Adding information to an existing change request

To enter requester information

Enter additional information about the requester on the Change form as needed.

By default, the Requested For fields are auto-populated with the details of the user who creates the change after the change request is submitted. If this user is not associated to a support group, the Support Company is set to the Location Company of the user. If this user is associated to a support group, the Support Company, Support Organization, and Support Group is set to the user's default Support Group.

You can modify the Requested For fields, if required. The Support Company field list is based on the user selected in the Last Name field of the Requested For information.

• If the selected user does not belong to the support staff group, all companies are listed similar to Change Location companies.
• If the selected user belongs to the support staff group, this list is restricted to the user's support group companies.

1. Open the change request.
2. Select Quick Actions > Requested For.
3. Enter information about the requester in the Requested For dialog box. 
   The Requested For information provides details about the company, user details, organization and department for which the request has been created.
4. Click OK.
5. Click Save.

To enter classification information

Classification information is used to describe the business justification of a request (for example, Sarbanes-Oxley requirements) and show which products and services are affected by the request. This information can be helpful when the request goes through the approval process.

1. On the Change form, click the Categorization tab.

2. Enter the following information:

   Field	Description
   Class	Define the urgency of the change (for example, Normal). For more information, see Creating-a-change-request-at-the-Initiate-stage.
   Change Reason	Define the business reason for implementing the change request. Available options include: - Upgrade  - New functionality  - Maintenance  - Other  If the request needs to go through the approval process, change reason information can be helpful.

3. Select Links > Categorizations and enter the following information:

   Field	Description
   Operational Categorization	Operational categorization is based on a three-tier hierarchy that is configured in the Operational Catalog.
   Product Categorization	Product categorization is based on a five-tier hierarchy that is configured in your Product Catalog.

4. Click Save.

To enter vendor information

A vendor is a third-party company that provides services that might be required to complete a request. Vendors can use their own tracking systems to create and manage tickets for these services.

The Vendor Management feature of Change Management enables you to maintain details of the vendor and the vendor ticket within a change request to track a vendor's involvement in a change. You can extract the vendor details from change requests for reporting purposes by using the custom reports feature. For more information about generating custom reports, see Creating and managing reports from the AR System Report Console.

1. Open the change request.
2. On the Change form, select the vendor group from the Vendor Group field.
3. (Optional) If the vendor's ticket number is available, enter this information in the Vendor Ticket Number field.
4. Click Save.

To add or modify work information in a change request

You might need to modify a change request with work history entries that you add during its lifecycle, in order to document activities performed or information gathered. For example, you can track the progress of the change request by recording the steps that you took to implement it in the work history.

You might want to add work information about the following activities:

• General Information—Notes about the record. For example, you might want to add a note that a particular CI was deployed, and include the date.
• Planning—Notes about a plan to implement a global change throughout your organization.
• Implementation—Installation and back-out procedures for the change.
• Costing and Charging—Additional information about the cost of the current CI, incident, change, and so on. For example, you might want to add a note that the cost of maintaining a CI was split between two cost centers, or that the cost to implement a change was under budget.

Any user with the User, Master, Viewer, or Submitter change-related permissions, can add or modify Work Info from the Change console or the change request in Modify mode. However, only users with Change Master permissions can add work info to closed change requests.

Use the following procedures to add work information about activities performed for the current change request.

1. Open the change request.
2. To add new work information, under the Add Work Info details section on the Work Detail tab, enter the following information:
   • Notes—Enter the details of your work information record.
   • Attachment—Click the folder to add any attachments related to the work information up to three files.
3. Click Advanced to select the work information type and add any additional attachments.
   1. From the Work Info Type list, select the type of work information to add.
   2. In the Attachment fields, add any additional attachments required for the work information up to three files.

   3. From the Locked list, select Yes or No to lock the log.

      Warning

      If you select Yes, you cannot modify the work log after you save it. A locked work log can only be modified by a user with the functional role of a Infrastructure Change Master.

   4. From the View Access list, specify the level of access to the work entry:
      • Select Internal, if you want only users with application permissions for Change Management to see the entry.

