Change Management administration

Change Management administration provides the capability to control the Configuration Management application functionality, manage change groups, and create change request based on change model, category, or subcategory.

Change Management administration consists of the following:

• Change Environment: Change Management contains an environment record for changes. This record contains an option that defines the functionality of the Change Management application for all Change Management users.
• Groups: This enables you to group operators to be a member or approver of change groups.
• Settings: You can create a change request based on the change model or category by selecting the appropriate option in the Change Settings page. You can also enable sending email notifications through Event Messages to Change management.
• Task Environment: Change Management contains an environment record for tasks. This record contains an option that defines the functionality of Change Management application for all Change Management users.

View the Change Management background processor

The default system start-up record (startup) lists all background agents, or processes, that start up each time you start Service Manager. Most specify 60-second wake-up intervals. This list includes despooler, report, alert (for Incident Management), change, availability, agent, marquee, lister, linker, and event. To add any other start-up records to the system startup record, type the new start-up records information at the bottom of the agent array on the system start-up record. The system startup default record processes records that are in the schedule file. The appropriate background agent picks up the related schedule record for processing.

To view the Change Management background processor, follow these steps:

1. Click System Administration > Ongoing Maintenance > System > Startup Information.
2. In the Type field, type change.startup. This is the default start-up record for the Change Management background processor.
3. Use search or advanced search to find one or more records.

Configure Change Management assignment groups

Change Management assignment groups enable you to group operators who can be members or approvers of the same group. You can create change assignment groups to contain members and approvers who operate on a common area of responsibility.

Service Manager sends a notification to members of the corresponding groups whenever a new change request is created or an existing change is modified. Approvers of a group can accept or deny the approval requirement of a change if at least one of their security roles has the Can Approve right for the Change area.

To add a change group, follow these steps:

1. Click System Administration > Ongoing Maintenance > Groups > Assignment Groups.

   Tip To get a list of existing assignment groups for your reference, click Search.

2. Type the name of the new assignment group in the Assignment Group field.
3. Click Add.

4. On the Group tab, complete the fields as described below.

   1. Enter the name of the manager of the assignment group.
   2. Select the work schedule of the assignment group from the Calendar Name drop-down list.
   3. Select the time zone.

5. Select the Help Desk Group check box so that the current assignment group supports End User Chat.

6. On the Members tab, insert the cursor in a blank line and use the Fill button to select the operators you want to assign to the group. There is no limit to the number of operators in an assignment group. However, consider how many users should provide response when you create and populate a new assignment group.
7. On the Approvers tab, insert the cursor in a blank line and use the Fill button to select the approvers you want to assign to the group. There is no limit to the number of operators in an assignment group. However, consider how many users should approve when you create and populate a new assignment group.
8. On the Assignments tab, fill in the fields in Supported Departments, Supported Locations, and Supported Languages, respectively.
9. (Optional) Fill in the fields in Supported Companies if you have enabled the multi-tenant feature in your Service Manager system.

10. Follow these steps to configure the Supported Services field:

    1. Click Configuration Management > Resources > Search CIs to open the Search Configuration Item Records form.

    2. Select Business Service in the CI Type field, and then click Search.

    3. Select a configuration item, and then append an assignment group in the Support Groups field. For example, ASSET MANAGEMENT.

    4. Click Save. The selected configuration item is displayed in the Supported Services field of the ASSET MANAGEMENT assignment group.
11. Click Save and OK.

Configure global settings for Change Management

Change settings are global settings that are applied to the entire Change Management module.

To configure change settings, follow these steps:

1. Click Change Management > Administration > Settings in the System Navigator.

   Ignore the Enable Legacy Event Messages check box. The Process Designer change workflows do not use legacy event messaging. Instead, notifications are called from RuleSets.

2. To specify the default link file for mapping change model fields to change records, enter the name of the link file in the Default Open/Apply Link text box.

   Note You can view and reconfigure the field mappings defined in the link file. For details, see Configuring change models.

3. To enable change model filtering based on a script function you defined, enter the script function name in the Change Model Restriction Script Function text box. For example, ChangeModelRestriction.getRestrictionSql.

   Note The specified script function is used to filter change models that you can see when creating a new change or applying a change model to a change, according to the conditions defined in the script.

   To define the query conditions in the script, click Tailoring > Script Library in the System Navigator, search for the script or create a new script, and then define the script function for change model filtering.

