RT 4.2.0 released

We're incredibly pleased to announce the availability of RT 4.2.0 - thefirst release for the next major version of RT. This release adds exciting new functionality, as well as streamlining and generalizing the internals.

When upgrading, please be sure to review the upgrading documentation available in docs/UPGRADING-4.2, as there are a number of backward-incompatible changes that come along with the new version number.

A partial list of the new features in RT 4.2.0 is included below, and on our website. Many of the new features will also be described and demoed in a series of blog posts on this blog in the coming weeks.

If you have questions as you upgrade, please don't hesitate to write to rt-users@lists.bestpractical.com for community support. If you'd rather have professional support from the folks who built RT, drop us a line at contact@bestpractical.com.

• Much improved reporting via search result charting
  • Multiple group by and statistic calculations in a table
  • Time statistics such as average, minimum, and maximum durations between Created and Resolved, Created and Started, Started and Resolved, and more.
  • More robust layout of charts
• Increased performance for searches and ticket pages
  • Faster searches on all databases (especially Pg)
  • Ticket pages load quicker
  • Menus load before the rest of the page is loaded
  • History is loaded asynchronously
  • Faster serving of static assets
• Scrips per queue
  • Apply scrips globally or ad-hoc to individual queues, á la custom fields
  • Less duplication of scrips and/or need for empty templates
• Custom field groupings
  • Display CFs in configurable groupings (boxes) on the ticket display/edit pages
  • Includes arbitrary grouping names as well as standard ticket groupings (Basics, Dates, People, Links, etc.)
• User summary pages
  • Display information about users such as tickets, history, groups, etc.
  • An extended "More about requestors" page for any user
  • Easy to get to via links and user search
• HTML templates enabled by default for new installs, available for upgrades too
• Ticket display improvements
  • Rich text/HTML messages are preferred for display by default
  • Images are inlined with text in ticket history display instead of presented at bottom
  • Clickable users, tickets, articles, and other items
• Many interface improvements, such as:
  • Improved menu layout
  • Per-user preferences for the dashboards which appear in the Home menu
  • Floating page menu for quicker access to ticket actions, subpages, etc.
  • Autocomplete for ticket links, including when merging
  • Autocomplete available to self service users
  • Improved CF and links display in search results
  • Sticky simple search for quick search refinements
  • Attachments on reply can no longer be mixed up when replying to multiple tickets at once
  • ReassignTicket right to assign tickets without stealing first; useful for managers
• S/MIME support integrated with GnuPG support
  • Decrypt and verify incoming GPG and SMIME messages
  • Send all outgoing messages as either GPG or SMIME
• Migration tools
  • Migrate from one database type to another (MySQL, Pg, Oracle)
  • Merge multiple RT instances together
• Thousands of bug fixes; nearly 2000 commits totalling more than 250,000 lines of code changed.

RT 4.2.0rc5 Released; Assets extension

We're pleased to announce the availability of RT 4.2.0rc5 - the fifthrelease candidate for the next major version of RT. This release corrects encoding errors with new versions of the Encode module and rendering of fonts in pie charts.

We look forward to hearing your experiences installing or upgrading to this release; the more feedback we get, the sooner the official release of RT 4.2.0 can occur. Bear in mind that reports of successful installs and upgrades are just as important as reports of issues.

Please be sure to review the upgrading documentation available in docs/UPGRADING-4.2, as there are a number of backward-incompatible changes that come along with the new version number.

---

We are also pleased to announce we have made public our development branch of Assets for RT. This extension requires RT 4.2.0rc5 or above; while no official release has been made, we welcome your testing and comments. We expect to make an official release candidate for Assets 1.0 within the next several weeks.

RT 4.2.0rc3 Released

We're elated to announce the availability of RT 4.2.0rc3 - the third release candidate for the next major version of RT. Barring any surprises, we expect 4.2.0 to ship early next week.

We would be thrilled to hear your experiences installing or upgrading to this release candidate; the more feedback we get, the sooner the official release of RT 4.2.0 can occur. Bear in mind that reports of successful installs and upgrades are just as important as reports of issues.

As always, please review the upgrading documentation available in docs/UPGRADING-4.2, as there are a number of backward-incompatible changes that come along with the new version number. If you are upgrading from 4.2.0rc2, the differences are merely cosmetic.

