Proof of concept: Creating reoccuring tickets for task

Jens Bothe11. Nov 2010 | Best PracticesModifications & Packages

A question asked by my customers quite often is:

“How can we create a reoccuring ticket for tasks like checking the backup?”

As there was no solution inside of the OTRS Framework yet my answer was:

“Sorry, you have to create an e-mail via cron for this.”

An article in the german Linux Magazin put this question back to my mind. (Sorry it is in german..)

So I changed the script ‘ical-daemon’ to my needs. Now the following parameters of the ical file are used:
The ticket itself is created by the script ‘create-ticket.pl’ which will be triggered by ‘ical-daemon’ with the needed parameters.

Ticket created by the daemon:

Example ics file:

BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//Apple Inc.//iCal 4.0.3//EN
CALSCALE:GREGORIAN
BEGIN:VTIMEZONE
TZID:Europe/Berlin
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
TZOFFSETFROM:+0100
RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYMONTH=3;BYDAY=-1SU
DTSTART:19810329T020000
TZNAME:GMT+02:00
TZOFFSETTO:+0200
END:DAYLIGHT
BEGIN:STANDARD
TZOFFSETFROM:+0200
RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYMONTH=10;BYDAY=-1SU
DTSTART:19961027T030000
TZNAME:GMT+01:00
TZOFFSETTO:+0100
END:STANDARD
END:VTIMEZONE
BEGIN:VEVENT
CREATED:20101111T190648Z
UID:6B58179D-E1C4-466B-A881-F15A663EE4A7
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Berlin:20101111T225000
TRANSP:OPAQUE
SUMMARY:Please check Backup
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Berlin:20101111T230000
DTSTAMP:20101111T202135Z
LOCATION:Postmaster
SEQUENCE:7
DESCRIPTION:Please check Backup of the following servers:
- server 1
- server 2
- server 3
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR

The modified ical-daemon script:


#!/usr/bin/perl -w
###########################################
# ical-daemon - Parse .ics files and send
#               alerts on upcoming events.
# Mike Schilli, 2010 (m@perlmeister.com)
# modified by Jens Bothe (jb@otrs.org)
###########################################
use strict;
#use local::lib;
use iCal::Parser;
use Log::Log4perl qw(:easy);
use App::Daemon qw(daemonize);
use Sysadm::Install qw(mkd slurp tap);
use FindBin qw($Bin);

our $UPDATE_REQUESTED = 0;
our $ALERT_BEFORE =
DateTime::Duration->new( minutes => 15 );
our $CURRENT_DAY      = DateTime->today();
our @TODAYS_EVENTS    = ();

my($home)  = glob "~";
my $admdir = "$home/.ical-daemon";
my $icsdir = "$admdir/ics";

mkd $admdir unless -d $admdir;
mkd $icsdir unless -d $icsdir;

$App::Daemon::logfile = "$admdir/log";
$App::Daemon::pidfile = "$admdir/pid";

if( exists $ARGV[0] and
$ARGV[0] eq '-q' ) {
my $pid = App::Daemon::pid_file_read();
kill 10, $pid; # Send USR1
exit 0;
}

Log::Log4perl->easy_init({
level => $DEBUG,
file  => $App::Daemon::logfile
});

$SIG{ USR1 } = sub {
DEBUG "Received USR1";
$UPDATE_REQUESTED = 1;
};

$UPDATE_REQUESTED = 1; # bootstrap

daemonize();

while(1) {
my $now = DateTime->now(
time_zone => 'local' );

my $today =
$now->clone->truncate( to => 'day' );

if( $UPDATE_REQUESTED or
$CURRENT_DAY ne $today ) {

$UPDATE_REQUESTED = 0;
$CURRENT_DAY      = $today;

DEBUG "Updating ...";
@TODAYS_EVENTS    = update( $now );
DEBUG "Update done.";
}

if( scalar @TODAYS_EVENTS ) {
my $entry         = $TODAYS_EVENTS[0];

DEBUG "Next event at: $entry->[0]";

if( $now >
$entry->[0] - $ALERT_BEFORE ) {
INFO "Notification: ",
"$entry->[1] $entry->[0]";
#      tap "$Bin/ical-notify", $entry->[2], $entry->[1],
tap "$Bin/create-ticket.pl", $entry->[2], $entry->[1], $entry->[3],
$entry->[0];
shift @TODAYS_EVENTS;
next;
}
}

