php.net/serialize

I'll check it out. Thanks.

>Thinking about it a bit more, I really think this data belongs in Whups.

I agree.  I'll work on this premise.  I'll make Nag integration a pref if 
Nag exists, and I've much to do before I get to this point.


>I agree. If you're asking me to implement it, well, that'll probably take
>me a bit. :)

That's fine.  I've got a lot to go on.  Have a good trip.  I'll have some 
simple mod's ready this week, though I'll be out Friday.  I've currently 
got some interface changes, ease-of-use stuff, i.e. offering "Edit 
Priorities" and "Edit States" from "Create Tickets" if the user is an 
Admin.  Baby steps.  Today I'm working on copying States and Priorities 
from one Type to another through the Edit interface, so they don't have to 
be re-created.  Should I wait and submit them next week?

-g