We have also begun scheduling our services for upgrades in anticipation of the final RT 4.2.0 release. If you have questions about upgrading or other aspects of RT 4.2.0 you can get in touch with us at contact@bestpractical.com.

RT 4.2.0rc2 Released

We're pleased to announce the availability of RT 4.2.0rc2 - the second release candidate for the next major version of RT.

This release fixes a number of errors found in testing the first release candidate:

• Fix minor formatting errors in POD documentation
• Switch away from use of methods which are now deprecated
• Accept S/MIME certificates with CRLF newlines
• Allow S/MIME encryption to untrusted certificates
• Fix index manipulation on case-sensitive MySQL installations
• Correct upgrade history for extensions

We would be thrilled to hear your experiences installing or upgrading to this release; the more feedback we get, the sooner the official release of RT 4.2.0 can occur. Bear in mind that reports of successful installs and upgrades are just as important as reports of issues.

Please be sure to review the upgrading documentation available in docs/UPGRADING-4.2, as there are a number of backward-incompatible changes that come along with the new version number.

In anticipation of the final RT 4.2.0 release, we're also starting to schedule upgrades. If you have questions about upgrading or other aspects of RT 4.2.0 you can get in touch with us at contact@bestpractical.com.

What's New in 4.2: Ticket Display Improvements

The ticket display page is the main location for viewing and working on tickets, so we've put some work into making it more interactive. Here are some of the things we added.

More about the requestors

The "More about the requestors" portlet provides a convenient summary of activity for the current requestors. It's displayed by default for Unprivileged users and you can activate it for Privileged users with the $ShowMoreAboutPrivilegedUsers option.

We've updated the ticket list to look more like typical RT ticket lists, making it easier to view. You can still click on the ticket id or subject to go to a ticket, and now the ticket owner's username is also a link which takes you to the new user summary page. We'll cover the user summary page in another post, but it's essentially a summary of information for the selected user.

To access additional requestor information, the upper righthand corner also has a new link to the user summary page for the current requestor. This replaces the "Modify this user" link since all user actions, including editing user details, are available from the user summary page.

Inline Images

Inline images from email previously were displayed at the bottom of the email in the history. At times this could be awkward if the text of the email referred to the inlined image or there were several images, so we now display images inline just as they were in the incoming email.

Default to HTML Email

The $PreferRichText option allows you to tell RT to show HTML or rich text messages in preference to the plain-text versions. In the past this option was defaulted off, but it's now on by default. It made sense to update this option given the number of email clients sending HTML email. In addition to making the history look a little nicer, it will also help resolve issues some users had with not seeing email sent with only an HTML version.

More Linked Items

The ticket history contains a lot of information, some of it referencing other RT tickets, users, or articles. As you can see in the screenshot above (look for the hand hovering over the ticket link), we've made many of these items live links now so you can easily access them right from the ticket history. As you mouse over transactions in the ticket history, you'll see that users, tickets (when referenced in history for adding a link, for example), and articles are all links now.

Floating Menu

As you scroll down through the ticket history, you'll notice the ticket submenu now floats with you so it's always available. This makes it much easier to jump to an update page (e.g., People, Dates) or access a ticket action from the Actions menu. This is especially useful if you have customized your lifecycles to include your most common status changes as actions or quick actions.

Ticket Autocomplete

Finally, we've added autocompletion for ticket ids on the Links page to make it much easier to find and link to the correct ticket. Like other autocomplete fields in RT, just start typing a ticket id or subject and you'll get a list of tickets that match. Select the one you want to link, and the field is populated with the ticket id.

You'll also notice that on the Links page we've move Merge into a separate area. Merging is different from the other link relationships and having it in the same section as the others could be confusing for users.

We think these changes add up to some real efficiencies on the ticket display page. We hope you agree.

Read the RT 4.2 new feature overview for information on more new features.

Request Tracker training in New York City, October 8th and 9th

Our third training for 2013 will be held in New York, NY on October 8th and
9th. As we like to keep class sizes relatively intimate, register soon or we
may not be able to guarantee you a seat. If you can't make it to this training
session, feel free to drop us a line to suggest locations for the future.

This training will introduce you to the new features in RT 4.2 as part of a
comprehensive overview of RT. Whether you're an old hand at RT or a recent
convert, you'll have a good understanding of all of RT's features and
functionality by the end of the session.

