Customizing ticket entry screen template

[Linwood]

This is more of a "why not" question than "how", at least I think so. New to OTRS so trying to make sure I understand correctly, and any help appreciated.

On the Agent Phone ticket screen (as well as email) there is effectively a lookup/add screen for customer-user that can come up from the "Options" section just above the body of the ticket. This is several lines below the place you enter the customer-user.

It seems a bit unnatural that the place you could add a customer is so far below the customer-user entry line.

It seems fairly easy to move it up -- I made a theme, edited AgentTicketPhone.tt and moved that section up above the customer-user entry, and at least in brief testing it all worked.

Is there some aspect of order or sequence on these screens that required it to be so much further down, in what seems a bit unnatural spot? I worry that not understanding why it is where it is, I may be breaking something subtle?

On a related subject, I see in looking at that template that ticket template support is in there, and commented out. I can find very little (at least after the change from .dtl to .tt) that discusses these. I uncommented out the example, and it seems to work fine. While a bit awkward to have to edit them into the theme, is there a reason this feature is pretty much un-noted in any documentation (and a few web sites)? It seems a very useful feature.

Is there a better way to do ticket templates involved in the community edition? (I see one is available to paid customers)

[crythias]

It's your environment, you should do what you want.

As for placement of Customer User, yes, it's awkwardly placed in a certain point of view, but it's also collected with other "Optional things to do" so there's some argument for placement there. Besides which, I almost never use those options, and especially not Customer User, because the fuzzy search works for my needs. Customer user would just be in the way higher in the list.

It's a form, so placement isn't a problem as far as the form working.

Template support, and certain other things like absolute placement of Dynamic Fields are indeed commented out because they are *nice to have* but unnecessary for stuff to work. Read: It's complicated enough for some people to just get the bases working, let alone introduce an optional component.

Is there a better way than ...? updating the template? No, and since it's a web page, it's not going to be much different no matter how you present it.

[Linwood]

It's your environment, you should do what you want.

Of course, but understanding why a system was designed a particular way is helpful to gaining insight; thanks for humoring the question.

Besides which, I almost never use those options, and especially not Customer User, because the fuzzy search works for my needs. Customer user would just be in the way higher in the list.

Then maybe I should be asking a completely different question. Our customer base in this instance will mean that almost every ticket is a new customer-user entry, in which they need to capture address, telephone, etc. Most will not (they believe, though I question) originate by email but by telephone.

Is there a more appropriate way for an agent to capture that information, or is the options-customer-user entry the place?

I could see that being less use if your user base is known (e.g. in AD) or fairly repetitive/static (few tickets from new customer-users), but just want to make sure there's not a different approach I am missing for adding a new customer-user.

[crythias]

well, it depends ... you don't [necessarily] have to create a customer to service a customer. The Customer field is freeform, so at the minimum you have to put *something* in the customer information. You can, if you want, also turn off verify that it's an email address. (I think... in SysConfig...)

So, yeah, if you're always [needing to be] adding customer demographics you may want to move it up higher.