Configuring Change Management integration
Overview
BMC Remedy Change Management is an optional installation selection. If BMC Remedy Change Management is included in the Cloud Self Service & Service Catalog \ BMC AR System Server & IT Service Mgt. Suite – Secondary installation package, then the integration with BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management 2.1 is installed automatically.
BMC Remedy Change Management provides a system of planning, scheduling, implementing, and tracking changes that need to be completed within your cloud infrastructure. The BMC Remedy Change Management integration enables cloud end users and administrators to generate change tickets in the BMC Remedy Change Management system whenever they request a service through a requestable offering.
Four types of change policies are available out of the box:
- No Change Required
- Change Approval Required
- Preauthorized Change
- Audit-only Change
Each change policy, except No Change Required which does not impact the BMC Remedy Change Management system, is mapped to a change class. The change class indicates the urgency of the change request.
Change policy | Change class | Description |
|---|---|---|
Change Approval Required | Standard | indicates a change, like a computer upgrade, that requires approval. Typically this policy is pre-approved and requires only approval by the change manager. It follows the out-of-the-box change process defined by ITIL specifications. |
Preauthorized Change | No Impact | indicates a change that has no impact on the infrastructure and requires no approval. For example, a cloud end user makes a request for a low-cost service offering instance that does not require manager approval. By default, No Impact changes follow the Business Approval - No Impact phase and move forward to the Scheduled status. Use this process for pre-approved No Impact changes where the change is automatically scheduled after the approval phase is satisfied. |
Audit-only Change | Latent | indicates a change that has already been performed (for example, if a task implementer is assigned to replace the hard drive on a computer and then decides to upgrade the memory while the computer is open). Latent timing automatically sets the request status to Completed after you save the change request. |
Except for the No Change Required policy, each change policy is mapped to a BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management change template:
Change policy | Change template |
|---|---|
Change approval required | CLM: Manual change |
Preauthorized change | CLM: Pre Authorized change |
Audit-only change | CLM: Audit only change |
Each change policy that is mapped to a change template has a standard assigned task template named "Standard Cloud Task." The relation of the cloud service request to the change ticket is depicted in the links below:
Process description
The cloud end user or administrator requests a service. This request is linked to a service offering. The details of the service offering are defined in its underlying requestable offering definition.
The requestable offering definition is assigned a specific change policy from the Change Policy drop-down list, as shown in the example below: 
The change policy, in turn, determines how the service request is processed through the BMC Remedy Change Management system.
By default, a new service offering is assigned the policy No Change Required. The cloud administrator or any other administrator who has the permission to create a service offering determines which change policy to associate with the service offering. The choice of change policy is at the discretion of the administrator.
Company policy helps to guide the choice of change policy. Considerations include the impact on users, company infrastructure, and costs. These considerations weigh in determining whether to send the change associated with the service offering through the BMC Remedy Change Management system.
The processing paths differ depending on whether a change request is required. If the request is associated with a No Change Required policy, no change template is associated with the request, and no operations are performed in the BMC Remedy Change Management system.
Change requests are required for the other change policies:
- Change Approval Required
- Preauthorized Change
- Audit-only Change
The BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management change process differs from the standard change process insofar as the BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management process does not require manual intervention by the change manager or change coordinator. The standard change process stages "Request for Change," "Scheduled for Review," and "Scheduled for Approval," all of which require manual intervention, are omitted from the BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management change process.
For example, the BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management change policies follow the change process stages depicted below:
Because the BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management-initiated change request already contains attributes and tasks, the change manager or coordinator does not intervene to add or update them. The only manual intervention occurs when the designated approver approves or rejects a change request issuing from a Change Approval Required policy.
Workflow
Through the BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management portal, the cloud end user or administrator initiates a service request: for example, a request to add 100 virtual systems to the cloud infrastructure. When the service request is initiated, a change request is created in the BMC Remedy Change Management system. The change request is assigned the status of "Draft" at the initial point of the change process stage.
Next, based on information in the change policy and associated template, the task-related data for the standard cloud task is populated. The status of the change request becomes "Request for Authorization." Then, based on the change class associated with the change template, the mapped approval value accepts or rejects the change request. If it accepts the change request, the change request is assigned the status "Scheduled."
If the change request is rejected by the change approver, its status becomes "Fail," and the tasks associated with the service request are canceled.
