I guess one of the clever features of Service Desk Express is its ability to calculate the Due Date for a ticket based on its Urgency (or even Priority in version 9.6). If the Urgency of a ticket changes during its lifecycle Service Desk Express needs to know what rules to apply for the recalculation of the Due Date.
Enter “The Curse of the Severity Message Box.”
So, I am guessing everyone is familiar with this popup message that appears when the Urgency changes:
So the problem is that this message box is not configurable and if your delightful colleagues don’t change the selector and just click OK then the due date is left as it was – which in the case of when there isn’t a due date populated then that means there is still no due date!
So I thought I would post a couple of hacks that might help if this issue is causing your organisation pain. The result of all the hacks (which don’t have to all be applied) looks like this:
The results of this are:
- The users can only choose Recalculate Due Date based on Open Date.
- The Cancel button is disabled.
I believe this is what is called a “Belt and Braces” approach š
You are about to hack an HTML page and as such I would stongly suggest you make a back up of it!
All the hacks are applied to one file so open C:Program FilesBMCService Desk ExpressApplication Serverhtmlseveritymsgbox.htm in Notepad.
Default to Something Other Than “Do Not Recalculate Due Date”
Find:
<input CLASS="InputLabel" checked type=radio ID="radio1" NAME="radio" STYLE="BORDER-BOTTOM: none; WIDTH: 20px;" >
Replace With:
<input CLASS="InputLabel" type=radio ID="radio1" NAME="radio" STYLE="BORDER-BOTTOM: none; WIDTH: 20px;" disabled>
This will remove the current default AND disable this radio button. I you don’t want to disable it, just remove the word “disabled” above.
Find:
<input CLASS="InputLabel" type=radio ID="radio2" NAME="radio" STYLE="BORDER-BOTTOM: none; WIDTH: 20px;" >
Replace With:
<input CLASS="InputLabel" checked type=radio ID="radio2" NAME="radio" STYLE="BORDER-BOTTOM: none; WIDTH: 20px;" >
The word “checked” will cause this radio button (“Recalculate Due Date based on Open Date”) to be selected by default.
Find:
<input CLASS="InputLabel" type=radio ID="radio3" NAME="radio" STYLE="BORDER-BOTTOM: none; WIDTH: 20px;" >
Replace With:
<input CLASS="InputLabel" type=radio ID="radio3" NAME="radio" STYLE="BORDER-BOTTOM: none; WIDTH: 20px;" disabled>
This will disable this radio button. I you don’t want to disable it, just remove the word “disabled” above.
Disabling the Cancel button
Find:
<button CLASS="InputButton" TITLE=MGC_PL_LABEL_10 id="CANCEL" name="CANCEL" ONCLICK="window.close()" oonMouseOut="style.color='black'" oONMOUSEOVER="style.color='white'" STYLE="width:100%;cursor:hand;" MGC_PL_LABEL=10></button>
Replace With:
<button CLASS="InputButton" TITLE=MGC_PL_LABEL_10 id="CANCEL" name="CANCEL" ONCLICK="window.close()" disabled oonMouseOut="style.color='black'" oONMOUSEOVER="style.color='white'" STYLE="width:100%;cursor:hand;" MGC_PL_LABEL=10></button>
When your done applying all your changes, save the file and you should be good to go.
Hope this helps. As always, comments (positive and negative) always appreciated.
JOATIT 
Would be so saweet if you could force it to add detail on OK, esp since you can remove the cancel. Be very good for SOX or any other audit.
Hi Douglas,
Thanks very much for taking the time to comment and apologies for the delay in getting back to you.
When you say “add detail” do you mean create an incident detail record confirming it has taken place? If so given that the only time I guess you would want the record created is if the Due Date changes as a result of the selection, would a simple on change of Due Date server-side business rule suffice – or have I misunderstood?
Regards,
Alan
In 9.2, you can calculate the due date & time based on priority too, this is not a 9.6 feature.
Hi anomynous,
Yes I am aware that you can calculate the Due Data and Time in 9.2 but in 9.6 the views have been rewritten such that the Urgency view has now become the Priority view, the old Priority view has been binned and a new Urgency view has been created.
Unless I am very mistaken, in 9.2 you had to do customisations/configurations to get it to calculate based on Priority, whilst in 9.6 this is out of the box.
Hope that clarifies my statement. Thanks for taking the time to comment. It is very much appreciated.
Regards,
Alan
I would like to post another option to this, eliminating the pop-up dialog all together. This comes from the BMC knowledgebase and applies to SDE 9.0 and above.
First, you find the file 24.js – Its in the scripts directory -(Back it up first)
Look for the line
document.all(“UpdateDueDate”).value = myShowModalDialog (“severitymsgbox.asp”,””,”center:1;dialogheight:170px;dialogwidth:300px;help:no;status:no”);
and replace it with
document.all(“UpdateDueDate”).value = 2;
Note the “value =” at the end of the new line – Depending on what value you put there is what determines the calculation.
0 is for “Do not recalculate”
1 is Recalculate Open Date based upon Open Date
2 is Recalculate Open Date based upon Current Date
Hi Josh,
Many thanks for your solution. To be honest I think it is better than mine as there is a sensible school of thought that says if you are not going to give someone a choice why force them to click a button at all.
I guess the only time when my solution would be more applicable is when you wanted two out of the three options available but not the third.
Anyway, thanks again for the suggestion. It is much appreciated.
Regards,
Alan