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Change Management

Dennis Braganza May-14th, 2020 21:08 0 0

Change Management

Change management is a systematic approach to document any change occurring for an individual staff, team, clients. It helps you to plan, analyze, schedule, the resource allocation and also trace out all the operations done to carry out the change.

For eg: You received a request from client for hardware failure or let say within organization if a biometric machine fails then you can raise a change request and get it approved from manager or higher authority, before proceeding with the Change.

This change module also allows you to define the scope of the change, its impact, Risk analysis to implement the change. Hence, the Change Management Module will help you to manage or document any change happening in an organization or to the clients at one place.

Role : Roles can be set from Admin setting >> User >> Role

When you add the change there are various roles which you can define for your staff members who will be involved in the change process.

Requester (R) : Staff or group who request for the change.

Implementer (I) : Staff who is going to implement the change.

Tester (T) : Staff who will test the proper working of the changes done before final implementation.

Approver (A): Person who will review the change activities and approve the change to be implemented.

CAB user : Approver could be a staff or it could be a CAB user who got rights only to review the change and approve it.

CAB user access right can be set from admin setting >> User >> Staff >>Set CAB user as Yes.

Coordinator (C) : Staff or team which will be affected by the change are the coordinators. Co-ordinators works parallelly with implementation team to make sure new change is not creating any issue to the team who are closely related to it.

Supervisor (S) : Staff who will monitor proper functioning i.e from planning to reviewing the change.

Manager (M) : Change manager proactively works with the team to smoothly carry out the change without hampering the business functioning. Manager has access to complete process of change management.

Request for the Change (RFC) : When incident is received into the system and Based on the change type whether it is a minor or emergency change staff can request for the change from the incident.

How to add the change :Goto change module >> click on “Menu” icon to add the change >> Add change.

Add Change : Change Requester could be a Business unit, individual, or a team who can raise the change request for an organization or a client to avoid the disturbance in IT services.

When request for change is raised it will have information like the description of the change, requester details, change planning date, Impact type, Risk type, proposed plan to implement the change and Business Justification where you can define the reason for the change.

Also, you can associate any asset with the change for eg: upgrade Hard disk so with the change request you can link the Hard disk which needs to be replaced.

Change request can be assigned to individual, it could be a manager who would be involved or responsible to plan, schedule resource, analyze, monitor, reviewing and closing the change request.

Change management Hash : This is the unique change id associated with each change. Change Hash can be customize from admin setting >>Module >> ITIL

Follow the steps to add the Change :

Step 1 : Add the change

You can add below fields while adding a change -

Domain - You can select domain for which you want to add a change.

• From – Person who is creating the change.

• Title – Title for change.

• Apply Macro – Macro allows you to add description for pre-defined changes.

• Description – You can add details for the problem.

• Proposed plan – Add the details for proposed plan

• Business justification – reason for change

• Properties field – You can manage for various properties for change like status,priority,impact etc.

• Priority : Here you can define the priority for the change for eg: Low, high, critical.

• Attach CI – You can add assets related to the change.

• Assigned to – Assigned to indicates the person who is responsible for the same.

• Status :This define the status of the change. For eg : Open, awaiting or closed. When status is close, then staff has to add the reason for closure.

  • Impact : This define the effect of the change.
  • Urgency : This define the time frames importance for eg: Low, medium, high. Based on this actions should be taken to resolve the change.
  • Change plan date : It define the SLA for the change. This is the deadline till when the change should be resolved.
  • Risk – This defines the risk associated with the change.
  • Change type – You can add change type here for eg: Normal, Standard, Emergency, Change Proposal.
  • Change category/ sub-categories/ items : This defines the category in which the change is created. Minor, Significant, Major.

Click on Add button to create a change.

Mandatory fields for change - Following are the mandatory fields while you add the change.

Domain, From, title, Description.

Steps 2 : Change process : Once you add the change request, you can open that request to add the further process.

Change process has three active tabs:

1. Timeline

2. Change details

3. Audit log Timeline : Timeline define the steps to carry out the changes. Change process will go through following stages.

Stage 1 : Change Request :Once request for change is added, Overview the details added like the proposed plan, business justification, change plan date along with the description.

Description : While raising a change request, requester adds a description about the change which needs to be processed. Same description can be seen under description area. ● Proposed Plan : Define a plan to carry out the change to achieve the desired request.

Business justification : Add justification why there is need to perform this change. It should also ensure the resources used are in line with organizational strategic goal in order to perform change.

Reason for change : Define what issue has occurred due to which there is need for change.

Change plan date : When this change needs to be initiated is the plan date. Based on plan date,SLA for this changes will get initiated.

All these details are editable, if manager or supervisor wants to change any detail they can click on goto step option to modify the detail.

Stage 2 : Review the Request for the change : Second step is to review the details that are being added by Requestor. Here, Manager or supervisor can review the change request, also they can perform impact analysis.

Impact analysis : Define the impact or consequences of the change. New change is going to affect other process or business unit which can be defined under impact analysis.

Projected Service Outage : When change is going to implement there is possibility of temporary or permanent service outage. Beforehand, manager can analyze and document it to avoid the disruption in the service.