Subsequently, the tasks related to the service request are executed in the BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management portal. The change request is assigned the status "Approval Pending:In Progress." When the tasks are completed, the status of the change request becomes "Completed." Based on approval rules, the change request moves to "Closed" status.
Service requests assigned to the Preauthorized Change policy
This type of service request is processed similarly to one based on the Change Approval Required policy with one exception. This type of request is approved automatically and does not have a rejection option.
Service requests assigned to the Audit-only Change policy
This type of service request does not execute tasks in BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management. The change request status goes automatically to "Completed."
Verifying the integration
In the Application Administration Console of your BMC Remedy AR System portal, you should have Change Management listed in the Custom Configuration tab under Application Settings.
Follow these guidelines to ensure that your integration with the BMC Remedy Change Management system is functioning properly. Be sure that you save any changes you make to the forms.
- Open the Change Template form in search mode, and select Cloud Change Lifecycle from the Template Category Tier 1 drop-down list.
- Click Search to display the details of the Cloud Change Lifecyle template category. Under Classification, specify the Change Type ("Change"). Under Location, review the value in the Company field (default is "Calbro Services"). The BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management workflow overwrites the company value with the company name associated with the logged-in Cloud user.
- For each change template (Approval Required, Audit Only, Pre-Authorized), click the Process Flow tab to verify the stages of the cloud change process lifecycle.
- For each change template, click the Authoring for Groups tab to verify that the designated support group is Change Management. You do not have to change any of the default values.
The requirement is that one user from the specified company ("Calbro Services" in this example) is associated with the support group ("Change Management").
- For Approval Required and Pre-Authorized change temples, click the Task Templates to verify that the Standard Cloud Task template is assigned under Related Templates.
- Highlight the Standard Cloud Task template, and choose View to display the Task Template form. Then click the Assignment tab to view the Assignment Type details. Ensure that the Assignment Type details are complete, specifically that the assignee group is the support group you defined under the Authoring for Groups tab and that the assignee is a member of the support group. The assignee company can be any entity, preferably an automated user from the provider company. Check these assignments on the Task Template form for both the Approval Required and Pre-Authorized Change Template forms.
- Return to the Task Template form, click the Assignment tab, and verify that the Change Manager and Change Coordinator have been assigned to the support group. The support company for infrastructure change coordinator, manager, and implementer role should be the provider company.
- Return to the Custom Configuration tab of the Application Administration Console, and choose Foundation > Advanced Options > Approval Process Configuration.
- Select the search mode on the Approval Process Configuration form, type the string %Cloud Change% in the Description field, and click Search. You should retrieve the Cloud Change Approved and the Cloud Change Closed records, both of which are specific to the approval process.
- Return to the Custom Configuration tab of the Application Administration Console, and choose Change Management > Advanced Options > Rules.
- On the Change Configuration Rules form, specify the assignment roles for the Assignment Engine Integration. (The round robin assignment selects the individual who is next in turn on a rotating basis.)
Return to the Custom Configuration tab of the Application Administration Console, and choose Change Management > Approval > Approval Mappings.
- On the Approver Mappings form, define the approver (last name is required) for the specified cloud change approval process. Press Enter to retrieve the associated approver ID. Complete the mapping details for the Impacted Area and the CI.
- Under Additional Mappings label, click the Advanced Criteria tab, and map the Class value for the type of change to the specified approver definition. In this example, the Standard class and its related criteria are associated with the change policy Change Approval Required. The Standard class and its criteria are assigned to the specified individual approver.
- After you complete the approver mappings, your integration is complete. You can begin to look at some customization options.
Guidelines for customizing BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management templates
These guidelines are addressed to experienced and knowledgeable change management administrators.
You can add a new change template, map it to corresponding policies, and make the association with a specific service offering definition. When creating the new change template, add the Change Template Instance ID to the SYS:Menu Items form together with Change Policy as the Menu Type. 
The newly created change policy is added as an entry to the Change Policy drop-down list of the
requestable offering definition.
On existing Change Template forms, you can modify attributes such as Summary, Risk Level, and Urgency. On Task Templates, you can add customized tasks in addition to the Standard Cloud Task.
References
For additional information, refer to the following documents:
- BMC Remedy Change Management User Guide
- BMC Remedy IT Service Management Administration Guide
- BMC Remedy Action Request System BMC Remedy Approval Server Guide