4. To enable users to create new change requests based on change categories, select Category under Select On Open.

5. To enable users to create new change requests based on change models, select Change Model under Select On Open.

   Note Be default, Change Model is selected.

6. To configure the change model hierarchy, type up to four column names to group the change model in the Group Change Model by text box. For example, to group the change model by category and template, type category, changeTemplate.

   Note  

   • The change model hierarchy configuration takes effect only when Change Model is selected under Select on Open.
   • Use the column names specified in the changeModeltable.
   • You can configure a maximum of four levels in the change model hierarchy by specifying the columns in a comma-separated list.

8. Click Save.

   Note You can create or edit custom settings by selecting Add New Setting or Edit Settings from the More menu.

Enable Change Manager to prompt reason for relating and unrelating a change

The screlconfig record controls whether or not a text box appears in which the operator can type a reason for relating or unrelating a change record to another change record in Change Management. The Relation Configuration Record form for Change Management (the cm3r table) contains two check boxes: Prompt Reason for Relating and Prompt Reason for Unrelating. When these check boxes are selected, the system prompts the operator with a text box in which the operator can provide a reason for relating or unrelating a change to another change.

To configure the screlconfig record for Change Management history, follow these steps:

1. Type db in the command line field.
2. Type screlconfig in the Form field on the Database Manager page.
3. Use search or advanced search to find one or more records.
4. Click Search again to display a specific list of records with Relation Configuration Records.
5. Select cm3r from the record list to display the Relation Configuration Record form in Change Management.
6. Make the changes to the Prompt Reason for Unrelating and Prompt Reason for Relating check boxes.
7. Click Save and OK.

Configuring Change Management workflows

A change workflow is a sequence of connected steps in the life cycle of a change record. In the workflow, a change record goes through several phases to complete the life cycle. A change workflow phase may consist of one or multiple tasks to be completed before the change record can proceed to the next phase.

Similarly, a change task workflow is a sequence of connected steps in the life cycle of a change task.

Change Management uses the following out-of-box workflows that are ITIL aligned.

Change workflows

• Project Proposal
• Standard Change
• Normal Change
• Emergency Change

Task workflows

• Generic Task

The change and task workflows are associated with change categories and change task categories. The workflows are applied when you create change and change task records based on the categories.

Access Change Management workflows

User Role: System Administrator

Change Management workflows (including change workflows, change task workflows, and change model workflows) are accessible from the Change Workflows menu item.

To access Change Management workflows, follow these steps:

1. Click Change Management > Configuration > Change Workflows.

   All Change Management workflows are displayed in the list.

2. Click Change Management on the task bar, and select one of the following filters to display a specific type of workflows:

   • Change
   • Change Management Configuration

   • Change Tasks

   Tip Workflows marked with a Micro Focus logo are Micro Focus Proprietary and cannot be modified. You can create your own workflows by copying them and making necessary modifications.

3. To view a workflow, double-click it from the list.

Create a Change Management workflow

User Roles: System Administrator

Each change category or change task category must have a workflow associated with it. Before you can create a change category or change task category, you must create a workflow for it. You can create a new workflow from scratch, or copy an existing workflow and make necessary modifications.

To create a change workflow or change task workflow from scratch, follow these steps:

1. Create a basic workflow.
   1. Navigate to Change Management > Configuration > Change Workflows.
   2. Click New. The Workflow properties window opens.
   3. Type a name and description for the workflow.
   4. Select the table to associate with the workflow. For example, select cm3r for Change, or cm3t for Change Task.

   5. Click OK, and then click Save.

      The new workflow appears in the workflow list if you click Change Workflows.

   6. Log off and log back in.
2. Add phases to the workflow. For details, see Add a phase.
3. Create transitions between the phases. For details, see Create a default workflow transition, Create a manual workflow transition, and Create an automatic workflow transition.
4. Click Save.

To create a change workflow or change task workflow from an existing one, follow these steps:

1. Click Tailoring > Process Designer > Copy Existing Workflow.

2. Select a change or change task workflow from the list.

   Tip Workflows marked with a Micro Focus logo are Micro Focus Proprietary and cannot be modified. You can create your own workflows based on them.

3. Follow the instructions provided by the workflow cloning wizard to make a copy of the selected workflow. For details, see Copy an existing workflow.
4. Make necessary modifications as you do when creating a new workflow from scratch.