Customer Involved Workflow

[davidbann]

Hi there,

What are the workflow capabilities like in OTRS? Does it have workflow capabilites?
If so, is it only USERS that can be involved in the workflow process, or can CUSTOMER-USERS also be involved in approvals etc?

Basically, what I need to know is if the following can be done:
- A CUSTOMER-USER sends an email with a request.
- The request is logged in OTRS, and according to workflow configuration, the 1st approver, who is a different CUSTOMER-USER is then notified of the request.
- The CUSTOMER-USER must then approve the request before it is sent to the 2nd CUSTOMER-USER approver - they are notified
- After the 2nd CUSTOMER-USER approves the request, it is sent to a USER (gent) for us to process the request.

So basically I am trying to provide change management to my customers so that our system manages the process, while they still own the process. In the end, the request comes back to our agents so that we can take action.

Is this at all possible?

[crythias]

OTRS assumes that the Customer who sends the ticket has approved the request for service. Anything that happens Customer side for workflow usually has to be done by the customer. This isn't unique to OTRS. If you place an order on a website, the website doesn't care if you need approval from accounting to purchase.

Internally, though, a ticket might have an "owner" Agent -- My dispatch person for one Queue/Department owns all tickets and assigns "Responsible" who does the ticket, (since these are generally non-technical, they get a print-out of the ticket) who then turns it in to dispatch so the dispatch can close the ticket.

[davidbann]

Thanks for the response...

What if the customer has their own installation of OTRS? Would they be able to create a change request, which at the end of the approved request, sends us a new ticket?

[crythias]

Probably, but if you know that will be the case, you probably should change one of the internal otrs id from 10 to something else or you might have other issues.