RT Glossary

This document is a glossary of terms used in RT.

General terms

Comment

An internal note added to a ticket. In a default RT, a comment is not emailed to the ticket's Requestors or Ccs; AdminCcs do receive it. Administrators can change who is notified. Compare Reply.

Lifecycle

The set of statuses a ticket can have and the steps allowed between them. Each queue uses a lifecycle; RT ships with a default one, and administrators can define others.

Owner

The user responsible for working a ticket. A ticket has exactly one Owner. Owner is one of a ticket's roles.

Portlet

A box on an RT page: each panel on the homepage (a ticket list, the quick ticket-creation form) and each box on a ticket's display page (The Basics, People, Dates) is a portlet. Also called a widget.

Queue

A container that groups related tickets, like a shared inbox. Many organizations give each team its own queue, but a queue can be organized around anything: a product, a project, a stage of work.

Reply

A message on a ticket meant for the people the ticket is for. In a default RT, a reply is emailed to the ticket's Requestors and Ccs. Administrators can change who is notified. Also called correspondence. Compare Comment.

Requestor

The person who initiated the ticket, or on whose behalf it was created; the person the ticket is being worked for. A ticket can have more than one Requestor. Requestor is one of a ticket's roles.

Resolve

To mark a ticket done. In RT's default lifecycle this sets the ticket's status to resolved; a customized lifecycle may use different statuses.

Role

A named connection between people and a ticket: Owner, Requestor, Cc, and AdminCc are the roles every ticket has, and administrators can add custom roles. Roles determine who receives email about the ticket. See Ticket metadata.

Status

Where a ticket stands in its lifecycle, for example new, open, or resolved in the default lifecycle. See Ticket metadata.

Ticket

RT's record of a single request or task, from arrival to completion.

Transaction

One recorded change on a ticket: a reply, a comment, a status change, and so on. A ticket's history is its list of transactions.

Watcher

Someone who receives email about a ticket because of their role on it. Requestor, Cc, and AdminCc are a ticket's watcher roles: in a default RT, Requestors and Ccs are emailed replies, and AdminCcs are emailed replies and comments both. A queue can also have Cc and AdminCc watchers, who watch every ticket in that queue. Compare Role.

Right names

RT uses a handful of (mostly) standard prefixes to create right names of the form "<action><object>". The prefixes and their meanings (if not apparent) are explained here.

Admin

Create, modify, and delete

Create

Delete

Edit

Create, modify, and delete

Load

See/show

Modify

Change the content, details and/or metadata

See

Allow viewing of

Show

Allow viewing of, or display in the interface

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