Request source type?

[Alberto M]

Hi.

Checking the h_source_type from our requests table, I found, besides the "Analyst", "Email" and "Self Service" which I know the meaning, some request with the h_source_type as "Post" and "Request" as well. Trying to find more info I couldn't find much more info about these. 

Is the "Request" source type set when the request has been raised from another request?

When does the "Post" source type is set?

Thanks again for your help

Alberto

[ArmandoDM]

Hi @Alberto M

yes, the source 'Request' is set when a request is raised from another request (see screenshot)  .   The source 'post' is set when you open a post and then raise a request from the post.
 

[Alberto M]

@ArmandoDM, 

We plan to create requests from an external source using the available API and, in our testing requests we are creating before setting this live, the source fields (h_source_id, h_source_type)
are appearing blank. Can we just populate these fields with something meaningful?

Thanks

 

[Martyn Houghton]

@Alberto M

We populate h_source_type with custom values, such as 'IM', 'InPerson' etc, so yes you can use your own custom values for this field.

In terms of 'h_source_id' we do not populate this but looking at the wiki, probably best to use the Analyst ID of the account you are using the API Key from.

Cheers

Martyn

[Alberto M]

Thanks a lot, @Martyn Houghton for your help!

Very useful.

I forgot to check the wiki for this, my bad

 

[Martyn Houghton]

@Alberto M

The wiki main request table page, though not as up to date as the Entity Viewer in the Admin Tool (screenshot below) does tend to have a bit more of explanation text against it. Though the Entity Viewer tells you the maximum length of the field.

@James Ainsworth @Steven Boardman

Can the entity view descriptions be extended to have example data values and notes added to them as per the level of detail provided in the wiki page?

Cheers

Martyn

[Berto2002]

On 3/26/2020 at 11:24 AM, Martyn Houghton said:

We populate h_source_type with custom values, such as 'IM', 'InPerson' etc, so yes you can use your own custom values for this field.

@Martyn Houghton can you please help with where the Source is set; obvs cannot edit in DB direct. When I search for Source in the UI and Wiki I get nothing useful... Thanks in advance!

[Martyn Houghton]

@Berto2002

There is a standard Simple List under Service Manager called Source which is where we have undertaken the update, which from my memory is a standard one we have changed.

https://live.hornbill.com/<INSTANCE>/admin/app/com.hornbill.servicemanager/setup/simple-lists/Source/

Cheers

Martyn

[Berto2002]

Interesting. We have no such list!

@Steve Giller could you please point me in the direction of the location of where the Request Source can be viewed/modified?

[Steve Giller]

24 minutes ago, Martyn Houghton said:

There is a standard Simple List under Service Manager called Source

That's not an out-of-the-box list.

[Berto2002]

So if I create a list called "Source" does that take-over the job of defining the Sources?

Or has Martyn got a special case there?

Or how else do I alter/add the Sources that can be used by the API Scheduler please?

[samwoo]

@Berto2002 - Not sure if this is helpful, but if you use the Business Process to create linked request (for example if you want to imitate Parent/Child tickets) then you can set the source in the Business Process.

For example, this is a part of our New Starter Process:

A ticket is logged to the Housing Service (the IT side only, our Housing Dept. don't have Hornbill access). When the ticket is created via the BPM, you can grab the Request ID, which can then be used in the following nodes afterwards:

So for example, you can manually set the Source of the ticket to something like "New Starter Request":

If you want the user to be able to update the source of the current ticket logged, then you will probably need a Simple List and a Human Task, but by default the Source is set based on how it is logged in the first place, so there is "Request", "Email", "Analyst", "Portals" (I think), "Post" etc. but these can be overwritten by the Update Request -> Task node.

Not sure if this is helpful, but this has been useful for us.

[Martyn Houghton]

@Berto2002

Just done some digging. We use the Source simple list in our IC when a new request is logged manually.

There is no validation on the Source field, so you can insert anything you want into it as long as it is a text string no more the 32 characters in length, including via the API  scheduler JSON.

 

"6":
		{
			"Type":"Content",
			"Parameter":"sourceType",
			"Content":"Scheduler"
		},

We have a node in our BPM which uses the Update Request > Source to populate the value provided from our customer simple list into the Source value.

Cheers

Martyn

[Martyn Houghton]

@Berto2002

Found the historic Topic from 2018 where I raised this and @James Ainsworth advised on using the Update Request > Source node, as well as @Lyonel amusing GIF.

Cheers

Martyn

 

[Berto2002]

39 minutes ago, Martyn Houghton said:

There is no validation on the Source field

This is all a bit weird but this is what I hear:

1. The system does have default values for Source
2. It adds them to records according to a formula out-of-the box
3. But you can't edit the values or rules because there's no UI interface to access the values
4. But you can use the API or update Request nodes to put any <=32 char value in there per Request

So for the API Scheduler I am going to "make up and use" the value of "API Scheduler". OK

[Martyn Houghton]

@Berto2002

That's correct and that's what we have done to have the increased breakdown of our different sources.

Perhaps it is worth us logging a new enhancement request to have the ability to make this customer configurable and the standard source field in the request details set to use a system-provided simple list rather trying to restart the 2018 post.

Cheers

Martyn

[Steve Giller]

A system-provided simple list would not work, as you would either have to see every variation for every customer on every system, or make it editable in which case errors would occur if the customer deleted a required value, like "post" - and simple lists don't have a "you can't delete this value" function.

Creating your own simple list and adding it to a custom field that only shows when an analyst is raising the Request, or fully automating updating the source in the BPM would not suffer from these issues.

[Berto2002]

I guess my suggestion would be to have how this works documented on the Wiki. I could not find much about this except the source row on the DB tables.