The first day starts off with a tour of RT's web interface and continues with a
detailed exploration and explanation of RT's functionality, aimed at
non-programmer RT administrators. We'll walk through setting up a common
helpdesk configuration, from rights management, constructing workflows and
notifications, and the basics of Lifecycles.

The second day of training picks up with server-side RT administration and
dives into what you need to safely customize and extend RT. We'll cover
upgrading and deploying RT, database tuning, advanced Lifecycle configurations,
writing tools with RT's API, building an extension, and demonstrate how to
extensibly alter the web UI and internal functions.

It goes without saying that you'll get the most out of training if you attend
both days of the course, but we've designed the material so that you can step
out after the first day with a dramatically improved understanding of how to
use RT or show up on the second day and get quickly up to speed on how to make
RT do your bidding.

Each class includes training materials, a continental breakfast, and an
afternoon snack (lunch is not provided).

If you'd like to pay with Visa, MasterCard or Discover, please visit Best Practical's online store.
Unfortunately we are unable to accept American Express or PayPal. If you'd
prefer to pay with a purchase order, please email us at
training@bestpractical.com. Be sure to include:

• If you want to attend both days or a single day
• Full names and email addresses of attendees

Please also contact us at training@bestpractical.com for discounted pricing if
you are from an academic institution or if you'd like to send more than 3
people.

What's New in 4.2: HTML Email

RT allows you to send HTML email from notification templates and in RT 4.2 we're improving HTML support and providing HTML versions of all of the standard templates. New RT installs will default to using the new HTML templates. If you are upgrading an existing RT instance, your existing templates will be left in place, and the new HTML templates will be installed so you can switch to them when you're ready.

As described in the upgrade notes, we have also provided some convenient scripts to switch to the HTML templates and back to text. To switch to HTML templates, run:

/opt/rt4/etc/upgrade/switch-templates-to html

To switch from HTML back to text, run:

/opt/rt4/etc/upgrade/switch-templates-to text

When sending HTML email, RT automatically makes the outgoing messages multipart, allowing recipients who can read only plaintext to still get email they can read, while users with HTML-capable clients to see the HTML version.

Creating HTML Emails

Coding HTML in email can be challenging since the HTML support in various email clients varies widely. In many ways you need to put aside modern web design techniques and design more like it's 1999 (or maybe 2003). But it's worth the effort since HTML email can give your correspondence with customers a more polished look. The new HTML templates provide you with a start and you can build from those.

To start, you might add a header image that identifies you or your organization immediately for recipients. Much like a website, the header and footer are convenient places to put links to other useful resources like FAQs, your home page, or other web resources.

If you plan to include images, you'll need to host the image on a web server that your users can access. You may want to put the images on a world-accessible web server, like your main web site, since some customers may not have access to your RT server. Also keep in mind that many email clients are initially set to not display images by default and keep that in mind when designing your email.

Even with the mixed email client support, you can still use CSS in your design. However, your email is likely to render in more clients if you use inline CSS, something you have likely avoided in web design. You'll also want to use table-based layouts to make sure the email renders properly in more email clients.

Mobile devices have become ubiquitous so you need to also consider mobile email clients. The good news on this front is that many of the email-capable devices have fairly good support for HTML standards, often better than PC-based email clients.

Given the number of email clients available, you'll want to determine what clients are most used by your customers and test on those platforms. If you are in a managed IT environment, you might be able to reliably narrow it down to the official company email client. If you have more variation in your customer pool, pick the more widely used and available clients and test with those. Don't forget popular web-based clients like GMail.

We hope these tips are enough to get you started and encourage you to try customizing the default RT templates to personalize your correspondence with customers. You can find more information on working with templates in general in the RT template documentation.

Read the RT 4.2 new feature overview for information on more new features.

RT 4.2.0rc1 Released

We're extremely excited to announce the availability of RT 4.2.0rc1 -- the first release candidate for the next major version of RT.

We would be thrilled to hear your experiences installing or upgrading to this release; the more feedback we get, the sooner the official release of RT 4.2.0 can occur. Please be sure to review the upgrading documentation available in the distribution in docs/UPGRADING-4.2, as there are a number of backward-incompatible changes that come along with the new version number. Upgrading documentation is also available on the Best Practical website along with the rest of the RT 4.2 documentation.

A partial list of the new features in RT 4.2.0 was posted previously. In the coming weeks we'll continue with more posts to describe and demonstrate new features.

