I want to have the following process:
1) Customer open item (bugs/incident/task): Status/Workflow=New
2) Item is accept, assigned to some assignee => Status/Workflow=In Progress
3) Assignee has questions back to customer: => Status/Workflow=Waiting for customer response
4) Customer provides extra info by stamping description, or notes, or adds comment => Status/Workflow => Customer responded
5) Assignee resumes work => Status/Workflow=In Progress
6) Assignee completes work => Status/Workflow=Waiting for customer verification
7) Customer accepts or rejects solution => Status/Workflow=Closed or Rejected
8) If Customer doesn't respond to Status/Workflow="Waiting for customer verification" or "Waiting for customer response" after 7 days, I gets reminder, another after 14 days and a final after 28 days, then request is closed automatically.
The main 2 points are:
1) We want to know from the status/workflow who is in charge to do something on the requeust: customer or we, and want to have filters for that.
2) We don't want ingeneers to close requests themselves, they should "close" them only from their view and request customer verification. The verification and acceptance of the solution must be done by the customer.
How to implement this in OnTime 2009?
The problem is in steps 3 and 7. In this cases I want to status/Workflow to be changed, when the customers does something in the customer portal. In case 3 this should be automatically changed, whatever change the customer has made. In step 7, the customer must accept the solution manually by changing the status/workflow.
I could make the status field editable, but it seems, it is not possible to restrict which values can be choosen, so the workflow is not enforced. Also I want restrict customers and internal people to different values.
Then I tried to make the workflow step editble in the customer portal field template, but this doesn't work, it stays readonly. I also found a change request #3335, to change this, so I assume it is not possible currently.
Then I found a strange "solution" in thread http://community.axosoft.com/forums/thread/16469.aspx. In this "Tom", who seems to be from Axosoft, complains about the same problem with their own product about a year ago. His "solution" involves sending emails back to support@axosoft.com, to abuse the feature that incoming emails can change the workflow step. I think this workaround is really strange, and isnt't there also the danger of an email loop? This workaround also would only solve our problem in step 3 not in step 7. Another problem is that this solution only seems to work for incidents, not task, buts, features.
I think that the workflow I described above is an absolute standard workflow for work items which many people use, so I am quite surprised, that it seems to be impossible to implement in OnTime, especially as the customizable workflow and the customer portal are announced as unique features of OnTime and were the most important points for our decision for OnTime!
I hope that Axosoft find a solution.
Regards
Carsten Haerle