Tools for Problem Mgmt process

[itil2007]

Hi all experts,

A fundamental question, should Known Error DB = Problem Record DB? I thought it's just a matter of changing the status from problem to known error once we identify the root cause? The ITIL book is a little confusing in that it talks about the incident should reference a problem record and also a known error record ID number. Does it mean there should be 2 records linked together?

Is the Known Error Record/Problem Record DB usually tied to the Knowledge Mgmt tool for easy info transfer? This sounds like a good idea but is there a Knowledge Mgmt tool out there that does that?

Lastly, anyone know of any good problem mgmt tool (problem record or knowledge mgmt) we should review?

Thanks for any ideas!

[hugolycious]

We use BMC Remedy as our tool to manage incident/problem management as well as Change Management and CMDB.

The tool allows us to "Change Status" of an existing problem record to a status of known error when root cause is identified. The knowledge database can indeed be tied into it. Remedy also has a "Solutions DB" that can be used for this purpose if you wish. I think the important thing to remember is to ensure that the information is easily accessible for future use.

Also keep in mind that ITIL is "Best Practice" and its not set in stone. You can do things with some variances and still be correctly following ITIL.

Hope this helps,
Hugo

[Marcel]

Ideally, problem records and known error records are separate and have relationships between them. After all, a problem may have multiple root causes (i.e. underlying errors) that you may want to manage separately. In fact you may choose to only fix some of the issues, depending on the cost of repair versus the cost of having to live with the error. Also, some root causes may lead to multiple problems. If I'm correct, Remedy 7.0 allows for separate records. In most tools however, known error is just a different status of a problem record.