I'm tasked with replicating our aging internal issue tracker/ticketing system function to the sharepoint platform. I've created a simple list that requester/customer could use to create a ticket. However, when a support staff/developer add the comment to the ticket, i would like to add a field where they could add the hours they spent on this issue as well as attachments to that specific comment that person creates. At the end of the month, we would calculate how many hours a staff would spend working on issues. Can any creative minded person direct me the best approach for these functions? Much appreciated!
1 Answer
This can be achieved by creating a list based on out of the box Issue Tracking list. By default, versioning is on in this list and the comments field is multi line text field with property Append Changes to Existing Text selected to yes. A user working on a ticket can specify the number of hours spent on the ticket in the comment and can also mention the name of the attached documents in the comment. Similarly, the same issue item can be edited by other users. Note that multiple attachments can be added to an issue item. However, this means that users working on a ticket need to be communicated that they need to mention the number of hours and the name of their attachments in the comments field.
Other option is to create two fields in the list. One for holding the number of hours (can be a text field) and another for the name of the attachments (can be a multi line text field). So, a user will update these fields while working on a ticket. Since saving an issue item creates a new version, all changes can be tracked by checking the version history of the item. Finally, if you are on SharePoint on premise and want to export the version history of the issues to MS Excel you can use my codeplex tool https://exportversionhistory.codeplex.com/. It is available for SP 2010 and SP 2013.
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Dear Yousuf, for the purpose of updating the ticket I guess your recommendation would work. However, at the end of the day, we will have to provide the performance review of each team members to the managements. For example, instead of a ticket showing total 20 hours of work, we'll need to know that support staff A spent 8 hours, and developer B spent 12 hours on it. So having an extra field of holding the number of hours would not be ideal. Thank you for the reply though!David L.– David L.2015-07-09 13:00:24 +00:00Commented Jul 9, 2015 at 13:00
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That is where versioning helps. It keeps track of each update made to the ticket.Nadeem Yousuf– Nadeem Yousuf2015-07-09 13:17:01 +00:00Commented Jul 9, 2015 at 13:17
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Suppose A edits ticket and updates hour field with 4 hours. A version will be created. Then B updates ticket and updates hour field with 8 hours. After saving another version will be created.Nadeem Yousuf– Nadeem Yousuf2015-07-09 13:19:45 +00:00Commented Jul 9, 2015 at 13:19
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Ah i see what you mean. Let me play with it today and see how it goes. Thanks!David L.– David L.2015-07-09 14:22:30 +00:00Commented Jul 9, 2015 at 14:22