Change management

A change is planned work that alters a service: an upgrade, a configuration change, network work. Create one from Changes › + New change.

Use the From and To dates and Apply dates to choose the calendar window. Drafts, approvals and changes with no planned window remain available. Search the loaded records by summary, service, owner or asset, and choose Active changes or Completed and closed to focus the list. Refresh keeps your filters and draft.

Change types

What a change records

• Summary, description and the reason for the change
• Risk (low, medium, high), the service and the assets it touches
• Planned start and end
• Implementation plan, back-out plan and test plan
• Linked cases (the incidents or problem it fixes)

The brief checks the change before anyone decides: plans that are only one line, a missing back-out plan, and conflicts: other changes or maintenance windows overlapping the same service or asset. Overlapping changes are also flagged in the Changes list.

The change advisory board (CAB)

Under Settings › People & access › Change advisory board, choose the members and the rule: a majority of members approve or every member approves. Members vote with a note; the change is approved or rejected once the rule is met. Members see changes waiting for their vote under My approvals.

With no CAB members selected, CAB voting is off and admins decide normal changes. Wait for the saved confirmation when changing members or the voting rule. If confirmation fails, refresh the settings before editing again.

Stages

Draft → Awaiting approval → Scheduled → Implementing → Completed. A change can also end as Rejected, Cancelled, Failed or Backed out. Use the change's progress actions to start it, complete it, or record that it failed or was backed out, and tick off its checklist as you go.

Review

After the work, record the review: whether the objectives were met, any side effects and the lessons learned. The review stays with the change for the next similar one.