RT, and the balm it applies to the human soul

[idonotlikepeas]

RT, or Request Tracker, is the system which LiveJournal uses to track work internally. It is, therefore, the system into which bugs are posted for the developers to work on once we have diagnosed them.

This post is not intended to be an in-depth RT guide, just a list of tips on how to do what you need to do in RT as a support volunteer. If you've found any tricks that you think would be useful for your fellow volunteers to know, please comment with them and we'll see about putting them in the entry. Before we go any further, some terminology: a ticket is RT's name for what we call a request in Support, and a queue is much like a support category; it's a way of grouping tickets and keeping them organized. The only queue that we as Web volunteers are generally concerned with, and the only one addressed in this guide, is the "Bugs" queue, which, unsurprisingly, holds bugs.

The first thing you need to do with RT is log in. Visit http://rt.livejournal.org/ and log in using OpenID, with your journal's URL (e.g. http://exampleusername.livejournal.com) as your username. If it is your first time there, you will be asked for confirmation from LJ that you really wish to log in to the service. You will then be brought to a profile page; fill out your name and language in the appropriate fields. Use your @livejournal.com e-mail address in the e-mail field. Fill out anything else you want, although keep in mind that this stuff is publicly available, so you might not want your phone number in there. Once you have saved your profile, click on the "Home" link in the left-hand menu.

The first page you will see in RT proper is the "RT at a glance" page, which has a list of tickets you own (which will be empty except in very special cases), a list of the newest unowned tickets, and a list of queues that you can search. Now, you're probably here to either check on a bug or file one. In the latter case, you need to search first anyway, since we don't want duplicates, so let's talk about searching.

In most cases, you can find what you need by using the search box in the upper-right corner of the screen. Type appropriate words and phrases in there, like "client crashes in friends dialogue", and you will get tickets related to those. You may want to try a few variations - "browser crashes in friends dialogue" or "browser crashes on friends page", "I hate my life and want a cookie", etc. There is a more advanced search page, found by clicking on 'Tickets' in the left-hand menu, but it can be overwhelming the first few times you see it. If you decide to try it out, keep in mind that many things can be used as dates, including basic english phrases like "5 days ago" or "yesterday". (This is handy if you want to create a query for "all bugs made in the last five days", for instance.) This page will also let you save common queries, in case you're poking around in here for the same thing a lot. A more detailed, in-depth look at the search page is beyond the scope of this guide.

Once you've satisfied yourself that you want to open a new ticket, do so by using the "New ticket in" button on the top of the page. Here's how to file a ticket:

1. Set the drop-down next to the new ticket button to "Bugs" if that isn't already the value, then click it.
2. Leave the Status as "new" (because it is a new ticket). The status field lets you create tickets in other conditions, but you should never have a reason to do that.
3. Leave the Owner as "Nobody" unless you already know who your ticket needs to be assigned to. (If you're not sure, you don't know and shouldn't worry about it. The dev staff will assign unassigned tickets themselves.)
4. You will automatically be marked as a requestor if you filed the ticket; you don't have to add yourself to that field, but if there are others, insert their e-mail addresses here. Do not insert users who filed requests in Support that led to the ticket being created as requestors (or CCs or AdminCCs for that matter).
5. A CC is someone who needs to be kept up to date on developments in the ticket; you may fill in a list of e-mail addresses here. Generally speaking, you should not CC anyone on a request except other Support people who need to be kept up to date; always CC the Web administrator(s) and the Support Coordinator when filing a ticket from Web (or a ticket marked [web] from II), by entering their @livejournal.com addresses.
6. An AdminCC is someone who is actually working on the ticket, but isn't the owner. Leave this blank.
7. The Subject is a one-line summary of the problem you're reporting. It should be descriptive; think of every support request you've ever seen, then give your ticket a subject like the ones you always wanted the end users to use. If you're having trouble summarizing the issue, come back to this and fill it in after you write the description.
8. Leave the URL field blank. This may be used at some point, but currently is not.
9. The category is the general area of the site in which the bug occurs. Pick the closest one, or General/Unknown if nothing else seems to fit. Don't get too tied up on this if it's not clear where the ticket should go; that's why G/U is there.
10. The file attachment box is useful if you are sending a patch yourself, or other supporting files. If you aren't, leave it blank and don't worry about it.
11. The description should be brief and to-the-point. Describe the general issue and paste in links to any support requests you happen to know of that relate to it; it is not necessary to locate and obsessively link every request related to the issue; if the devs need more links than we provide, they'll ask for them.
12. You're done. Hit create.

You can view the ticket you've created (or any ticket) by going to http://rt.livejournal.org/Ticket/Display.html?id=[ticket number], e.g. http://rt.livejournal.org/Ticket/Display.html?id=1 - once there, you can append more information to a ticket. Please note: RT is not a place to discuss changes to LiveJournal. That is what suggestions is for. You should only append to a ticket if you have more information about the bug described in it, suggestions for implementation, etc. If that is the case, reply using the "Reply" link at the top of this page, and type your text in. This is not editable or removable in any way, so be careful what you say. When you're viewing a ticket, you may also use the ticket context menu which appears in the left-hand side to edit various parts of it; this is useful to add yourself to the CC list, for instance. Please do not CC yourself on an excessive number of tickets; if you're just interested in seeing what happens, go back and check later. Only CC yourself if you actually need to be notified immediately when the status of the ticket changes. Otherwise, make a custom search that includes those tickets and bookmark it.

That's about it for the introduction. If you want more information on RT, try http://wiki.bestpractical.com/ and http://wiki.bestpractical.com/index.cgi?UserManual in particular.