Instead of making a change to the way ITSM route, we chose to publicly ridicule people who don't fill them out and treat them with contempt.
I'm joking. Actually, we didn't change the software, but rather made it a best practice and run a report that shows Incidents and Changes without those categorizations, then go back and ask their managers to have them fill them out. It works pretty well, and helps the users of ITSM be more aware of what they are doing. Also, there are some cases where you may have an Operational categorization, but not a Product categorization. I'm drawing a blank at the moment of my best example that I always use (it's a Monday), but one example would be DNS. If a user is unable to ping a certain DNS name, what do you put for the Product Category when you create the incident? DNS, network, PC, the server they are trying to ping, the application they are trying to get to? There are many options, so in this case it can sometimes just make sense to have an Operational categorization of something like "Investigate>Issue" or something vague that automatically routes to the first level support staff. So if you are going to require any of them, think careful about it from a usability standpoint, as well as a system standpoint because when you make fields like that required, you also have to change supporting forms like the ones the web services and the service requests use. Shawn Pierson From: Action Request System discussion list(ARSList) [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Ron Legters Sent: Monday, September 29, 2008 11:06 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Optional Categorization for Incident Management 7 ** We've been live on ITSM 7 for about a month, and I'm realizing we have an Issue. Since the Categorizations on the Classification tab are optional, the vast majority of folks creating new incidents are opting out of making choices here. Probably two-thirds of the Incidents logged last week have no categorization. This makes for very bad reporting. I had assumed the OTB workflow would cause these to be required at some point, but I'm discovering that's not the case. So, I'm curious - how have other folks dealt with this issue? Thanks, Ron Legters Tools Administrator Data & Systems Services Univar USA Inc. 425.889.3952 Office 425.889.4111 Fax www.univarusa.com __Platinum Sponsor: www.rmsportal.com ARSlist: "Where the Answers Are" html___ Private and confidential as detailed here: http://www.sug.com/disclaimers/default.htm#Mail . If you cannot access the link, please e-mail sender. _______________________________________________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE or access ARSlist Archives at www.arslist.org Platinum Sponsor: www.rmsportal.com ARSlist: "Where the Answers Are"
