Traktip: Automation - Substatus

It’s time for another Traktip!

Last month we discussed the benefits of substatus and how to use it to pause the system clock. This month we’ll talk about setting up automation to move issues along their lifecycle.

Substatus allows you to give an issue a status beyond Open or Closed. While you can manually update a substatus at any time, you may not want to grant that ability to everyone, or you may want certain updates to happen without user input. Setting up business rules lets you have those values updated automatically based on a specific issue event.

Updating Substatus Values

Substatus values can be updated by anyone with the permission “Can Select Substatus when submitting and maintaining issues.” Note: You won’t give that access to everyone because they may not know why you use certain values, or you just might want to keep their view as streamlined as possible.

However, setting up substatus rules lets Issuetrak change the substatus value for you. Some of the issue events that can change a substatus include: initial submission, assignment, closure, note added by the issue submitter, note added by anyone, or note added by anyone in the submitter’s organization. Based on these events, you can pick and choose when a substatus is automatically updated based on the current value when the event occurs.

For example, let’s say you have an issue where the submitter didn’t give you enough information to resolve it. With a substatus value of “Needs User Input,” you’ve added a note telling the submitter what you need to be able to help them. However, if you work from your Dashboard and want to know when the user responds, you can set up a substatus rule that changes the sub status to “User Response Received” as soon as the submitter adds a note to the issue.

How to Set up Substatus Rules

Only Administrators are able to make these changes, which allow you to set up the substatus rules.

To set up your automation:

1. Navigate to right-hand corner to select the gear icon. In the settings lightbox, select Substatus Rules
2. Select which event is going to trigger the substatus change
3. Select the current substatus when the rule runs (it could be “blank” or “any value” if appropriate)
4. Select the value to set the substatus to include a process order if you have more than one rule
6. Click Save in the right-hand box

It’s important to include a process order if you’re going to set up more than one rule. This determines in which order Issuetrak will run the automation. You can create as many as you like, and even multiple automations for the same event, as long as the current values are different.

Because you can manually change the substatus at any time, manual changes will override any set of rules. Additionally, any values set on an Issue Template will override any automation set for when the issue is opened. Automation for substatus changes can be modified at any time by an Administrator and will apply to existing issues as appropriate when the next event with a rule occurs.

As always, if you have any questions or would like to see this in action via a quick demo, your account manager is always happy to help!