itop request- validation workflow possibilities ?

[EdG]

Hello,

I have installed itop 2.6.1, and users can submit IT requests to myself
by using it.

It is working good, but it does not match with the procedures of the
compagny.

By example, a user want to ask to create a new IT account, he fills a
word document to specify the account type.
Then director must sign this word form, and the request can be made in
itop (with joining the word document).

Is there a way to create a workflow in itop (including validation from
director) ?
And maybe, create forms to replace the word document ?

Best Regards,
EdG

[Jeffrey Bostoen]

There's some options. Give the directors access in iTop so they can approve it there.

Or create a custom front end and use the iTop API. We've done some Active Directory authentication, filling in a form and adding attachment; which then gets sent to our iTop.

[Pierre Goiffon]

Hello,

Combodo has a free extension for approbation workflows : https://store.itophub.io/en_US/products/combodo-approval-process-automation

It is quite hard to answer such a question on a forum... I would advice getting in touch with Combodo or one of its partner. Of course it won't be free but you will get help on specifying and implementing... => sales@combodo.com

[EdG]

Hello Pierre,

Thank you very much, I think this extension can be the solution.
I will test it.

Best Regards,

[Guillaume Lajarige]

Hello EdG,

To answer you the as accurately as possible we need to know 2 things :

• The user does NOT have an iTop account yet ?
• Can the director have an iTop account and use iTop (end-users portal) to validate the said form?

I think you can do something pretty neat with the free extensions from iTop Hub 🤩

Guillaume

[EdG]

Hello Guillaume,

Thank you,
Yes, the director has an itop account, and could be in itop users group with rights to validate.
And Yes the user has alerady an account yet.

What could be the free extension from iTop Hub to use ?
Is there a catalog of extensions ?

EdG

[Guillaume Lajarige]

In that case, simply download the "Approval process automation" on iTop Hub, you will be able to define some ServiceSubcategories for which an approbation is required. This means that when a UserRequest is created for those ServiceSubcategories, they will be in the "waiting for approval" state until one of the approvers (eg. Your director) approves or rejects the request.

An email is automatically send to the approvers after the request has been created, it contains a link to approve/reject.

It's a really great extension that most of our customrs use : https://store.itophub.io/en_US/products/combodo-approval-process-automation

Going further
In the future if you have users without iTop account, you can use the Mail to ticket automation extension so they can send an email to a dedicated email address (eg. it-requests@company.com) that will create the UserRequest in iTop. This request can also be part of the approval process.

This could be great for new users so they can ask for an iTop account.

Hope this helps,
Guillaume

[EdG]

Hello Guillaume,

The Appoval process automation is great !!
I only noticed 2 things :

1. how to triggered an email when director click on approved ?
   It seems possible but it requiered a trigger "on object update" with a Target class "Approved Changes". May you help me for the corresponding request ?
2. Is there a way to make the approval date appearing for a closed request ? (from the public front end)

The extension "Mail to ticket automation" seems also very great.
Do you know if it can be set with multiple email adresses ? (e.g. : itsupport@.... technicalstaff@... etc.)

Best regards,

[Guillaume Lajarige]

Hello EdG,

Point 1
You can make a trigger "on entering state" for example which checks when a UserRequest enters the "approved" or "rejected" state. This will send a notification when the director (or any other approvers) validates/rejects the request.

Point 2
Yes you can, for that you need to modify the default portal configuration through your own extension. You will have to modify the /itop_design/module_designs/module_design[@id="itop-portal"]/forms/form[@id="ticket-edit"]/twig to add the field. Are you familiar with making an iTop extension?

Mail to ticket
You can create as many "mailboxes" as you want with the extension, so one per email is ok. :)

Hope this helps,
Guillaume

[EdG]

Hello Guillaume,

Thanks ! I succeeded to fix point 1

Point 2... I have installed iTopDataModelToolkit-2.3 and performed a customization : change the name of a label, that 'a all.
I do not know how to add field...
Is there a documentation for newbies ?

Point 3...fixed also (cron.php installation solves my issue)

[EdG]

Hello Guillaume,

For point 2 : "You will have to modify the /itop_design/module_designs/module_design[@id="itop-portal"]/forms/form[@id="ticket-edit"]/twig to add the field"
I would like to add the information date+time of approval, displayed in User request "Approval Status", in the enhanced itop-portal.

But where to find the class id corresponding to the User Request ? Or to add this information in the itop-portal in the view "Closed requests" / Qualification & Dates ?

[Guillaume Lajarige]

Hello EdG,

In the admin. console, open the Datamodel, then the UserRequest class. Find the attribute code for the attribute you want. (I don't remember its code)

Then "redefine" the twig node of the form specified in the previous XPath in your extension. If you take a look at the "ticket-edit" form of the portal, you will see that it's for Ticket and therefore all its subclasses (UserRequest, Incident, ...).

Is that better or is it something else that you are missing?

Guillaume

[EdG]

It seems that date/time I am looking for is in the ApprovalScheme class :'Ended' attribute (and not in UserRequest class)
In the Datamodel, the search on ticket shows the following subclasses : Change and UserRequest
ApprovalScheme class is not a subclass of ticket.
How to do ?

Sorry, I am not enough used with developping extension :
"Then "redefine" the twig node of the form specified in the previous XPath in your extension. If you take a look at the "ticket-edit" form of the portal, you will see that it's for Ticket and therefore all its subclasses (UserRequest, Incident, ...)."
May you explain me :
What is a twig node ? Xpath ?

In my extension, I have 4 files :
datamodel.myextension.xm
fr.dict.myextension.php
model.myextension.php
module.myextension.php

[Guillaume Lajarige]

Unfortunately, you won't be able to get this field easily to put it in your form. 😕

Regarding your second point, through your own extension, you change the datamodel via an XML delta. The XPath is a simple (standard) way to identify an XML node, for instance, when i talked about /itop_design/module_designs/module_design[@id="itop-portal"]/forms/form[@id="ticket-edit"]/twig, it means :

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<itop_design>
    <module_designs>
        <module_design id="itop-portal" xsi:type="portal">
            ...
          <forms>
              ...
            <form id="ticket-edit">
              ...
              <twig> <!-- THIS NODE -->
                ...
              </twig>
              ...
            </form>
              ...
          </forms>
            ...
        </module_design>
    </module_designs>
</itop_design>