Change review : Here, manager or supervisor can review the details and approve the change to move to the next step. Also, Roles are being assigned and deadlines are decided for the various roles who are involved in the change process.

Change review : Details added to perform the change are reviewed by the respective person and reviews are added over here.

Request date : Here, you can view the date when change request has been generated.

Expected Closing Date : Here, estimation to close the change is defined

Build Date : Define the date for implementation in test environment.

Test Date : When testing for the change implementation should take place is define here

Implementation date : When implementation team should implement the change in production environment is define here.

Role Assignments : Manager can delegate the work which needs to performed to carry out the changes as per desired plan. The Role includes :

■ Implementer : Person who is responsible for change implementation

■ Tester : Person who will be testing the change before final deployment

■ Approver : Person who will approve the change

■ Manager : Person who is going to manage the change

■ Coordinator : Person from other team who are going to work parallely with change management team.

■ CAB user : Approver who is not registered helpdesk staff but would have access of Change module for approval

Stage 3 : Change Plans Process or planning to achieve the desired Change is documented under Change plan such as implementation plan, resource planning, rollout, backout, acceptance and monitoring plans. Complete planning from implementation to monitoring the change is listed to minimize the impact of the change on business unit, individual or a group.

High Level implementation plan : This plan helps staff to proactively define the steps which needs to be taken to avoid interruption in services while implementing the change. For eg : When there is request for server change then there must be high level plan to tackle the issues which can occur during implementation.

Technical implementation plan : Plan for technical implementation should be mentioned.

Resource plan : Plan for resources which are needed to complete the change

Test plan : Document the test scope and activities.

Communication plan : Plan for communicating with the stakeholders to track the progress for change implementation.

Backout plan : If change implementation doesn’t work as per plan then backout plan needs to be implemented.

Rollout plan : If change implementation fails then to revert all the changes done are defined in roll out plan.

Acceptance plan : Define the plans for accepting the deliverables.

Monitoring plan : Outline the steps which needs to be taken for evaluation of change process at each stage.

Stage 4 : Technical Assessment meeting : Here, Manager, approver or supervisor will review and approve the change based on risk analysis and impact analysis. In meeting, if approver does not find data or plan appropriate to implement the change, He can reject the change request.

If Request is approved, then further steps can be carry out but if it is rejected, again team or responsible person has to add the rigid plan.

Stage 5 : Change build and test : Change is implemented and tested in this phase.

Stage 6 : Implementation approval : Once change is implemented in test environment, Manager, supervisor or approver can verify the functioning and approve the implementation for further process.

Schedule of post implementation review : Manager or supervisor can decide the schedule for post implementation review to check the proper function of the change.

Stage 7 : Implement change/reject : Once, Change implementation is approved, it is implemented in live environment.

Stage 8 : Monitor Change : Here, Success, potential issues or failure are monitored which arose due to change.

Stage 9 : Close Change : On completion of the change, the results should be reported for evaluation to those responsible for managing changes, and then presented as a completed change for stakeholder agreement (including the closing of related incidents, problems or known errors)

Change Details : Here you get an overview of the details which you have added while creating the change and details which you have added under timeline like description, reason for change, impact, rollout plan etc and also you would get an option to add these details.

Audit log : Here you can see all the changes has been done to implement the change right from its creation till date. You can trace out operations done by the respective person to implement the change. for Eg: When you change the impact type, or allocate the resources, or change the urgency of the change. All these activities can be

overviewed under Audit log.

Note Emergency change : If there is urgent change in an organization which requires to skip some stages in change management process and directly proceed with implementation stage then you choose Change type as "Emergency".

Steps to link assets,Incidents ,problem, release ,task with a Change :

Open the Change from change listing page for which you want to link assets,Incidents ,problem or task.

Click on right side top corner menu icon and you will get options to link assets, Incidents , problem or task with Change.

View Incidents, Assets, problems, release, task linked within a change : When you open a change there in detail area of change you would see tab of linked assets, incidents, problems, task.

Steps to close or reply the linked Incidents with a Change :

Open the Change from change listing page for which you want to close or reply all linked Incidents.

Click on menu icon available under top right corner and you will get options to close or reply all linked Incidents.

Delete Change : You can delete a change from the list. Click on the small drop down icon on change listing page to delete.

Filters : Change list can be filter for quick access from filter icon on the top right corner of the Listing page. You can search using domain, change type, impact, priority, risk, Change current stage.

Even, you can see the filters based on the status of the change from "All" drop down

Change archive : Old changes can be archive to clear the change queue

Change Automation using ITIL automation from admin setting :

Let say you want to notify the manager when staff changes the change type as emergency then you can notify the manger using below settings :

Event : update change type

Criteria : add the Match And/ Or conditions

Action : select the staff member who you want to notify.

The above can be used for the escalation.

For eg: when staff fails to implement the change you can define the escalation rule such as on change overdue, select the criteria and assigned to second level support. Or even you can send the notification to the assigned staff.

ITIL automation can also be used for Change assignment to staff. For eg: when a new change is created and you want to auto assign it to change manager.

Report for change:



Custom report for change management.

If you require a specific or customized report that might not be available in the existing report list, you can create a custom report.

Below are the steps to create a custom report for change management..


Click on create custom report

Select Change module:

Select the date range and domain




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