trac-WorkflowNotificationPlugin 0.1

Configurable notifications for trac tickets tied to workflow actions

WorkflowNotificationPlugin enables flexible configuration of email notifications tied to ticket workflow changes.

Administrators can configure any number of distinct email notifications to be sent out when a workflow operation occurs on a ticket. Each email notification is specifically attached to one or more workflow operations, so (for example) separate emails can be sent out when a ticket is accepted, reassigned, resolved, reopened, or marked “in QA”.

Each email notification’s subject, body, and recipients are fully configurable by administrators, as Genshi templates which have access to the ticket’s data, the comment (if any) that was left on the ticket, and the author of the change. Therefore notifications can be very flexible: some notifications can be sent to the ticket’s reporter, others to its owner or CC list, others to the current updater, and others to hard-coded lists of users.

The notification emails sent by this plugin respect trac’s ALWAYS_CC and ALWAYS_BCC settings.

The notification emails sent by this plugin are orthogonal to trac’s ALWAYS_NOTIFY_UPDATER, ALWAYS_NOTIFY_OWNER, and ALWAYS_NOTIFY_REPORTER settings; Trac’s built-in email notifications will be sent according to those settings, independent of this plugin’s emails.

== Installation ==

Install the plugin’s source code: {{{ $ easy_install trac-WorkflowNotificationPlugin }}}

Enable its components in trac.ini: {{{ [components] workflow_notification.* = enabled }}}

Add its component to your list of workflow providers, after all other workflow providers; for example: {{{ [ticket] workflow = ConfigurableTicketWorkflow, TicketWorkflowNotifier }}}

Now you just need to configure some notifications; see below for details and examples.

== Configuration ==

Configure one or more notification emails attached to workflow events using a ticket-workflow-notifications section in trac.ini.

Within this section, each entry is a notification email that may be sent out for a ticket. Here is an example: {{{ [ticket-workflow-notifications] notify_reporter_when_accepted = accept notify_reporter_when_accepted.body = Hi $ticket.reporter, ‘$ticket.summary’ has been accepted by $change.author. Its status is now $ticket.status.nn{% if change.comment %}$change.author said:nn$change.comment{% end %}—–nTicket URL: $linkn$project.name <${project.url or abs_href()}>n$project.descr notify_reporter_when_accepted.recipients = $ticket.reporter, [e-mail], trac_user notify_reporter_when_accepted.subject = ‘$ticket.summary’ is now accepted }}}

The first line in this example defines the notify_reporter_when_accepted rule. The value in this line defines one or more workflow actions that will trigger this notification: in this case, the notification will be triggered when the “accept” action occurs for any ticket. (This action is defined by the default configuration of Trac’s built in ticket workflow engine; however, any action that is defined by the configuration of your installed ITicketActionControllers may be used.)

We could also define a notification to occur on multiple workflow actions, using a comma separated list of workflow actions: {{{ notify_owner_changed = accept, reassign }}}

Multiple independent notifications can be configured for the same workflow action; in the above examples, both the notify_owner_changed and the notify_reported_when_accepted rules will be triggered when the “accept” action occurs.

The following lines define the email subject, body, and recipients for a particular notification. These are all Genshi Text Templates that will be rendered with a context that includes the ticket (in its current state AFTER the workflow action has been applied); the author and comment of the current change, if any; a link to the ticket as $link; and the project.

All of these must be defined for each notification; the plugin will raise errors at runtime if a notification is missing any of the .subject, .body or .recipients definitions.

The .recipients definition should be a Genshi template that renders to a comma separated list of email addresses and/or usernames known to Trac. In the above example we combine a dynamic variable based on the ticket’s current state, a username known to Trac, and a hard coded email address: {{{ notify_reporter_when_accepted.recipients = $ticket.reporter, [e-mail], trac_user }}}

==== Notifications for new tickets ====

Most notifications are configured to refer to one or more workflow actions, like “accept”, “leave”, “reassign”, “resolve”, etc.

You can also configure notifications to be triggered when a ticket is newly created. To do this, use the special workflow action @created like so:

{{{ [ticket-workflow-notifications] new_ticket = @created new_ticket.body = New ticket $ticket.summary has been created new_ticket.recipients = $ticket.owner new_ticket.subject = New ticket created }}}

==== Notifications for all actions ====

You can also set the special value * for a notification, which means it will be triggered on every workflow action including ticket creation:

{{{ [ticket-workflow-notifications] ticket_changed = * ticket_changed.body = View the ticket here: $link ticket_changed.recipients = watchful_user, another_watchful_user ticket_changed.subject = Ticket $ticket.id has changed! }}}