We dropped a custom ARS-based tool that I built and started using Change Management for tracking bugs, enhancement requests, etc. because BMC Sales told us that Change Management was designed for tracking development work and it could do so wonderfully out of the box.
We keep them as changes, and mark them accordingly (e.g. using Change Reason and Business Justification) and let them sit until we have time to work on them. We bundle them together for releases (we heavily use the Change Type of "Release" for all production changes) and our SOX auditors are mainly looking at the Releases, and it's possible for us to have Changes out there for years if necessary, although we do try to keep the users happy. In my opinion, I'd rather use something else that could be integrated with the Incident and Change Management applications, but if management says you have to use ITSM, Change Management seems to be the best place. Known Errors can and should be used when you are working on Problems, but since they aren't cleanly tied in with Change Management, we haven't used them for this purpose. We view Known Errors as something more for the help desk to use in dealing with customers. Shawn Pierson From: Action Request System discussion list(ARSList) [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Ron Legters Sent: Wednesday, April 01, 2009 6:11 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Bug Tracking and ITSM suite ** My user base has been using Incident Management as a de facto bug tracking tool for some time now. They just set an Incident to 'Pending' and when they get around to fixing the bug, they resolve the Incident. This results in Incidents being in 'Pending' for literally years sometimes. Now our senior management would like us to start paying more attention to our Mean Time to Repair statistic, and having Incidents open for a really long time makes that stat less reliable. I also just got a request from someone to add a 'Status Reason' of 'Bug Fix' to the Pending Status, and I said 'I don't think we want to do that'. I don't know where in the ITSM Suite to point her, though for a better bug tracking tool. Could we use 'Known Errors' in Problem Management as a sort of Bug Tracker? What are other shops doing? We're currently on ITSM 7. Thanks, Ron Legters Tools Administrator Production and Quality Control Univar USA Inc. 425.889.3952 Office 425.889.4111 Fax www.univarusa.com __Platinum Sponsor: RMI Solutions 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: RMI Solutions ARSlist: "Where the Answers Are"