DEBUG "Sleeping";
sleep 60;
}

###########################################
sub update {
###########################################
my($now) = @_;

my $start = $now->clone->truncate(
to => 'day' );
my $tomorrow = $now->clone->add(
days => 1 );

my $parser=iCal::Parser->new(
start => $start,
end   => $tomorrow );

my $hash;

for my $file (<$icsdir/*.ics>) {
DEBUG "Parsing $file";
$hash = $parser->parse( $file );
}

my $year  = $now->year;
my $month = $now->month;
my $day   = $now->day;

if(! exists $hash->{ events }->{
$year }->{ $month }->{ $day } ) {
return ();
}

my $events = $hash->{ events }->{
$year }->{ $month }->{ $day };

for my $key ( keys %$events ) {
if( event_is_holiday(
$events->{ $key } ) ) {
WARN "No alerts today (holiday)";
return ();
}
}

my @events = ();

for my $key ( keys %$events ) {
next if $now >
$events->{ $key }->{ DTSTART };
# already over?

push @events, [
$events->{ $key }->{ DTSTART },
$events->{ $key }->{ DESCRIPTION },
$events->{ $key }->{ SUMMARY },
$events->{ $key }->{ LOCATION },
];
}

@events = sort { $a->[0] <=> $b->[0] }
@events;

return @events;
}

###########################################
sub event_is_holiday {
###########################################
my($event) = @_;

return undef unless
exists $event->{ ATTENDEE };

if( $event->{ ATTENDEE }->[ 0 ]->{ CN }
eq "US Holidays" ) {
return 1;
}
return 0;
}

Script: create-ticket.pl

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

use SOAP::Lite( 'autodispatch', proxy => 'http://otrs-server/otrs/rpc.pl' );
my($subject, $agenda, $queue, $time) = @ARGV;
my $SOAP_User = 'otrs_test';
my $SOAP_Pass = 'test_otrs!';

my $OTRS_Subject = $subject;
my $OTRS_Body = $agenda;

my $OTRS_CustomerFrom = 'feedback@otrs.org';
my $OTRS_Queue = $queue;

# script
my $RPC = Core->new();

# create a new ticket number
my $TicketNumber = $RPC->Dispatch( $SOAP_User, $SOAP_Pass, 'TicketObject', 'TicketCreateNumber' );
#print "NOTICE: New Ticket Number is: $TicketNumber\n";
# create a new ticket
my %TicketData = (
TN           => $TicketNumber,
Title        => $OTRS_Subject,
Queue        => $OTRS_Queue,
Lock         => 'unlock',
Priority     => '3 normal',
State        => 'new',
CustomerID   => $OTRS_CustomerFrom,
CustomerUser => $OTRS_CustomerFrom,
OwnerID      => 3,
UserID       => 3,
);
my $TicketID = $RPC->Dispatch( $SOAP_User, $SOAP_Pass, 'TicketObject', 'TicketCreate', %TicketData => 1 );
#print "NOTICE: TicketID is $TicketID\n";

# create new article
my $ArticleID = $RPC->Dispatch($SOAP_User, $SOAP_Pass, 'TicketObject', 'ArticleCreate',
TicketID         => $TicketID,
ArticleType      => 'phone',                # email-external|email-internal|phone|fax|...
SenderType       => 'customer',             # agent|system|customer
From             => $OTRS_CustomerFrom,     # not required but useful
To               => $OTRS_Queue,            # not required but useful
ReplyTo          => $OTRS_CustomerFrom,     # not required
Subject          => $OTRS_Subject,          # required
Body             => $OTRS_Body,             # required
Charset          => 'utf-8',
HistoryType      => 'PhoneCallCustomer',    # EmailCustomer|Move|AddNote|PriorityUpdate|WebRequestCustomer|...
HistoryComment   => 'Customer called us.',
UserID           => 3,
NoAgentNotify    => 0,                      # if you don't want to send agent notifications
MimeType         => 'text/plain',
Loop             => 0,                      # auto reject|auto follow up|auto follow up|auto remove
AutoResponseType => 'auto reply',
ForceNotificationToUserID => '',
OrigHeader       => {
'From' => $OTRS_CustomerFrom,
'To'   => $OTRS_Queue,
'Subject' => $OTRS_Subject,
'Body' => $OTRS_Body,
},
);
#print "NOTICE: ArticleID is $ArticleID\n";

exit 0;

You can download the files here

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