Simple Change Management Tracking

Hi folks...

I'm just looking for some feedback ... we are looking for a *really*
simple Change Management ticket system. All we want is a system that
does the following:

Technician opens ticket requesting a network level or server level
change outlining the brief details, severity level and date for work to
be performed.

Senior technical staff/management review and approve/deny

Technician completes change and records information in ticket to have it
closed off.

Ideal would be some kind of email notification option as well.

On the surface, this seems really simple but every option (open source
and commercial) wants to tie this into a MUCH larger package solution
which we don't need. This is to manage approximately 6 people in a
specific group of the company.

Any input would be appreciated...

Paul

We use [1]http://www.troubleticketexpress.com/ to do just that. While
   it leans more towards being a customer support system, we've had no
   problem using it as our internal provisioning/network maintenance
   system too.
   Basic, simple and ties into a SQL db.
   Bret
   Paul Stewart wrote:

Hi folks...

I'm just looking for some feedback ... we are looking for a *really*
simple Change Management ticket system. All we want is a system that
does the following:

Technician opens ticket requesting a network level or server level
change outlining the brief details, severity level and date for work to
be performed.

Senior technical staff/management review and approve/deny

Technician completes change and records information in ticket to have it
closed off.

Ideal would be some kind of email notification option as well.

On the surface, this seems really simple but every option (open source
and commercial) wants to tie this into a MUCH larger package solution
which we don't need. This is to manage approximately 6 people in a
specific group of the company.

Any input would be appreciated...

Paul

Hi Paul,

Have you considered any of these?

[1] Request Tracker -- http://bestpractical.com/ -- Really nice open
source ticketing system

[2] Bugzilla -- http://www.bugzilla.org -- Another nice tool, built
more "for the programmer" then operations. Used by Mozilla and Redhat
for their bug trackers.

[3] Atlassian JIRA -- http://www.atlassian.com/software/jira/ --
Commercial tool, also more developer-centric then operations-centric,
but should be easily adaptable to your needs. Used by ASF many Apache
subprojects. Atlassian recently changed their pricing model to
include 10 users for $10.

Of the three, I personally prefer JIRA -- to the point of setting up
one of the $10 systems to keep up with the honey-do list at home.

--D

Thanks very much..

We ran RT for a while but every time a new update came out on CentOS it broke the installation (perl mods), making it a pain to keep running. Bugzilla we haven't tried nor the JIRA. I'll take a look... does JIRA have an approval process or some type?

Cheers,

Paul

Paul Stewart (pstewart) writes:

Thanks very much..

We ran RT for a while but every time a new update came out on CentOS it broke the installation (perl mods), making it a pain to keep running.

  Hi Paul,

  I'm maintaining RT installs on FreeBSD, Debian, CentOS/RHEL, and so far
  haven't had any problems.

  Have you considered using cpan2rpm for the myriad Perl modules required
  by RT ?

  Alternatively, there ARE RT36 / RT38 packages for Redhat dists:

  http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/releases/11/Everything/source/SRPMS/repoview/rt3.html

  Cheers,
  Phil

Duane Waddle <duane.waddle@gmail.com> writes:

[1] Request Tracker -- http://bestpractical.com/ -- Really nice open
source ticketing system

OTRS (http://www.otrs.org) might also be an option but as RT it doesn't
relay fit the subject (Simple Change...).

cheers

Jens

Thanks - it's been a little while since we ran RT .. I believe we were
using the actual packages at the time (but could be mistaken).

Thanks - we're not really looking for so much a ticketing system as more
of a "change management approval" system I guess. There was a hosted
package offering called "Sargeant Change" at one time but the website
disappeared - while I'd rather not have something hosted it was exactly
what would work for us... too bad I can't find it any longer.

Appreciate the input..

Paul

"Paul Stewart" <pstewart@nexicomgroup.net> writes:

Thanks - we're not really looking for so much a ticketing system as more
of a "change management approval" system I guess.

Thats why I suggested OTRS only after RT was mentioned. CheckPoint R70.1
has something like this build in but it's only for Check Point and there
is (IMHO) a lot of functionality missing. And it's rather slow.

cheers

Jens

I suggest sticking with RT.

I run RT on CentOS by maintaining a separate Perl libs dir for the cpan modules that are required by RT and keeping it separate from the OS managed stuff, it works very well.

If you want Fedora-ish packages built for RHEL/CentOS, getting them
from EPEL is a better choice:
http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/epel/5/i386/repoview/rt3.html
http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/epel/5/x86_64/repoview/rt3.html

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/EPEL

Oh, and my recommendation for something simpler would be:
http://roundup.sourceforge.net/
http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/epel/5/i386/repoview/roundup.html
http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/epel/5/x86_64/repoview/roundup.html

If you are already using drupal portal software I recommend this:
http://drupal.org/project/ticketing

Best Regards,
     Janos Mohacsi

Dan Young (dyoung) writes:

If you want Fedora-ish packages built for RHEL/CentOS, getting them
from EPEL is a better choice:
http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/epel/5/i386/repoview/rt3.html
http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/epel/5/x86_64/repoview/rt3.html

  Yes, EPEL is ok, but they're out of date.

Oh, and my recommendation for something simpler would be:
http://roundup.sourceforge.net/
http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/epel/5/i386/repoview/roundup.html
http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/epel/5/x86_64/repoview/roundup.html

  That's another possibility -- but the original request (to stay somewhat
  on topic) is to implement a Change Management Tracking, possibly with
  Approval.

  This is possible in RT using Scrips and custom keywords:
  ApprovalCreation - Request Tracker Wiki
  
  Would roundup allow this ?

  Cheers,
  Phil

Dan Young (dyoung) writes:

If you want Fedora-ish packages built for RHEL/CentOS, getting them
from EPEL is a better choice:
http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/epel/5/i386/repoview/rt3.html
http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/epel/5/x86_64/repoview/rt3.html

   Yes, EPEL is ok, but they&#39;re out of date\.

If there's not a security issue, that's a feature, not a bug. The OP's
complaint seems to be that the upgrade treadmill breaks things.

Oh, and my recommendation for something simpler would be:
http://roundup.sourceforge.net/
http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/epel/5/i386/repoview/roundup.html
http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/epel/5/x86_64/repoview/roundup.html

   That&#39;s another possibility \-\- but the original request \(to stay somewhat
   on topic\) is to implement a Change Management Tracking, possibly with
   Approval\.

   This is possible in RT using Scrips and custom keywords:
   http://wiki.bestpractical.com/view/ApprovalCreation

   Would roundup allow this ?

Roundup has role-based permissions, including "signoff" by a manager role:
http://roundup.sourceforge.net/doc-1.0/design.html#use-cases