Deployment milestone - Rolling out the release to the business

After a release request is approved at the Deployment Approval phase, the release is rolled out to the business at the Deployment milestone. You deploy the release to the IT infrastructure according to the prepared plan at the scheduled start date (for example, over a long holiday weekend). You must distribute hardware and software to the installation site. Task implementers must follow a prepared script of tasks and activities to complete the installation. The Deployment milestone can require approvals to make sure the release does not need to be rolled back.

To deploy the release to the business

1. Open the release request at the Deployment In Progress status.
2. On the Dates/System tab revise the deployment start and end dates if needed.
   You use these date fields to specify when the release is deployed to the IT infrastructure. These dates are usually different than the Scheduled Start Date and Scheduled End Date, which is typically a longer process.
3. On the Manifest tab, review the status of the change requests and activities that are included in the release manifest.
4. (Optional) Use the Schedule Assist tool to search for available deployment times for the release request. The Schedule Assist tool identifies possible conflicts associated with releases and windows of opportunity that your release request can be scheduled around. These deployment dates are based on global business events and CI availability. (For more information, see Specifying the business justification.)
5. Click Rollup to accumulate the risk level, costs, and time spent from the related change requests (displayed on the Manifest tab).
6. Save your work.
7. When all the change requests and activities reach Closed status, use the Process Status Flow area to move the release request from the Deployment In Progress status to the Close Down Approval phase.
   The release must be approved before it can move forward. For more information, see Close Down milestone - Completing release requests.