Release Manager

Release Management facilitates successful integration of releases into the production environment, taking into consideration and adhering to specified schedules.
Modified and new services are implemented in the productive environment under specified conditions and in accordance with service requirements, preventing unpredictable and negative effects on existing services. Provision of suitable methods and result types, such as trainings, user manuals and communication with customers are also the goal of Release Management.

Category

Category is a tool of classification of a Ticket at a lower level. It is applied when an input from a customer is being processed (i.e. the Ticket is being created).

Categorization by Category can be useful for reporting or for an appropriate selection of a particular Support group, which will cater for the Ticket solution for instance.

Impact

Impact/Urgency of a Ticket describes the urgency of a Ticket. The more users are affected by a Ticket, the more likely it is to have a high Impact. Assigning an Impact to a Ticket will be a result of applying Business Rules. This will reflect who is affected, how badly, whether there is a workaround, etc. Impact is used to classify the Ticket and will often be used in Searching, Grouping and Sorting functions. It will also feature strongly in reports which may be generated about Tickets.

Priority

Priority expresses how the importance of a solution so that the users responsible for a Ticket can organize their work. Assigning a Priority to a Ticket will be the result of Business Rules. Users will postpone working on a low Priority Ticket if a higher Priority Ticket is assigned to them. The Priority is used to classify the Ticket and will often be used in Searching, Grouping and Sorting functions. It will also feature strongly in reports which may be generated about Tickets.

Release

A Release is the central item in the Release Manager. Each Release incorporates the basic Release Package/Release Unit classification, all the relevant information for the Release and references to other objects.

Release Description

A Release consists of one or more Release descriptions. Each Release description describes a step in the process of Release handling and documents the status change so that the Release record could be examined in detail anytime later.

A new Release description is automatically created and added to a Release with every status change. It is also possible to create and add the description manually.

ReleaseMainDesc

The main Release description. It is the initial (the first) Release description provided at the time of the Release creation. Typically it is used and can be viewed as the 'Shorttext' value in a Release catalog.

Statement Type

Statement Type is used to describe and categorize the contents of Ticket Description or Activity. This can be used to differentiate between the initial report from the user and steps towards analysis by a specialist, the actual problem, the solution and so on. It can also be used to indicate an activity (Installation, Systemcheck, etc.).

Statement Type can be used to keep the Shorttext in a Ticket Description simple. For instance, Shorttext "Logon Failed" can be a report, a symptom, a query or a statement of the cause of the problem. By using an appropriate Statement Type, natural language can be kept to a minimum, thus speeding up the documentation process.

Typical values could be Symptom, Check, Solution, Analysis, Verify etc.

Support Group

Support Groups are organizational units within an enterprise which may be involved in resolving Tickets. Typically Support Groups reflect individual areas of expertise.

Ticket Class

Ticket Class is the highest and essential level of a Ticket classification (there are actually four levels of classification for Ticket itself). Ticket Class is chosen through the workflow which created it.

Ticket Type

Ticket Type is a more detailed classification of a Ticket. It is a higher level of classification than Category but lower level than Ticket Class. Available Ticket Types dependent on the selected Ticket Class.

Ticket Class and Ticket Type are often used for searching, grouping and sorting. They also play an important role in generating reports.