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Requiring End Users to Include Comments When Submitting Incidents

Requiring End Users to Include Comments When Submitting Incidents
Filed under: Helpdesk Solution Basics, User Interface, Sample
mboggs's picture
Submitted by mboggs on 25 June, 2008 - 12:23.

When using My Helpdesk Console (winuser), sometimes end users try to type their entire issue in the Title field, rather than the Comments field.

I created a Validation Rule which requires the end user to include a Comment when submitting an incident using My Helpdesk Console (winuser).

In addition to this, we renamed the label on winuser from Title to Summary. We had many end users putting their job title in that field, not knowing any better.

Here is the validation rule:

Name: Blank comments not allowed for guests

Comment: Requires guests to enter a non-blank comment.

Display this message: Please enter a comment

Log to Notification Server: If no user interface present

When: Every time incident is saved

And: When ALL of these are TRUE
"Comment" is the same as ""
"Modified by worker" is equal to "Guest"
<end>

Status: Active

3.75
Average: 3.8 (28 votes)

Slight issue with that

MBHarmon's picture
Submitted by MBHarmon on 25 June, 2008 - 13:05.

There is a slight issue with that unfortunately. If they just hit the space bar it will obey just as if they had not entered a comment and the validation rule will not work properly.

We tried this in the past and ended up adding a condition for the space, but they got around it with two spaces.

Also you won't be able to link KB articles to incidents from the KB article interface, because it doesn't post a comment to the incident.

Thanks for the tip

mboggs's picture
Submitted by mboggs on 26 June, 2008 - 07:10.

We don't use the KB, but it is good to know about that "gotcha" if we ever decide to use it. I'll have to adjust this rule in that case.

I guess end users can type 1, 2, or 10 spaces if they really want to try to avoid typing something. You can't account for every option. Luckily for us, our end users have no problem telling us where the problems are. :)

Exactly. It's still a good

MBHarmon's picture
Submitted by MBHarmon on 27 June, 2008 - 07:12.

Exactly. It's still a good way to keep people from accidentally submitting an empty incident and then doing a second one.