Bulk modify to 90 Change Request Details Forms

[Steven Cotterell]

Hi,

We have approx 90 services where we need to modify the default 'Change Request' details form, adding new fields, changing field settings and re-ordering the fields on the form.

Thankfully, the forms all need to be the same for all the services (i.e each of the 16 fields are the same for each service), so there must be a way that this can be done without having to manually, one by one, edit the forms.

Any ideas please?  We really don't want to have to edit every single one (which could lead to human error).

Thanks in advance.

Steve.

[James Ainsworth]

Hi Steve,

There is a concept of a default request form.  If all your services will use the exact same same change form, what you need to do is have a change request that is raised with no service associated to it and make your changes on this request.  This will become the default form for all changes on all services provided that the service does not have a custom change form defined.    

In order to add a change request with no service, you may need to create a temporary Progressive Capture script that creates a request without a service.  Just keep in mind that if there are changes for some services where you don't want to use this default form you will have to modify those by removing the default fields.

I'd start by adding one of your new fields to the default form (request without a service) and then view a change that is associated to a service where you have not made any form changes.  If you are happy with how this works, then continue to add the other fields.

If you have already modified a change form associated to a service you should be able to use the option to revert to the default form to take on your newly edited default form.

Hope that makes sense.

Regards,

James

 

[dwalby]

@James Ainsworth this is great to know, wish I knew this before!

Where you say "you may need to create a temporary Progressive Capture script that creates a request without a service" would this essentially be a case of either temporarily changing the default 'new change' progress capture? Or creating a entirely new one and changing the setting for the default progress capture for change requests? Do you have any further guidance on how to do this please? 

[Steven Cotterell]

13 hours ago, James Ainsworth said:

Hi Steve,

There is a concept of a default request form.  If all your services will use the exact same same change form, what you need to do is have a change request that is raised with no service associated to it and make your changes on this request.  This will become the default form for all changes on all services provided that the service does not have a custom change form defined.    

In order to add a change request with no service, you may need to create a temporary Progressive Capture script that creates a request without a service.  Just keep in mind that if there are changes for some services where you don't want to use this default form you will have to modify those by removing the default fields.

I'd start by adding one of your new fields to the default form (request without a service) and then view a change that is associated to a service where you have not made any form changes.  If you are happy with how this works, then continue to add the other fields.

If you have already modified a change form associated to a service you should be able to use the option to revert to the default form to take on your newly edited default form.

Hope that makes sense.

Regards,

James

 

Thanks @James Ainsworth, let me get my head around how you've explained it and in principle that sounds like a great way forward.  I've just got to get it straight in my mind the steps needed to do this.  If I'm struggling, could I set-up a Zoom meeting with you to talk me through this please?

Thanks, Steve.

@dwalby, if you manage to do this before I do, or vice-versa, I'd be happy to help you out.

 

[James Ainsworth]

Creating a change request without a service is easier said then done  .  There are possibly a few ways of doing this.  Here is one example that may work.  On your main progressive capture that you use for raising changes, you can have a branch after you get the request details and before you select a service.  In this example it checks to see if the summary just has the word "test" as the summary.  If it does, it branches and bypasses the Service Details and any other forms that you don't want.

Keep in  mind that requests that are not assigned a Service or a Team may only be accessible if you have the Service Desk Admin role I believe.  So you may still want to include the assign form after your "test" branch.   

[Steven Cotterell]

Hi @James Ainsworth,

I have followed the instructions you posted about creating a default 'Details Request' form in a Change Request raised without a 'Service', however I'm running into a few issues.

Firstly, the form is not actually saving, in the request, exactly the same as when I hit "Apply Changes" (fields are not staying put in the locations/order where I place them).  They initially look fine, but when you go out of the request and then go back into it, they've moved around.

Secondly, I'm unable to see this newly created default 'Details Request' form in any of the services in our Portfolio.  We did have some services that had a modified default 'Details Request' form, but before I started doing any of this, I reset the forms to the 'original' Default.

I have found in the WIKI where is states about how to make a change to the default "Details form' if anyone else wants to read-up on it....  https://wiki.hornbill.com/index.php/Request_Details_Form_Designer

This is how it should look...

