In Web Help Desk, the following changes were made to the "Canned Response Templates":
https://documentation.solarwinds.com/en/success_center/whd/content/release_notes/whd_12-8-3_release_notes.htm#:~:text=Canned%20response%20templates%20can%20be%20split%20across%20request%20types%20or%20status%20types
To be clear, I think the intent of those changes was good so I'm not upset with the intent, but the change has really broken some key workflows for us:
- You can no longer make a template be available in ALL situations - this is because you now MUST tie a template to BOTH a Status Type and a Request Type. At least when it comes to the "Request Type" the system allows for an "All" setting, but not for the Status Type which is SUPER frustration.
This change is problematic and non-sensical because now, in order to have a template be available ALWAYS on tickets, I need to make one for each status type (e.g. one for Open, one for Closed, One for Assigned, One for Pending). Otherwise, the user needs to memorize and say "OH...if the ticket is in a PENDING status, and I want to use XYZ Template...I need to remember to set the status to Open in order to use that template". Instead, when this enhancement was put in, it seems to have been done with no foresight and resulted in effectively taking away a feature that previously existed and worked great. I also challenge anyone in this forum to find a Feature Request that states exactly how the feature works now (i.e. make it so that I can't make any one Response Template ever be available at all times). @Avadhut.Deshpande do you know who would have requested such a silly design?
- You can no longer include special characters in the NAME of the templates - it's not clear why this would have been previously allowed and now not...but under prior versions, we had several templates that started out with "Help -" this was our way of organizing each template so that we knew those with this prefix, included links to FAQ's. They were a nice visual way to find the "FAQ" responses and send them. After this version, the templates now produce the following error that never appeared before when you attempted to save a template with a "special character" in its name:
@Avadhut.Deshpande can you find a plausible reason why a developer would add a restriction so that the TITLE of a template (a title - a text field - a simple data element) can't contain things like a dash? It was a super handy way of keeping several canned responses nice and organized.
- The "BB Code" that used to be fully functional in the templates...now gets "thrown out" - prior to this update you could use full BB Code in your templates so that when they were used, it created beautifully formatted emails that looked so professional. After this update, none of that functionality works anymore. Huge huge bummer - I have submitted a help ticket for that hoping support sees it as a BUG not a "feature".
To that end, does anyone else in this forum find the changes that have occurred in 12.8.3 a real disappointment after having a really great initial release where everything worked perfectly and now it's all just kind of "mucked up"? I think this is worth a conversation and an inquiry into how the development team for Solarwinds goes so wrong...so often.
I'm truly saddened!