      • Select Public, if you want everyone with access to the system to see the entry, including requesters.

        Important

        The information in this note applies to environments that also run BMC Service Request Management.
        
        When a work note is created in a change request that originated from the BMC Service Request Management console and is marked as Public, the work note also appears in the request's activity log in the Request Entry console of BMC Service Request Management. If the work note is updated, the original work note remains in the request's activity log, but the updated information is placed in a new entry in the request's activity log.
        
        If the work note in the incident request is updated and the Assignee marks it as Internal, the original work note remains in the request's activity log, but the updated information is not displayed.

4. When you finish updating the change request, under Add Work Info, click Save. 
   The Save operation adds your entry to the work history.
5. To view or update the entries in the work information, select the work info record and click View .
6. Under the Edit Work Info section:
   1. Update the required fields.
   2. To remove an attachment, click Delete  for that attachment.
   3. Click Save.
7. To view a report of selected activities that you performed against this request, select the records from the work info table and click Report .
8. To view the history of when and by whom each of the work information was added, click History .
9. Click Save.

To modify change requests

As you track and supervise a change request, you move it from one stage to another (for example, from Initiate to Review and Authorize). When you choose different stages, messages alert you if you need to complete more fields in the request. A request should follow the stages in the recommended life-cycle of a change request, as described in Change-Management-overview. Manually setting the status values can disrupt the life-cycle in which you enter information about and resolve the change request.

Before you begin, if you want to edit a change request created by another user, make sure that you have the Infrastructure Change Master permissions. For more information, see Change-management-permissions.

1. On the Change Management console, select the change request from the Assigned Change table, and click View.
2. On the Change form, make the appropriate changes.

3. Use the Process Flow Status area to move the change request from one status to the next, as shown in the following figure:

   
   
   If you need to temporarily suspend work on the change request you are working on, select Enter Pending and an appropriate status reason (for example, Manager Intervention) from the Process Flow Status menu. When you are ready to continue work on the change request, select Resume from the Process Flow Status menu.

   Important

   The change manager or change coordinator can resume a pending change request.

   Otherwise, the Status field is updated automatically during the Process Flow.

4. (Optional) Perform the following actions:

   Action	Reference topic
   Add a task to the change request.	Implementing-change-requests-in-the-Implementation-stage
   Modify the change request assignments.	Assigning-and-reassigning-change-requests.
   Relate a CI or some other object to the change request.	Defining-and-managing-relationships.
   Modify the start and end dates of the change request.	Planning-change-requests-in-the-Assessment-Planning-and-Scheduling-stage.

5. Click Save.

To define a requester record

When you define change and release requests, or monitor them, you frequently work with requester information. For example, you might need to search for a requester in the database. If the requester does not exist, you must define a new requester. Or, you might need to change the requester information.

The People form contains all user records. You can access this form in different ways:

• Select People on the Application Administration Console.
• Select My Profile on the Overview Console, the Change Management console, or the Release Management console. You then can see your own user record.
• Click in the Last Name field, enter partial information about the individual you are looking for, and then press Enter.
  Information stored here is used to automatically fill in requester information fields on many forms. 

While defining a new change request, release request, or task, you might find that the requester does not have a record in the database. In this case, you must define a record for the requester, which you can do while you are defining the request or task.

1. From the IT Home page, click Application Administration Console.
2. Select the appropriate company from the Company field.
3. Click Create next to People.

4. On the People form, complete all the required fields:

   Field	Description
   First Name	Enter the requester's first name.
   Last Name	Enter the requester's last name.
   Client Type	Select Operating Company, Customer, or Vendor.
   Profile Status	Set the Status to Enabled (or other option, as needed).
   Client Sensitivity	Select Standard or Sensitive.
   VIP	Select Yes or No to indicate the person's appropriate status.
   Support Staff	Select Yes or No to indicate whether the requester is a support staff member.
   Site	Select a Site location.
   Company	Select access data for one company but not another, based on the companies to which the person is assigned. The Company field controls access when you configure people.
   Business	Enter a business phone number and enter an email address.

5. Optionally, complete the remaining fields, including fields on the other tabs.
6. Click Save.