One request that came from the forum was the ability to have an alternative format for the Issue Alias, which is used to identify the issue when it is raised.

By design the alias is composed of a ten character string of random characters with the leading character used to identify the source of the issue, and whether it was raised in the front end or the back end of the site. This can be considered a little over kill perhaps and can be difficult to tell someone the value over the phone without perhaps causing unnecessary problems.

For these reasons there are two alternative alias formats implemented. These all retain the same ten character string length but provide a simpler mechanism.

The first consists of the same leading character prefix followed by the unique id of the issue preceded by zeros.

The second format is the unique issue identifier (id) but this time followed by null characters.

There is one complication with the new formats and that is that they contain the unique issue identifier which means that when an issue is created the alias is not known, until the issue is saved. Hence there is a need to 're-read' the issue from the database to set the alias.

It is possible to mix the formats, but only one can be in use at any one time. So for example one may start creating issues in one format and then decide to change to one of the alternatives. Existing issues will remain unchanged and continue to use the 'old' format but any new issues created will assume the new format.