Change Management Module
Change
A change
ticket or simply a change keeps track of
modifications planned in the IT:
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Patch installations
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System configuration changes
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OS updates
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Software installations
This way you can track all the modifications made in your IT. A lot of incidents are due to changes made in the IT environment. By documenting them, you can identify easily what changes had been made when an incident occurs and restore the service more quickly.
Moreover, this change management module allows you to analyze automatically the impact of the changes on the infrastructure and the application solutions. IT engineers can then better control the unavailability of the critical services in the enterprise, and improve customer satisfaction.
Change tickets are managed by the people having the profiles:
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Change implementors plan and implement the changes
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Change supervisor follow up with the changes
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Change manager approve the changes
When installing iTop, you have the choice between two differents modules for documenting changes. The module described here has been designed as a simple workflow to ease the management of changes.
Change Properties
| Name | Type | Mandatory? |
|---|---|---|
| Ref | Alphanumeric string | Yes |
| Organization | Foreign key to a(n) Organization | Yes |
| Status | Possible values: Approved, Assigned, Closed, New, Planned, Rejected | No |
| Title | Alphanumeric string | Yes |
| Description | Multiline character string | Yes |
| Caller | Foreign key to a(n) Person | Yes |
| Team | Foreign key to a(n) Team | No |
| Agent | Foreign key to a(n) Person | No |
| Change manager | Foreign key to a(n) Person | No |
| Category | Possible values: application, hardware, network, other, software, system | No |
| Reject reason | Multiline character string | No |
| Fallback plan | Multiline character string | No |
| Parent change | Foreign key to a(n) Change | No |
| Creation date | Date and time (year-month-day hh:mm:ss) | No |
| Start date | Date and time (year-month-day hh:mm:ss) | No |
| End date | Date and time (year-month-day hh:mm:ss) | No |
| Last update | Date and time (year-month-day hh:mm:ss) | No |
| Approval date | Date and time (year-month-day hh:mm:ss) | No |
| Close date | Date and time (year-month-day hh:mm:ss) | No |
| Outage | Possible values: yes, no | No |
Tabs
| Tab | Description |
|---|---|
| CIs | All the configuration items impacted for this ticket |
| Contacts | All the contacts linked to this ticket |
| Work orders | All the work orders for this ticket |
| Related requests | All the user requests linked to this change |
| Related problems | All the problems linked to this change |
| Child changes | All the sub changes linked to this change |
Creating a Change
Click on the “New change” menu:
The following form is displayed:
Assigning a change to a team and agent
The list of teams to which you can assign a change is defined by the delivery model of the corresponding organization. When creating a change, the agent has to select the customer organization, then the list of teams is strictly limited to the teams defined for this customer. If a team is missing, the delivery model of the customer must be updated to reflect this need. See More about Delivery model for more information
Managing Private Log
A change ticket only have a private log to document all the activities and communications related to it. This one is not visible on the end user portal.
Managing impacted CIs and Contacts
This section is similar to the one of the Helpdesk module. Please refer to it
Change Life Cycle
Change objects have the following life cycle:
Depending on the status of the object, the contraints on the properties vary as shown on the table below:
| New | Assigned | Planned | Rejected | Approved | Closed | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ref | R/O | R/O | R/O | R/O | R/O | R/O |
| Organization | M | M | M | R/O | R/O | R/O |
| Status | R/O | R/O | R/O | R/O | R/O | R/O |
| Title | M | M | M | R/O | R/O | R/O |
| Description | M | M | M | R/O | R/O | R/O |
| Caller | M | M | R/O | R/O | R/O | |
| Team | H | M | M | R/O | R/O | R/O |
| Agent | H | M | M | R/O | R/O | R/O |
| Change manager | H | M | M | R/O | R/O | R/O |
| Category | R/O | R/O | ||||
| Reject reason | H | H | H | M | R/O | R/O |
| Fallback plan | M | R/O | R/O | |||
| Parent change | R/O | R/O | ||||
| Creation date | R/O | R/O | R/O | R/O | H | R/O |
| Start date | M | R/O | R/O | R/O | ||
| End date | M | R/O | R/O | R/O | ||
| Last update | R/O | R/O | R/O | R/O | R/O | R/O |
| Approval date | H | H | H | R/O | R/O | R/O |
| Close date | H | H | H | H | H | R/O |
| Outage | H | H | M | R/O | R/O | R/O |
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H: hidden
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R/O: read-only
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M: mandatory