[rt-users] Severity codes

[Michael S. Liebman]

At 06:35 PM 3/11/2004, Andy Lester wrote:
>Anyone done something like this?  What severities did you use?  How did
>it work out for you?

I've often cloned the Bugzilla severity names for support and for issue 
tracking.  Lots of major companies just use Severity 1 through Severity 3 
or 4, with 1 being the more critical severity, for support.

I would tend to pick one word severity classifications. The only multiple 
word severity I use is "On-air Emergency" but that is industry specific 
(broadcast television).

You want classifications that are simple but convey substantial meaning. 
I'm not too happy with the "pick a number" severity. (What's the difference 
between a 2 and a 3?) Sometimes full words can be too pedantic. (What's the 
difference between minor and trivial?)

I have found a severity field to be very useful. In some cases, they are 
even necessary. They dictate a response time. It is important for you to 
determine how severity and priority will play into your work flow before 
you try to implement them. The worst thing you can have happen is for 
people to be using both fields for the same information but one person uses 
severity and the other uses priority.

It is also important to recognize that priority has special meaning in RT. 
I know there are people that have created a "severity" custom field and 
used that to explicitly set a priority value. If you do that, I would 
recommend calling the CF "priority" just to avoid confusion.

Michael

-- 
Michael S. Liebman                      m-liebman at northwestern.edu
                 http://msl521.freeshell.org/
"I have vision and the rest of the world wears bifocals."
        -Paul Newman in "Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid"