Re: CMS for managing change requests

Hi Andy,

I've recently implemented Bugzilla.  After some intital awkwardness, I've become a fan.

I'm running on Windows, which limits inbound email requests to the bugtracker, but there are patches that allow for outbound email from Bugzilla to groups whenever updates occur that they should know about.  That "limitation" adds some structure to the process that's probably a good thing...  

Other then that there's some good functionality for managing "groups" and basic graphing tools.

Infact, the only significant limitation I see with it is that it doesn't easily support a "workflow" for the issues... that is change the ownership of issues at different stages in their lifecycle...  For instance if a new bug is entered, I'd like the owner to be the "QA" person, then when it's "confirmed" the ownership changes to the developer/editor as appropriate, when "finished" back to QA, etc...

As long as the community of users stays active, it's been very effective, and I havn't had to break out my Tazer once to get folks to use it.  The benefits are obvious to everyone involved.

I found other, even "inexpensive", commercial software to get fairly expensive fairly quickly as it all seems to be based on the number of "users" you want to have access

Good luck,

Michael

-------------- Original message -------------- 

Hi
Does anyone know of good CMS solutions that enable management of change requests? eg allow staff to post requests, others to view posts that apply to them and respond, and for managers to see status report on overall progress (not started, in-progress, completed). Should I be looking for solutions called 'workflow' instead of 'change requests'?

I've been contracted to help an online retail promotions team improve their current process and tools for managing change requests from their internal managers. The requests relate to the creative production of adverts (banners, special promotions pages, email offers etc) and at the moment they are sending group-wide emails and using spreadsheets which is multiplying their workload and making it impossible to see the status of changes. There are about 50 staff in the promotions and creative process. I assume they could cope with most server requirements (ASP, PHP, CFM etc)

Thanks
Andy Marr