Configuring Change Management categories

Change Management categorizes changes and change tasks by change category and task category.

Each change category has a change workflow associated with it and can have subcategories. Each task category has a task workflow associated with it and available change phases defined for it.

To access change categories, click Change Management > Configuration > Change Categories, and then click Search.

Each task category contains a number of change phases and has a workflow associated with it. To access task categories, click Change Management > Configuration > Task Categories, and then click Search.

Service Manager provides a number of out-of-box change categories and task categories that you can use or customize.

Create a change category or task category

User Roles: System Administrator

You can create new category records either by copying and modifying an existing record or by creating a new one. Service Manager provides out-of-box category records that you can use or modify.

To create new category record, follow these steps:

1. Navigate to Change Management> Configuration > Change Categories or Task Categories.
2. Click New.
3. Type the name of the category.
4. Type a category description.

5. In the Availability field, type true.

   Note If you type false, the category will not be available to select from the category list when you open or update a change.

6. Select a workflow for the category.
7. Select a template for the category if required.

8. Optionally, select the Assign number before commit? check box so that Service Manager assigns an identification number .

9. Click Save to view the Workflow tab and other associated tabs.
10. For change category, click the Subcategories tab to create subcategories for the change category.

11. For task category, click the Available Phases tab and select one or more change phases from the drop-down list to associate the task category with the change phases. The newly created task category definition will be applied to the change workflow phases.

    If you leave Available Phases blank for a task category, you can use this task category in all change phases.

    Note The list of available phases is retrieved from all of the change workflows.

12. Click Save.

    Note To delete the category, click Delete.

Add a new subcategory

User Roles: System Administrator

Subcategories are a way to divide a Change Category into smaller groups. For example, the Hardware category can have the Install Hardware and Move Hardware subcategories.

To add a subcategory, follow these steps:

1. Click Change Management > Configuration in the System Navigator.
2. Click Subcategories.

3. Type a category name in the Category text box.

   Or

   Click the Fill Field Category icon to select a change category.

4. Type the subcategory name in the Subcategory text box.
5. Type the subcategory description.
6. Click the Fill Field icon in the Company text box to associate a company record with the subcategory.
7. Click Save to add the new subcategory of a change category.

Add a new subcategory from a change category

User Roles: System Administrator and Implementer

You can add a new subcategory directly from a change category. This reduces the number of access points required for you to have in order to create a subcategory. You can view a list of subcategories and their record details associated with the current category.

1. Click Change Management > Configuration in the System Navigator.
2. Click Change Categories > Search.
3. Select the Change Category for which you want to add a subcategory.
4. In the Change Category Definition page, click the Subcategories tab.
5. Click Add subcategory.
6. Type a subcategory name.
7. Type a description for the subcategory.
8. Click the Fill icon for the Company text box to associate one ore more company records with the subcategory.

9. Click Save to add the new subcategory.

   Service Manager creates the new subcategory and adds it to the change category.

Related topics

Change Management configuration