It went back to the Request List, then back into the Request and it looked like this... 

Is there anyone that can shed any light on what is happening please (or what I'm possibly doing wrong).

Thanks

Steve.

Edited June 24, 2019 by Steven Cotterell
Had to make a change to the attached graphic to mask contact details.

[Steven Cotterell]

Hi,

Is there anyone from Hornbill please that can shed some light on this for us.  It is delaying us from being able to raise Internal Change Requests properly as the Details form does not have the correct fields on it.

Many thanks.

Steve.

[Steven Cotterell]

On 6/24/2019 at 12:28 PM, Steven Cotterell said:

Secondly, I'm unable to see this newly created default 'Details Request' form in any of the services in our Portfolio.  We did have some services that had a modified default 'Details Request' form, but before I started doing any of this, I reset the forms to the 'original' Default.

How I understood this bit to work was wrong.  I got someone to create a CHG and the form on the submitted CHG Request does indeed display with the fields I created in the 'blank service' CHG Request'.  I expected to see the fields when looking at the 'Change' request configuration section on the Service in the Service Portfolio.  Should I see them here???

However, I still have the problem where the fields are not saved in the order that I saved them in.  This is slightly better as it means the fields to use are there, they are just in the wrong places on the form.

Can anyone help please??

Thanks, Steve.

[James Ainsworth]

Hi Steve,

I'm trying to set some time aside to do some testing with some different scenarios and try to replicate the issue that you are experiencing.  I'll come back with any updates that I have with the results of my tests.

 

[Steven Cotterell]

Hi,

I have noticed that on at least one of our services for the 'Change' request type, that, despite using the 'Restore to default' option on the 'Details' form, it is not using the 'default' request form for a Change Request (that I configured using the recommendation below from @James Ainsworth).

On 6/11/2019 at 12:10 AM, James Ainsworth said:

There is a concept of a default request form.  If all your services will use the exact same same change form, what you need to do is have a change request that is raised with no service associated to it and make your changes on this request.  This will become the default form for all changes on all services provided that the service does not have a custom change form defined.

I need to be confident that every Change created now uses this new default form, but without creating a 'test' Change for every one of our 100+ services, how am I going to know this.  There must be something at the DB level that identfies whether the Details form for a Change request is using a custom one or the default.

Can anyone shed some light as to where to check this please?  

Thanks, Steve.

[Steven Cotterell]

I've found this using 'Database Direct'.

The 'h_service_id' of the above mentioned service is actually '245'. 

The query seems to show some customisation, however I have definitely used the 'RESTORE DEFAULT' option on the Details form.

I have checked creating a Change request for h_service_id '351' also and I'm getting the same behaviour, the new default form is not being selected, despite again ensuring that the form has been restored to default.  When I pick a service not mentioned here, the form is correct.  Can someone verify why the DB is not updating please (assuming I'm looking at the correct table).

Thanks, Steve.

[Steven Cotterell]

I have just used the 'RESTORE DEFAULT' option on another service id that was working.  Now I have an entry in this table for it and low-and-behold the new default form no longer displays.

On 6/11/2019 at 12:10 AM, James Ainsworth said:

If you have already modified a change form associated to a service you should be able to use the option to revert to the default form to take on your newly edited default form.

@James Ainsworth, doing this seems to not revert the form correctly.

[James Ainsworth]

Hi Steven,

I'll see if the development team can shed some light on this. I was testing this and I have come up with a similar outcome as you, which I wasn't expecting.

[Steven Cotterell]

Thanks @James Ainsworth.  There are no other settings/modifications stored in these rows for these services, so is this one of those 'rare' times where Hornbill would allow us to remove these rows from the table?

[James Ainsworth]

While I wouldn't recommend directly modifying the contents of a table, there is the option to take a configured form for Change Requests from a service that you know is working correctly and copy and paste this into one of the configurations where you have used the revert button to see if this gets you back to where you were.

