Searching RT
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Searching for Tickets
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Quick search by ticket number
On every screen in RT there is a search box in the top right corner. If you know the number of the ticket you wish to retrieve, just enter it in the box. The search will return all details of that ticket, even for 'deleted' tickets.
- Enter a ticket number in the box and click the 'Search' button.
- The search above would return details of the ticket number you entered.
Detailed Searches
The search interface is available within every queue. One important point to be aware of is every ticket listing in a queue is based on a search. The default search criteria is tickets that are new and open, in the particular queue you are viewing.
For a New Search:
Click Ticket -> New Search from the Left Hand navigation column to start a new search. The default search criteria set for every queue is to show all tickets matching:
- Status = new
- Status = open
- Status = stalled
The current search criteria are always listed under Current search criteria. In the example below, current search criteria are blank as no search has been requested at this stage.
If you wish to know the history of all incidents involving the desktop computer in Kane 130, you would seach for location and equipment, and you would be interested in all ticket states such as open, new, stalled and resolved.
The search would look like this:
- Location is: KNE 130
- Equipment is: DC
The search above would return all new, open, stalled and resolved tickets in all queues, for room KNE 130 where the equipment is a desktop computer.
Below is a list and explanation of each Search criteria:
- Owner is - specify is or isn't from a drop-down list of RT users
- Requestor email address - search the requestors email address
- Subject - search the subject line - note: all Admissions queues have a specified subject line created by default, so this may not be useful
- Queue - specify a queue to search in or a queue to disregard
- Priority - not consistenly used, so you may not yeild many results with this criterion
- Created*(resolved/started etc - choose from drop-down)- specify date criteria - more details
- Ticket attachment - content - matches - ticket attachment refers to the body of the ticket i.e. the text of the query made by the requestor. This allows the searching of the content of tickets.
- Status - is or isn't a status as selected from a drop-down list. Useful for searching for, e.g. resolved tickets.
- Ordering and Sorting - allows you to sort search results in a number of ways. Select the field to sort by from the drop-down list. The number of results displayed per page can be amended.
The 'Don't show search results' box should only be ticked if you want to find out the number of tickets meeting the search criteria without needing to look at the tickets themselves.
Searching is pretty intuitive however there are some points worth noting:
- As mentioned above clicking queue links takes you to a search page that displays search results for new and open tickets in that queue. That search can then be further refined.
- Searches, by default, are sticky. That is, if you return to the Search page during a session, it will display the most recent search. To start a search over again click New Search or return Home and then re-enter the queue from the main screen.
- Searches are, by default, limited to 50 results per page.
- Searches are iterative -- you build them up. If you search for tickets owned by the adm-fees-ug (Admissions Undergraduate Fees) queue, then search for open tickets, you'll get open tickets owned by adm-fees-ug.This iterative process includes the original default search criteria as described above.
All your search criteria are clearly listed and are individually deleteable so you have very granular control of your searching.
The search engine allows very flexible time based searching.
When RT displays multiple search results, it will also display Previous, Next, First, and Last links for navigating through the matching tickets.
Bookmarking Searches
Searches are bookmarkable. If you do a fairly complex search pattern or one that you perform often it can be bookmarked for future use.
Use this procedure to bookmark:
- Click Bookmarkable URL for this search at the foot of the Current search criteria column. This will turn the search pattern into a static bookmarkable URI which you can see in your Browser address field.
- The search is not bookmarked at this point - we have just converted it into an address than can be bookmarked.
- Using your browser, bookmark or save the URL as you would with any other web page.
- If you are using Internet Explorer, click Favorites-Add to Favorites...
- If you are using Mozilla, click Bookmarks-Add to Bookmarks...
- If you are using Netscape 4, click Bookmarks-Add Bookmark
You may need to edit the actual title or name of the saved URL to make it more descriptive. The search criteria you selected will now be saved. To retrieve the search, select the URL from your Favorites or Bookmarks. If you are already logged into RT, the search will run and retrieve all tickets that match the criteria you have saved.
If you select the search from your favorites/bookmarks whilst not logged into RT, you will be prompted to log-in. The search will run as soon as you have logged in.
Time and Date searching criteria
RT allows for numerous time and date formats to be used in search criteria. This make it very easy to search for tickets relative to the current date and/or time.
You can use dates to search 'Before', 'On' or 'After' the following ticket properties:
Created, Started, Resolved, Last Contacted, Last Updated, Starts, Due, Updated.
Absolute formats
All the following formats are valid date strings where:
dd = numeric day, mm = numeric month, yy = 2 digit year, yyyy = 4 digit year, mon = 3 char month, month = full name of month
Format Examples:
- mm/dd/yy 1/11/03
- mm/dd/yyyy 1/10/2003
- mm/dd (assumes current year) 10/9
- dd mon 5 jul
- dd month yy 7 july 04
- dd mon yyyy 27 mar 2004
- mon dd apr 26
- mon[th] dd{st, nd, rd, th} october 10th, nov 17th
Relative Formats
We have units of 'days', 'weeks', 'months' and 'years' and a prefix action of 'last' or a numeric.
Can also use 'now', 'today' and 'yesterday'. Postfix of 'ago' can also be used.
Relative units are specific to the current time of day. So 'yesterday' means from this time yesterday.
Format Explanation Examples today Current date and time today yesterday previous 24 hour period yesterday last week previous 7 day period last week last month previous 31 day period last month last dow last specified day of week last monday, last thursday nn days ago previous nn days 3 days ago, 12 days ago - nn days previous nn days - 3 days, -12 days nn weeks ago previous nn weeks 3 weeks ago - nn weeks previous nn weeks - 2 weeks
Times can also be treated in a similar fashion:
The format for absolute time specification is:
hh:mm where hh = the hour of the day and mm = the minute of the hour. The strings 'noon' and 'midnight' can also be specified. The format for relative time specification is the same as for date specification
nn hours nn minutes nn seconds nn hours ago nn minutes ago nn seconds ago Things to Note Whenever a search is performed the parameters of the search are always listed in the Current Search Criteria field. Individual search criteria can be deleted which will update the view of tickets accordingly.
Time and date searches always return the time in seconds since January 1st 1970 (known as epoch time). This is then converted into a readable date and time string and will be shown with the other search parameters in the Search Criteria field. If you have entered a time/date search parameter incorrectly then the result returned will be shown as 1970-01-01 00:00:00 GMT. If you get this simply delete and start again.
Date/time ranges can be searched in two stages. Specify one date to search from then search again for another date to search to. This will work because the searches are sticky.
