It suppose it is important to note the distinction between bug and 
feature tracking (software dev) and change management tracking 
(incident, problem, change) for production systems.  I think of those as 
pretty different activities.

Bug and feature tracking is closely tied to development work.  Things 
like TRAC and Redmine give you a nice integration with your code 
repository and help with grouping tickets into schedules and software 
components.

Change management systems, as I understand it, are mostly about managing 
configurations, i.e. a change might be a set of hardware upgrades or the 
deploy of a new software release.  This is mostly about tracking known 
good configurations and coordinating change across an infrastructure.  I 
don't have any great examples of software for it.  In many places I 
think CM consists of strong procedures and a wiki or documentation system.

Greg

____
Greg Jansen
Digital Repository Developer
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

On 02/11/2010 09:03 AM, Rick Johnson wrote:
> To follow-up Pascal's note.  I look at the combination of dotproject and Mantis as the ability to cover wider spectrum of work in one interface.  We were looking to have a user dashboard that covers most of their tasks.  We were able to get this by integrating dotproject and mantis.  Now we login to dotproject and see everything.  dotproject covers project specific efforts, but it is always a challenge to capture day-to-day tasks for systems already in Production that need maintenance.  We enter maintenance tasks into Mantis.  Then by integrating the two, we are now able to have maintenance tasks (enhancements, fixes, etc) along with project efforts in the same interface making it easier to track and plan for future efforts.
>
> Mantis is OSS that is written originally for bug tracking for software, but it can be much more than that.  We are using a customizable field called Category that defines the type of issue (I think of it more generically as a request).  You can also have different lists per "Projects" in Mantis (I am treating a project in Mantis as just a resource/system we support).  So you can have a list such as enhancement request, bug, data change, etc.  for software and for other things like system adminstration you could have os patch, data change, network configuration, etc.
>
> You can also define release bundles for each project by tying issues to releases.  You mentioned also approving changes to systems.  Within Mantis there are a few queues:
>
>         -new
>         -feedback
>         -acknowledged
>         -confirmed
>         -assigned
>         -resolved
>         -closed
>
> The confirmed state is intended to mean that the person assigned confirms they need any information necessary to implement the change.  So this can be an indication that something is approved.  There is another field called Resolution that could be used as documentation for rejecting something.  Basically, something always goes to resolved when complete and it could be either:
>
> fixed,
> unable to reproduce
> not fixable
> duplicate
> no change required
> suspended
> won't fix
>
> I have not tried editing that list, but I am sure it could be done if something is missing.
>
> One other dividend I see of using a system like Mantis is once you being tracking everything there you now have an inventory of all the services/systems that your group supports.
>
> Thanks,
> Rick
> --
> ----------------------------------------------------------
> Rick Johnson
> Systems Analyst Manager, Digital Library Applications and Local Programming Unit
> Library Information Systems
> University of Notre Dame
> Michiana Academic Library Consortium
> Notre Dame, IN USA 46556
> http://www.library.nd.edu
> 574-631-1086
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> ________________________________________
> From: Code for Libraries [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Pascal Calarco [[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: Thursday, February 11, 2010 8:50 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] change management system
>
> Hi David --
>
> We've recently started using Mantis (http://www.mantisbt.org/) amd have
> integrated this with dotProject (http://www.dotproject.net/).  The nice
> thing about this is that you can use it to open up a new ticket and then
> promote it eventually to be its own new project.
>
> Mantis is pretty focused on providing a bug tracking/change management
> for software development, but the templates can be edited so that one
> could use this as a more general trouble ticket system.
>
>     - pascal
>
> ------------------------------------
> Pascal Calarco
> Head, Library Information Systems
> Hesburgh Libraries of Notre Dame
> University of Notre Dame /
> Michiana Academic Library Consortium
> Notre Dame, IN USA
> http://www.library.nd.edu/
> -------------------------------------
>
> On 02/10/2010 06:59 PM, Walker, David wrote:
>    
>> Can anyone here recommend an open source system for "change management"?
>>
>> Not version control, per se.  But the process of requesting, reviewing, and approving changes to production systems.
>>
>> Does Trac fit into this category?
>>
>> --Dave
>>
>> ==================
>> David Walker
>> Library Web Services Manager
>> California State University
>> http://xerxes.calstate.edu
>>      
>