Change request

Overview

A change request is a planned, usually extensive, change to a system. The purpose of a change request is to remove the cause of a problem. The progress of a change request is predominantly workflow-driven after it was agreed by change management (for more information, see Workflow-Based Change Management Process).

If a change request is in state Closed (after performing Close action), the dialog opens in read-only mode disallowing any updates to the change request. Adding journal entries is exclusively allowed in this case.

General

Change Template	It is mandatory to select a change template that contains some default values, such as responsible, responsible role, category, SLA, priority, type of change and, most important, the workflow that will be used for processing of the change. This workflow will be initiated either manually by using the Agree action or automatically by the system if a change will be created during provisioning of a service. To create a new change template, click Service Desk > Configurations > Change Templates, and then click Add Change Template.
Type of Change	Type of change request (Standard, Non-Standard, or Emergency).
Classification	Classifies the change as Minor, Significant, or Major.
Summary	Brief description of the ticket.
Category	Category for organizing your change requests.
SLA	Link to a Service Level Agreement. The predefined reaction and solution times depend on this. The selection list is filtered automatically so that you can select only those Service Level Agreements that result from combination of entries in the User, Asset, Service, and Priority fields.
Apply [SLA]	Automatically select the Service Level Agreement/Operation Level Agreement or Underpinning Contract with the most critical solution times. The selected agreement should correspond to the combination of the entries in the User, Asset, Service, and Priority fields.
Impact	Select a group (User, Workgroup, or Company) which is affected by this incident. If a related asset or service has a higher business impact, then this higher business impact will be applied automatically when the ticket is saved.
Urgency	Urgency level for solution of this ticket.
User	Person (initiator or concerned person) for whom this task or ticket is created.
E-mail on Status Change	Case for which the responsible person should be notified by email.
Resubmission	Date on which the person or responsible role receives an email reminder about the ticket. The email contains a link by which the ticket can be accessed.
Reported Per	The way how the change was requested (Phone, E-mail, Portal, or Catalog Order).
Description	Detailed description of the change. Linking the change template pre-fills the description with the content of the template description, if the description was empty before. As long as the change has the New status, opening of the ticket points to this tabulator.
Journal/Activities	In the journal, all actions that were made for the ticket, will be automatically recorded. This also includes mails that were received for this ticket or sent out of the ticket. Under My Activities, you can enter your own activities for the ticket. Click Add to record the activity in the journal. Until the change is not in the New or Closed status, opening of the ticket points directly to this tabulator.
Solution	Description of the solution that was entered when the change request was closed. When the change request gets the Closed status, opening of the ticket points directly to this tabulator. The solution cannot be directly edited.
Inform responsible roles or users via email	By default, members of roles that are responsible for a ticket are notified by email when work starts on it. You can turn off this option here.
Responsible Role	Determined automatically according to priorities: Change Template. First time on creating a new object or following the Template change. SLA if it exists. Category. Only on changing. From Default Settings.

Change Approvals

A list of all related change approvals that were created from the corresponding change workflow. Double-click a change approval to open its properties dialog. As a result, you can make a decision about the pending approval or forward it. If the approval is not needed anymore, you can delete it.

Tasks

A list of all related tasks that were either created from the corresponding change Workflow or added manually to the change. The tasks can be managed as follows:

Plan	Creates a new task with the Planned status. This should be used for creation of tasks which are already known, but the responsible person should start working on this task after it is assigned to them.
Create	Creates a new task with the New status. The responsible person can start working on the task directly after it is created.
"Plus" icon	Adds an existing task to the change.
"Cross" icon	Deletes the relation to the selected task but not the task itself.

Risks

Known Risks	After the change is analyzed, you can enter the detailed description of known risks here.
Counteractions	After the change is analyzed, you can enter the detailed description of counteractions here.
Roll-Back Strategy	After the change is analyzed, you can enter the detailed description of your roll-back strategy here.

