Close Down milestone - Completing release requests

After the release request is approved at the Close Down Approval phase, you cannot close the release request until all tasks are closed, due to success, cancellation, or failure. When all the tasks related to a release request are closed, the requester and the release coordinator are notified that the release is resolved.

As a part of the Close Down Approval phase, you must also update CI Unavailability records as required.

The Close Down milestone provides the opportunity for reviewers to conduct post-implementation reviews (sometimes called postmortems) to offer feedback on the effectiveness of the release, and record metrics for deployment to make sure the release met its service targets. After IT and the business unit (BU) have completed the review, no further changes or activities are performed on this release. When the requester has verified that the release request was resolved satisfactorily, the release request can be set to Closed. If the requester does not close the release request within the allowed response time of it being resolved, the release request is closed automatically after a specified period of time. The Status Reason for the release request indicates that the release was automatically closed. The allowed response time depends on how the application administrator configured the Release Management application. The default is 15 days. If the requester is not satisfied with the release request, the requester can reopen the release request. The release coordinator is notified that the release request is reopened, and must respond to the release request.

A release request is moved to the Close Down milestone when it is cancelled.

To close down the release

1. Open the release request at the Close Down In Progress status.
2. Revise the start and end dates as needed.
3. Add changes or activities to the release as needed.
4. Click Rollup to accumulate the risk level, costs, and time spent from the related change requests (displayed on the Manifest tab).
5. Save your changes.
6. Click Next in the Process Flow Status bar to move the release request forward.

After the release is closed, users with Release Master permissions can update information within the change record. They cannot add new manifests or ad hoc approvers. They also cannot update the following fields:

• Business Justification
• Impact
• Urgency
• Priority
• Risk Level
• Release Type
• All date

To cancel a release

Once the release moves into the Planning milestone it can be cancelled. Cancelling a release will close the release record and move it to the Close Down milestone. All changes and activities created or related to the release must either be Completed, cancelled or Closed to cancel the release request.

1. Open the release request.
2. For the current milestone, select Cancel > Reason. Reason can have the following values:
   • No Longer Required
   • Funding Not Available
   • To Be Re-Scheduled
   • Resources Not Available

If all related Changes and Activities defined in the Manifest tab are either Completed, Cancelled or Closed, the status of the release request is changed to Cancelled, with the status reason as the reason selected and the release request is moved to the Close Down milestone.