OTRS Change Management Configuration

[dnorman]

Hi all,

I am evaluating OTRS for use by my change management team. We currently use a PHP script that was created in-house, but will not scale now that our customer base is growing so quickly. We did about 200 changes the first year we used our home-grown solution, and 700+ this year, with estimates that we will have about 2000+ complex changes in 2012.

The issues I am having is as follows:

1) I can create free text fields, but would like to be able to add in rich-text fields for things like backout plan, implementation steps, etc. Is there a way to add additional rich-text fields beyond description and justification?

2) Is there a way that I can work only off the RFC, and not create work orders separately? We work with engineers globally, many of whom may only submit one change every 2 or 3 months. The whole "create a change, create a workflow, etc.etc." is way too complex for us to use. I would like to have it work as follows:

1) RFC is created with all information about a change.
2) Que manager assigns the RFC to a change manager.
3) CAB reviews change and change manager puts the changes in "approved" state.
4) Change is implemented and implementer sets change to Complete/Failed.
5) QA report is attached somehow to the change.


I don't want to assign to a particular cab separately either, as I have created a field called "End Customer" and the CABs are based on each customer.

Thanks in advance for any help!