In anticipation of the final RT 4.2.0 release, we're also starting to schedule upgrades. If you have questions about upgrading or other aspects of RT 4.2.0 you can get in touch with us at contact@bestpractical.com.

What's New in 4.2: Menu Changes

We've moved some menus around in RT 4.2 to make things more intuitive and usable. We know many of you have been working with RT for years and willwonder where some things have gone, so we put together this summary of the changes to help you out.

Home Menu (Dashboards)

In RT 4.2, users have more control over the dashboards that show up in the Home menu. In the Home menu itself, you'll see a new "Update This Menu" option that allows you to do just that. The option is also available under Logged in as > Settings > "Dashboards in menu." On the new Customize dashboards page, you can add and remove dashboards from the Home menu and set the order just the way you want. Users will need rights for some of these features, like "Create personal dashboards" (CreateOwnDashboard) and "View personal dashboards" (ViewOwnDashboard).

If you're the RT admin, you can set default dashboards as well. Go to Admin > Global > "Dashboards in menu" and configure the dashboards just as with personal dashboards, but since these are global, they will become the default for everyone. If you're setting it up for the first time, remember to grant the appropriate rights, at least "View system dashboards" (SeeDashboard) and possibly "View saved searches" (ShowSavedSearches) if the dashboard uses a saved search.

Search Menu

Searching for information is a very common action in RT and depending on your roles in RT you may want to search for things other than just tickets. To acknowledge this we've replaced the "Tickets" menu with a more general "Search" menu. We think "Search" is more intuitive and better describes where the menu leads. In addition to Tickets, which is the first and primary item, you'll now see entries for easily accessing search for Articles and Users.

Articles

The Articles menu, previously in Tools, has been moved up to the top-level menu. This new menu gives you easy access to the Articles overview page, Topics, the create page, and Search.

Tools

Previously, Tools was something of an overflowing toolbox. It contained items like Articles, tools for RT users, plus tools for administrators. As mentioned in other sections, several items have been moved and promoted to the top-level menu. What remains are user-focused tools like the My Day page and Approvals.

The Offline tool also used to be in the Tools menu. The Offline tools itself has been removed in RT 4.2 due to some long-running deficiencies.

Admin

All of the menu items for administering RT, previously in the Configuration menu under Tools, are now in their own Admin menu.

Conclusion

We hope you like the changes. Please let us know what you think. As with previous versions of RT, many menus are still controlled with rights, allowing you to hide them as needed. For example, users need the "Show Articles menu" right (ShowArticlesMenu) to see Articles. Also remember that, like many parts of RT, the menus can be cleanly modified via Callbacks, so you can make additional changes and customizations to suit your needs.

What's New in 4.2: Overview

With the upcoming release of RT 4.2, we're excited to have users get their hands on the new features we've been using internally for a few months. To highlight these features and give you some background, we'll be publishing blog posts on key features as we've done in the past.

As always, RT 4.2 will come with a full set of upgrade scripts and additional upgrade information (which you can preview here), so we hope you'll be able to upgrade soon and take advantage of the new features. If you need help upgrading from any version of RT, we also offer a range of upgrade and support services. Just send email to contact@bestpractical.com.

New RT 4.2 Features

The first thing you're likely to notice is our new theme "rudder". It's cleaner and more modern looking, and we think you'll like it. This is a shot of the home page to give you a taste of what it looks like.

The aileron theme is still available as a personal or site-wide setting.

You'll also notice that we've made some changes to the menus.

You can find a description of the changes along with our reasoning in the menus blog post.

In addition to the new theme and menu changes, RT 4.2 brings a host of other new features:

• HTML Templates for Notifications
• Ticket History Improvements
• New Charting Features
• New User Summary Page
• Grouping for Custom Fields
• Easier per Queue Scrip Configuration
• Per-user Dashboard Configuration
• SMIME Support
• Thousands of small improvements and bug fixes

We'll provide details on these and more over the next few weeks. After the release, we'll publish all of the RT 4.2 documentation in the documentation section on the Best Practical site.

End of Life Products

As previously announced, Best Practical maintains and supports two major releases of RT at a time. As such, the release of RT 4.2 will mean RT 3.8 and other related products will be scheduled for end of life. We'll provide details on products, versions, and end of life dates in an upcoming post.