OM12 SP1: Additional Resolution States: Some Tips & Tricks

When SP1 for OM12 came out, additional Resolution States were introduced, all aimed at Team Foundation Server (TFS) synchronization:

As this TechNet article states: ‘…Through Team Foundation Server (TFS) synchronization, you can establish automatic work item routing for alerts that are raised in Operations Manager in System Center 2012 Service Pack 1 (SP1). This can be helpful if your information technology (IT) department uses TFS or if your process model requires that all application alerts must be tracked in TFS…’

So far so good. Until now I bumped into one customer who has TFS in place and joined it with OM12 SP1. And I must say, they like it very much. For them OM12 SP1 with APM and TFS synchronization is THE tool for which there aren’t any competitors to be found.

But what if you don’t have TFS in place or not going to synchronize it with OM12 SP1? And what if you don’t want the new Resolution States in OM12 since they simple clutter the overview of all available Resolution States and want only those Resolution States which are relevant to your organization?

Since I bump into this situations many times, I have decided to write this blog posting in order to answer the most common questions about what to do with these Resolution States.

1. Should I remove these Resolution States?
   Only when you’re 100% sure you’ll never going to use them. When there is the slightest possibility your organization is going to synchronize TFS with OM12 SP1, DON’T remove the related Resolution States. For now they’ll function like nothing more but place holders. But later they’ll be used. So don’t touch them.
   
   
2. I am not going to use TFS synchronization, ever. So I want to remove the related Resolution States, but how?
   These Resolution States are protected. Basically meaning they can’t be removed straight away from the Console. However, Daniele Muscetta wrote back in September 2008 a posting about how to modify the accessibility of the Resolution States, to be found here.
   
   
3. Is this supported?
   No, this isn’t supported, so you’re on your own here. Also know you can’t blame me neither, seriously. However, for some environments I removed the TFS related Resolution States and until now these OM12 SP1 environments are still running smoothly.
   
   
4. I have removed the TFS related Resolution States. Can I use the IDs they previously used?
   Yes you can. But I don’t know whether you should. Only when those IDs are really required for a connection with another product. In all other situations I prefer the approach to start with ID 10 and increment it by steps of 10, so: ID 10, ID 20, ID 30 and so on. This makes it easier to differentiate between the custom Resolution States and the default ones.
   
   
5. Awesome! Now I am going to remove/alter the Resolution States ‘New’ and ‘Closed’ as well. Or shouldn’t I?
   No you should NOT! This is the road to the destruction of SCOM, no matter what version you run. So NEVER EVER remove/alter those Resolution States.
   
   
6. Okay, I want to modify our custom Resolution States so they can’t be deleted either. Can I do that?
   Yes, you can. Simply modify the entry False to True in the column IsPredefined and you’re done. This helps you to protect your custom Resolution States from actual deletion.

Hopefully this Q&A assists you in making the right decisions when handling the Resolution States.