Resource Planning

Cost Estimation	After the change is analyzed, here you can estimate costs that are required to process the change. Besides, you can upload a corresponding attachment that will also appear on the Attachments dialog page, and add the Total Costs of the change. This attribute will be used in change approvals.
Required Resources	After the change is analyzed, here you can enter the detailed description of resources that are required to process the change. Besides, you can upload a corresponding attachment that will also appear on the Attachments dialog page, and add the Total Efforts of Resources in days, hours, or minutes. This attribute will be used in change approvals.
Timeline	After the change is analyzed, here ou can enter the detailed description of time that is required to process the change request. Besides, you can upload a corresponding attachment that will also appear on the Attachments dialog page, and add the planned start and end dates. If you create a new change by using the calendar control, the Start (Planned) and End (Planned) fields are pre-filled. Both attributes will also be used in change approvals.

Review

Reviewers	Persons who review the change request.
Results of Review	After the change request is reviewed, detailed results of the review can be entered here.

Attachments

For this change request, copies of digital documents can be saved and later reopened.

Time Tracking

List of all recorded jobs for this change request.

Problems

Similar problems that can be put down to the same cause. If you select the Close related problems when closing this change checkbox, all problems that are listed here are closed when the status of this ticket is set to Closed.

Incidents

Similar incidents that can be put down to the same cause. If you select the Close related incidents when closing this incident checkbox, all incidents that are listed here will be closed when the status of this ticket is set to Closed.

Assets

Additional assets that are affected by this ticket. For example, if a customer reports an incident that is related to a computer and you know that other computers of the same model are affected, insert this here. This data is purely informative and is not processed by the system.

Services

Additional services that are affected by this ticket. For example, if a customer reports an incident that is related to their services, and you know that other services are affected by this, insert this here. This data is purely informative and is not processed by the system.

Users

Other users that are affected by the ticket. Select the Inform related users about status change to notify by email other users that are listed here about the status changes of this ticket.

Topics

Incidents, problems, changes, external contacts, materials, etc. that are related to the change.

Actions

In the action pane, you can access the actions that are available for changes.

Agree	When a new change is created, it should be agreed by change management for further progress of the change. This operation sets the status of the selected change to Agreed and initiates the change workflow, which has been configured in the selected change template. After the workflow is initiated, the change template cannot be altered any more.
Close	With the new change management process of Matrix42 Software Asset and Service Management, the changes will be closed automatically inside of a change workflow. But anyway you may need to close the change manually in some cases (e.g., the change is rejected by the change manager or retracted from the requester, etc.). Closing of the change also closes the related tasks and change approvals, and terminates the running workflow instances of the change. You should enter a description of the solution and the reason for closing (Completed, Partially Completed, Rejected, Retracted, or Rolled Back). Processing of the ticket is ended, the status is set to Closed and the solution description will be saved in the ticket's Solution attribute. In case you use this action to close a change request the responsible will change to the user executing the action. If the change request is closed based on the last workflow step the responsible of the change request will be 'System' because it is closed by the workflow engine.
Track Working Time	Start tracking the working time that was spent on this ticket.
Note	If the Enable Automatic Time Tracking checkbox is selected under Administration >Global System Settings > Service Desk, the Track Working Time wizard opens automatically after you close the ticket. The start and end of the processing time are entered automatically. You can edit this data later. When you close several changes, the spent time will be proportionally shared among the tickets.
Send E-mail	Send an email to any user, business contact, business partner, role or email address to request further information or to distribute any information about the change. The User field of the change will be pre-filled automatically as the "TO…" recipient.
Search in Knowledge Base	Search for knowledge base articles that match this ticket.
Search Changes	Search for changes that match this ticket. If you open the search dialog within the context of a change and this change was linked with an asset or a service, the respective filters are pre-filled automatically. Based on the search result, you can link individual tickets with the change.
Create Announcement	Create an announcement from the ticket. The information from the ticket is copied to the announcement. The announcement will be linked to the ticket and can be automatically retired when the ticket is closed.
Create KB Article	Create a knowledge base article from the ticket. The information from the ticket is automatically copied to the knowledge base article. The ticket is retained and linked to the knowledge base article.
Set Recurrence	Specify whether this ticket should be executed regularly and define a schedule for such recurring tickets.