What are changes?

Changes are the records submitted that initiate a change in an IT service. Each change has a life cycle of approvals, alerts, tasks (if required), phases, and closure. When you submit a change request, Change Management assigns a unique change record number.

Change identifiers

Service Manager automatically creates a unique ID for each RFC and Change Task when the record is opened. This field is mandatory and read-only. The format of the ID is configurable to meet customer requirements.

Time and date stamp

Service Manager time and date stamps all events (manual or automated) associated with a Change record, from the time the record is opened until it is closed. These fields are mandatory and read-only.

Priority, impact, and urgency

Priority is how an individual service desk interaction, change request, incident, or problem fits into the ongoing sequence of tasks required to close the interaction, change request, incident, or problem. It also indicates how soon the work should begin. Determining the priority of a single service desk interaction, change request, incident, or problem depends on how many other defects need attention, the risk of delay, and the resources available to fix it.

Impact is the potential business vulnerability. There is no global value; it is subjective and each business must set and modify its own impact value list.

Urgency is a value that reflects how soon the defect must be resolved to avoid business consequences. It identifies how soon you must react to avert or reduce the impact of the defect on customers.

Assigning values to impact and urgency is subjective. Priority is a Service Manager calculation based on the values you specify for impact and urgency. As you can experience assigning impact and urgency values, you will refine your decision criteria. A service desk interaction, change request, incident, or problem that is isolated can have a low impact initially, but a high urgency because of the potential for damage if the defect becomes widespread. For example, a new computer virus is a problem that can escalate quickly.

 

Related topics

What is an approval?
Managing alerts