Create a product type for tickets

Step by step to a ticket system – that’s our current blog series to design an individual ticket system with in-STEP BLUE. In the first article you can read how to create your own organizational unit based on a template and how to remove information that is not needed but entered anyway because of the template, like project and holiday applications. Today you will learn how to proceed on the way to a ticket system where you can create a new product type for your tickets.

What do you need to create and edit tickets? Now, first of all you need a category for your tickets. In a category you can describe the properties of a ticket that the user can use later when receiving the ticket. You need a form for the collection of tickets. And there in in-STEP BLUE all products – so, tickets, too – have states that need a state machine. These small steps are all necessary so that you can create a new product type for tickets.

Create a category

Off we go! Open the configuration dialog to manage categories using the menu command organizational unit / category and create a category TICKET under the category PRODUCTREVISION/IN-STEP DOCUMENT.

Navigate to category

Create a new category

The new category TICKET has the following properties:

• Description: for the detailled description of tickets
• Validity date: enter when the ticket should be closed off
• Priority: for the prioritization of the processing of the ticket
• Title: a short description of the ticket

Possible properties of a ticket

Please pay attention to the different data types that can be selected when creating the properties. With the type Listing the Priority has to be set to Listing element. This can be edited with a dialog that can be called up with the … button

Listing element and default settings

More on the topic of categories can be found in the configuration handbook that can be called up in the Documentation menu in in-STEP BLUE.

Edit form

Now you can already design a form that will be available to users inputting a ticket later on. For this, open the in-STEP BLUE form designer. This can be found under tools in the program group microTOOL in-STEP BLUE.

Call up the in-STEP BLUE form designer

It opens an empty form that can be equipped with the following elements:

XML form designer – with a bit of practice, it’s easy

To label the fields use the elements with the Label type. The one-row text fields have the type Textbox, the ones with more rows are Memo. For the date of the maturity, the DateTimeBox is available.

In order to connect the fields with the defined properties in the category, enter the name of each property of the field Property. In the screenshot you can see the connection of the settings description with the memo field.

Then save the designed form and move it into the template folder of your organizational unit with drag and drop. Open the view Templates of the view group Administration and move the file into the folder Templates/German.

Allocate the form as a template

As a category, just select the recently created category TICKET. Fitting with the topic  Create form you can find further information in the in-STEP BLUE documentation. If you’re interested, just look in the administratio handbook.

Create state machines

Now create a single state machine for your tickets. To do this, open the view state machines in the view group Administration and create a new product state machine.

Create a product state machine

Now define the three states: new, being processed and closed.

The condition new should be defined as the starting state, closed as the end state. The icons for these states can be chosen with the “Symbol…” button.

Determine conditions and buttons

In the second tab of the dialog, confirm the events that lead to a state change: editing, close und back to processing.

Determine events

In the tab state transfer, you can confirm how a state can be changed into another. Here you can define how changes between states take place. Simply define the corresponding state transfer. That’s how a new ticket can be taken as being processed and changed to closed. Or a closed ticket can be put back in processing, for example, if there is still more work required.

Determine state transfer

State transfers can connect conditions. Even actions can be triggered by state transfers. We will go into this theme in further blog series.

Configure ticket product type

Now create two product types: one for the folder where the tickets can be stored later and one for the tickets themselves.

Open the view product type from the view group Administration and create  the type Folder for tickets under the product type Organization. The product type is, of course, a directory. The Cardinality should be set to “1” so that only one folder of this type can be created. That way you can be sure that there is a central storage for tickets right from the beginning. If you only want to put tickets in this folder, then don’t allow free products with the checkbox.

Create product type for the folder of the tickets

Now create another product type for the ticket. In this case the type is a file with the cardinality “0..*”. Then you can create as many tickets as you like in the directory. Also allocate the category TICKET to your state machine for tickets and the template for your form.

Create product type for tickets

Now you can quickly establish that the names for tickets is automatically entered. Change to the tab Further Settings in the configuration dialog. In the field Auto Value for Automatic Name enter the value Ticket-{#(000)}. This establishes that the automatic names of the tickets will be built according to the example Ticket-0001. So that the automatic names will be used, check the box next to the setting UseAutomaticName.

Activate automatic naming and numbering

Finished!

In the next entry you will learn how to determine the storage for your tickets, to define a view group for the management of the tickets and how to generate a button for the quick creation of tickets. Just follow along to reach your own individual ticket system step by step. And if you  have questions or ideas, just get in touch with us at service@microtool.de or 030/467086-20. We are looking forward to your feedback.