What is the difference between "Work Item" and "Configuration Item"?

Good Day Markus!

Out of curiosity, which version of Codebeamer are you working in? I suspect they haven’t shifted a lot between versions, so it’s purely my own curious nature.

From the User Guide in version 2.1, I found this: 

Tracker items represent the State (field/attribute values, including history) of a specific bug, task, requirement, etc. In addition to the configured Relations, you can also create ad-hoc Associations between tracker items and other Codebeamer entities like other items or documents, even with external URLs. Each Tracker has a Stereotype, which defines:
•The basic classification for trackers and items of this type:
◦Work item: All things, that represent work, that needs to be planned, accomplished and monitored, e.g. a task to execute, a risk to track, a bug to fix.
◦Configuration item: All things needed to do the work, for example, tools, software, models, and plans, etc., and that need to be managed (CMDB or ITIL).

I think from there, it’s a bit of thinking about the intent of each tracker type, and then thinking about how the tracker type can fit into the classifications.

When you create a tracker, whether the tracker is a work item or configuration item tracker depends solely on what “Type” you specify when you create that tracker (some types are work items and some types are configuration items). This distinction is largely obsolete/irrelevant in current Codebeamer releases, so there is no significant technical different between a work item and a configuration item.  The only remaining semantics that I’m aware of (and please post if you are aware of others) are:

• It determines whether a new tracker initially appears under the Work Items tracker folder or the Configuration Items tracker folder.  Note that you can move a tracker between these folders, and that move has no semantic effect, so you cannot depend on a tracker in the Work Items tracker folder being a Work Items tracker, or depend on a tracker in the Configuration Items tracker folder being a Configuration Items tracker.
• It determines whether the visibility/admin of that tracker is controlled by the Trackers-VIew/Trackers-Administrate project permission or by the CMDB-View/CMDB-Administrate project permission.

​@Geoffrey Clemm : Thanks for your answer.

1. You wrote “you can move a tracker between these folders”:
   How can I do this?
2. You wrote “the visibility/admin of that tracker is controlled by the Trackers-VIew/Trackers-Administrate project permission or by the CMDB-View/CMDB-Administrate project permission”: 
   Do “work items” are controlled through “Trackers-VIew/Trackers-Administrate project permission” and “configuration items” through “CMDB-View/CMDB-Administrate project permission”?
3. What is the reason CB distinguishes between “Trackers-VIew/Trackers-Administrate project permission” and “CMDB-View/CMDB-Administrate project permission”?
   The explanation in the documentation is not really helpful (e.g. “The Codebeamer CMDB functions similar to trackers, but CMDB maintains configuration items organized in categories, instead of issues organized in trackers.” - just different terms but the same thing…?) 
4. If I move a tracker from folder “work item” to folder “configuration item”, does it also change which permissions are relevant?
5. What is the purpose of the CMDB? Is it the DB where all trackers are stored or only some of them? If only some of them, where are the others stored?

1. Drag/drop in the trackers hierarchy GUI.
2. Yes.
3. Historical.  We have decided this distinction is not relevant, but in case there is a customer which has found it useful, we haven’t completely cleaned it out of the product or user guide.  Some day, I hope we will have a chance to remove this unnecessary distinction from both the GUI and the user guide … so if anyone is actually using or depending on this distinction, please let me know!
4. No, which folder a tracker is in has no effect on whether it is considered a work item tracker or a configuration item tracker … that is completely based on what type of tracker it is (which is not affected by moving it to a different tracker folder).  I actually delete those work item and configuration item tracker folders from all of my projects.
5. There is absolutely no meaning for this distinction (I have verified that with our back-end developers).  It has no effect on where the data is stored, how it is accessed, or anything else other than whether the Trackers or CMDB permission applies to it).