Hi,

 

We’re quite new to OTRS – we’ve been using it as our helpdesk for ~2 months now, and I’m keen to start using the ITSM functionality. We’ve installed v3.3.7 of all modules, including ITSM.

 

Unfortunately, I’m not finding the ITSM Change functionality very intuitive to setup/configure.

 

It seems that every time I want to submit a change request for approval, I need to create individual Workorders with a type of Approval for each individual person who is required to approve the change prior to implementation – is that correct? I was hoping there would be a way to submit to all required approvers in one go, but looks like that isn’t possible?

 

As we have certain types of change that happen on a regular basis, I then thought about setting up a template with the requisite workorders:

-          2 x approval workorders

o   These appear to be completely independent from the CAB, so I am struggling to understand the benefit of defining CABs in OTRS

o   Normally the CAB members would be required to approve the change request, but the approval workorders appear to be completely independent?

-          1 x decision workorder (for recording of the go / no go decision)

-          2 x workorder workorders (for the actual work to be done)

-          1 x Backout plan workorder (in case we need to backout)

-          1 x PIR workorder

 

I then setup 2 Conditions on the Change (not sure if I need these!):

 

-          The first so that when the Change State is ‘Requested’ it changes it to ‘Pending Approval’

-          The other such that when the Workorder State on the 2 approval workoders is ‘Accepted’ it then sets the Change State attribute to ‘Approved’.

 

At this point, I’m beginning to lose the will to live – I’ve used many other systems (such as ManageEngine) where this whole process of submitting CRs is much more easily defined. Am I over-engineering things in OTRS, is there a simpler way to do this? I’ve tried the manuals but to no avail. Is there a way to define a CAB for a particular type of change, and for the system to seek approval from all members of the CAB rather than having to define individual Approval Workorders for each and every change request?

 

Any pointers / advice would be greatly received as I think the Helpdesk/ticket functionality is great and would be keen to leverage the full benefits of the tool!!

 

Thanks,

Paul.

Paul Strinati

 



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