unique alerts for different status changes?

[wancom]

We are using a kayako department to track our purchasing process. We have a 6 step process and use a different status to track each step. The first is submitted, 2nd approved, 3rd Purchase-Order-Created, etc... Staff change the ticket status based on internal actions. I want the submitting user to get notifications when their ticket status changes, and I want custom mails to be sent based on the new status. For example, when the ticket moves to step two, "approved" I want something saying "Your ticket has been approved. Your ticket is now with accounting and the next step will involve them creating a formal purchase order" or something to that effect. The idea is to keep submitters updated on status and who is responsible for action.

My best approach so far looks to be customizing alert_ticketstatus. My approach will be to see if <IF> statements can take hard-coded status as options and have different sections for each status. This seems troublesome and will require a finite set of hard-coded statuses and break if their names change. This doesn't feel like the right approach. Can anyone recommend something better? I imagine I can use prefefined replies to store the messages, but I'm still unsure of where to insert the logic to tie certain predefined replies to certain status changes...

[jmorby]

At the moment, I think the only way to do this (without rewriting bits of Kayako) is to use pre-defined replies and have a workflow which involves steps of

o Reply to customer
o use predefined reply a
o set status to a
o modify reply if necessary
o click send

Now you could modify the templates / code / logic programatically, I guess it really depends on the volume of transactions, and whether or not it's too much work for your guys to choose a pre-defined reply _and_ set the status at the same time.

But it does sound like a useful feature request to have certain auto responses keyed to certain status changes .. you can certainly alert Staff, but currently not customers as far as I'm aware