= Clients support for Trac Tickets = == Description == [[Image(clients.jpg, width=400, align=right)]]Many people and organisations use Trac internally/privately to manage tasks they undertake for a range of different clients. The ClientsPlugin adds several capabilities to Trac to help manage different clients. Features Include: * Ability to add, edit and remove clients via the Trac Admin interface. * Ability to define a default "Hourly Rate" for each client (useful when used in conjunction with WorkLogPlugin and TimingAndEstimationPlugin) * Adds "Client Work Summary" report for use with TimingAndEstimationPlugin * Flexible Event structure to keep clients selectively informed by: * Defining custom events which tie together ''Summaries'' and ''Actions''. * Defining special blocks (via a [WikiProcessors WikiProcessor]) in which you can embed content that you want to share with a client in ticket descriptions and comments which can be incorporated into Summaries. === Screen Shots === * [attachment:clients.jpg Clients Admin] * [attachment:client_detail.jpg Client Detail] * [attachment:events.jpg Events Admin] * [attachment:event_detail.jpg Event Detail] * [attachment:ticket_fields.jpg Ticket Fields] === Events === The events system is very flexible and allows you to customise they way you interact with your clients. As it's often convenient to use a single Trac instance for internal management purposes, it is typically inappropriate to give direct access to Trac to your clients. However, using Trac to keep your clients informed is still very desirable. In order to do this, the ClientsPlugin contains several ''Summaries'' which summarise the current status, or the changes in status over time, for each client into an XML object. This object is then passed on to an ''Action'' which can process this summary accordingly and actually do something useful with it. The current ''Summaries'' available are: * '''Milestone Summary: ([wiki:ClientsPlugin/Summaries/MilestoneSummary XML info]) Creates a summary of all tickets grouped by milestone (for future milestones with a delivery date attached) * '''Ticket Changes''': ([wiki:ClientsPlugin/Summaries/TicketChanges XML info]) Ticket changes/comments since the last time the event was triggered The current ''Actions'' available are: * '''Send Email''': ([wiki:ClientsPlugin/Actions/SendEmail XSLT info]) Send an email to the client * '''Post to Zendesk''': Post to a [http://www.zendesk.com/ Zendesk] forum The system allows some key setup parameters to be defined in the event itself (e.g. an XSLT to reformat the XML object into an HTML email, or a username/password for interacting with Zendesk), and also certain parameters for each event on a per-client basis (e.g. a list of client specific email addresses to send the summary). === Event Recipes === Here are some detailed examples to help you get started. Please feel free to post your own! * [wiki:ClientsPlugin/EventRecipes/WeeklySummary Weekly Milestone Summary sent by Email] * [wiki:ClientsPlugin/EventRecipes/TicketChanges Nightly Ticket Changes Summary sent by Email] === Triggering Events === So how do you trigger an event? Well, essentially you have to trigger then yourself! This can currently be achieved via a simple script that can be run via a crontab entry or scheduled task. This script is [source:clientsplugin/0.11/cron/run-client-event] === Custom Fields === ClientsPlugin will automatically add some custom fields to your trac.ini when it is installed. == Bugs/Feature Requests == Existing bugs and feature requests for ClientsPlugin are [query:?status=new&status=assigned&status=reopened&group=&component=ClientsPlugin&order=priority here]. If you have any issues, create a [/newticket?component=ClientsPlugin&owner=coling new ticket]. == Download and Source == Download the [download:clientsplugin zipped source], check out [/svn/clientsplugin using Subversion], or [source:clientsplugin browse the source] with Trac. This plugin was originally developed for 0.10 but has since been heavily developed for 0.11. The 0.10 version is considered obsolete and is no longer actively developed. == Requirements == You need the following Python components to use this plugin: * LXML Library: http://codespeak.net/lxml/ On Fedora do the following commands to install LXML Library:[[BR]] '''yum install libxml2 libxml2-devel libxslt libxslt-devel'''[[BR]] '''easy_install lxml''' == Example == Install the plugin then go through the usual trac update process to automatically create the necessary DB tables and fields. == Recent Changes == [[ChangeLog(clientsplugin, 3)]] == Author/Contributors == '''Author:''' [wiki:coling] [[BR]] '''Contributors:'''