Relating items to the change request

You can relate outages, incidents, infrastructure changes, known errors, and configuration items to a change request. You can relate only those items that are affected by the change request to a change request. For example, when you create a change request to format the assets in your organization, you can relate all the assets that need to be formatted.

When you relate an item to a change request, all the related items are also automatically related to the change request. For example, when you relate an outage to a change request, all the configuration items that relate to the outage are also automatically related to the change request.

When you create a change request that affects the assets or CIs of your organization, you can relate these assets to the change request. For these assets, you can then create an outage record to note when there would be a scheduled or unscheduled downtime for those assets. For example, when you create a change request to format machines, you can relate all those machines to the change request. You can then create an outage record for these machines.

When defining a relationship between a CI and a change request, the following options are available:

• Related to—Relates the item or request to the change request.
• Upgrades—Upgrades the item or items as part of the change request process.
• Repairs—Repairs the items or items as part of the change request process.
• Impacts—Impacts the item as part of the change request process.
• Moves—Moves an item from one location to another location as part of the change request process.
• Installs—Installs the item as part of the change request process.
• Removes—Removes an item from the location as part the change request process.
• Changes—Changes items as part of the change request process.

These options are for information purposes, which can be used while reporting based on the organizational requirements and processes.

To relate items to a change request

1. On the Related Items tab for a change request, or release requests, click Relate existing item.
2. Specify the related item type, such as Infrastructure change, Work Order, Incident, or Outage.
   (For BMC Helix ITSM: Smart ITonly) When you relate an existing outage to a change request, some filters are applied by default. For example, the system searches for scheduled outages for CIs related to the change request. If you want to search for other outages or for all outages, clear the default filters and add new filters as needed.
3. Specify search criteria and initiate the search.
   You must specify some search criteria, such as a company name, status value, or keyword. To search for all records, enter the % wildcard character.
4. Select related items and specify the relationship type.
5. Click Save.
   The related items are displayed on the Related Items tab. You can view only those items to which you have access. if you click an item to which you do not have access, an error is displayed.

To relate CIs to change requests

1. Open an existing change request.
2. On the Configuration items tab, click Relate configuration item to add a related configuration item.
   To relate multiple CIs to the change request, you can search for multiple CIs by using commas to separate them. Select the required search results and click Add.
3. In the Add configuration items (CIs) window, click Advanced to select the required Filters and Presets.
   
   
4. Click Apply filters and then click Save.
   The filters are displayed under the active link on the Activity tab.

5. Search and select the required CI.

   Important

   You can select only 20 CIs when relating CIs to a change request. Click Select all CIs on page to perform this action.

6. Select the Association type from the following options:
   • Changes
   • Impacts
   • Installs
   • Moves
   • Related to
   • Removes
   • Repairs
7. Click Add.

The configuration item is related to the change request.

To create or edit an outage record

An outage is a downtime of an asset or a CI.  An outage can be scheduled or unscheduled. You can make changes to an outage whose Status is Scheduled by making changes directly in the ticket instead of opening the asset form.

Sometimes, after you create the outage record, you might have to make changes to the schedule of the outage. In the Ticket Console, you can make changes to the outage schedule directly in the ticket instead of making changes for each CI by opening the asset form.

You can also use one of the following assignment methods to assign individual outages or outages for multiple CIs to users:

• Configuration item
• Cross Referenced Request
• Manually
• Automated Routing

Based on the selected method, the Company, Organization, Support Group, and Assignee fields are populated.

Before you begin

You must have the Asset Admin or Asset User permission to edit an outage.  For more information, see Asset Management user roles and permissions.

1. Open an existing ticket, such as a change request.
2. To create a new outage, on the Related Items tab, complete the following steps:
   1. Select Create Related > Outage.
   2. On the Outages pane, select the CIs for which you want to create an outage.
3. To edit an existing outage, on the Related Items tab, select the outage.
   
4. ​​​​​​From the Unavailability type list, select whether the CI unavailability is scheduled or unscheduled.
5. Specify the Description for the outage.
6. Select the schedule start and end date.
7. In the Assignment section, select the Assignment method:
   1. Configuration item: The outage is assigned to the support group and assignee based on the assignment of the CI.
   2. Cross-Referenced Request: The outage is assigned to the support group and assignee based on the assignment of the cross-referenced change request.
   3. Manually: Select the support group and assignee manually.
   4. Automated Routing: The outage is assigned to the support group and assignee based on the automated routine that is defined in the CFG:Assignment form.
      ​​​​​
8. Click Save.

To relate impacted services and CIs to the change request

After the impact analysis is completed, you can relate the impacted CIs to the change request or discard the results. CIs found during the impact analysis are shown in a list format with the most impacted services at the top, up to a total of 100 services and CIs. You can select individual services and CIs, or you can select all services or all CIs and relate them to the change request.

The Initiate Impact Analysis option is unavailable if the impact analysis is in progress. If you want to stop an impact analysis that is in progress, use the Abort option. The Abort option is available when the impact analysis is in progress.

1. Open a change request.

2. Click More > Initiate Impact Analysis.

   Tip

   If you want to perform other tasks on other screens while the impact analysis runs, click Close in the Impacted CIs dialog box. You can open the Impacted CIs dialog box later to view the impact analysis results by opening the change request and clicking Show more on the impact analysis status message.

   

3. In the Impacted CIs dialog box, on the List view tab, select the CIs you want to relate.
   
4. Click Relate.
5. On the confirmation message, click Yes.

To exclude CIs with a Delete status from your search

You can search for CIs that are in Delete status from change requests. If you do not want the system to search for CIs in Delete status, you must select the check boxes for the statuses that you want to search, and clear the Delete check box. By default, in the search result the system displays CIs in all statuses including the Delete status.

To restore a CI that is in Delete status, when you create or edit change requests, on the CI tab, perform the advanced search and select the Delete check box to search for CIs in Delete status. From the search result, relate the change request with multiple CIs that are in Delete status to track configuration changes made to the CIs.

To create a related item

1. On the Related Items tab for the incident, work order, problem, known error, or change request, create a related ticket, such as a Related Incident or Related Work Order. For an incident or a change request, you can also create a Related Outage. In PWA screens, for a change request, you can use a template to create a related change request.
   A new ticket opens in draft mode with some information pre-populated from the original ticket. Outages created from change requests require specific information.
2. Update the new item as needed and save it.
   Relationships between the items appear in Related Items. The original ticket has a Created relationship that links to the new item, and the new item has a Created by relationship that links to the original ticket.
   In Smart IT, if you select Relationship type as Duplicate of when relating an incident to another, you can select only one incident in the table. However, in Progressive Web App incident screens, when you relate an existing incident as a duplicate, you can select multiple incidents but on clicking Save, you are asked to specify an incident only.

Information copied to a related ticket

The following minimum information is copied to the related incident, problem, known error, work order, or change request:

• Customer and Customer Company
• Summary
• Notes
• Affected Service
• Priority

Instructions for classic interfaces