[James Ainsworth]

Something else that can be considered is that after clicking on "Revert to Default" it inserts the highlighted text, where as the other rows are empty.  These empty rows are request types for Services that have not yet been set up.  It may be that having this removed will revert the form back to the original configured form for requests not associated to services.  I will see if I can test this.

[Steven Cotterell]

@James Ainsworth, it appears the only rows in this table for 'Change Requests' are the ones where I have clicked on "Revert to Default" or modified the 'Request Category'.  Almost every service that we have has the 'Change Request' request type enabled, so the fact that the query only shows 6 rows are returned marries up with the research I've done on the services returned in the query. 

For the row returned that shows the 'Request Category' changed, this is no longer needed so I will be removing this setting in the Service (h_service_id = 169). 

I think we need to either just remove the data in the field called 'h_service_request_form' for the 5 rows that refer to 5 Services where I'm having the issue with the form not displaying or we just remove these rows from the table all together as they hold no real purpose.

Thoughts?  Cheers.

[James Ainsworth]

Hi  @Steven Cotterell

I have to start with saying that there is risk with making any changes using Database Direct and this is something normally managed along with Hornbill Support.  

9 hours ago, Steven Cotterell said:

I think we need to either just remove the data in the field called 'h_service_request_form' for the 5 rows that refer to 5 Services where I'm having the issue with the form not displaying or we just remove these rows from the table all together as they hold no real purpose.

My thought here would be that the data in the field h_service_request_form just needs to be removed.  I wouldn't consider removing rows.  There are too many relationships with entities that could cause you further problems.  

[Steven Cotterell]

On 7/22/2019 at 7:54 PM, James Ainsworth said:

I have to start with saying that there is risk with making any changes using Database Direct and this is something normally managed along with Hornbill Support. 

 

On 7/22/2019 at 7:54 PM, James Ainsworth said:

My thought here would be that the data in the field h_service_request_form just needs to be removed.

Thanks @James Ainsworth, I totally appreciate your concerns.  How do I go about engaging with Support please so that we can remove the data from these fields in the DB.  I'm happy to do it, but don't want to go against advice from you guys.  I want to do it with the 'overseeing' of Hornbill Support.

[Victor]

@Steven Cotterell contact me via PM and we'll sort this out

[Steven Cotterell]

On 6/24/2019 at 12:28 PM, Steven Cotterell said:

Hi @James Ainsworth,

I have followed the instructions you posted about creating a default 'Details Request' form in a Change Request raised without a 'Service', however I'm running into a few issues.

Firstly, the form is not actually saving, in the request, exactly the same as when I hit "Apply Changes" (fields are not staying put in the locations/order where I place them).  They initially look fine, but when you go out of the request and then go back into it, they've moved around.

Secondly, I'm unable to see this newly created default 'Details Request' form in any of the services in our Portfolio.  We did have some services that had a modified default 'Details Request' form, but before I started doing any of this, I reset the forms to the 'original' Default.

I have found in the WIKI where is states about how to make a change to the default "Details form' if anyone else wants to read-up on it....  https://wiki.hornbill.com/index.php/Request_Details_Form_Designer

This is how it should look...

It went back to the Request List, then back into the Request and it looked like this... 

Is there anyone that can shed any light on what is happening please (or what I'm possibly doing wrong).

Thanks

Steve.

@Victor, this is what I was talking about.  Thanks.

[Steven Cotterell]

Thanks to @Victor - the default Details form is now displaying for the Change Requests and Incidents on the Services that we had reset the Details form back to default on.

Just have the outstanding issue where the fields are not saving where they I'm putting them.

Good work. 

[Victor]

@Steven Cotterell so basically this seems to be the issue, right?

1 hour ago, Steven Cotterell said:

when I hit "Apply Changes" (fields are not staying put in the locations/order where I place them).  They initially look fine, but when you go out of the request and then go back into it, they've moved around.

And this is on request details on a request with no service, correct?

[Steven Cotterell]

Hi @Victor,

Yes that's correct.  And it also obviously transposes onto Change Requests raised against a Service as this is the 'new' Default Details form.

Cheers, Steve. 

[Victor]

@Steven Cotterell all right, let me have a look then...