Configuring Change Management

As an administrator, perform the following configuration tasks that are specific to the BMC Helix ITSM: Change Management application.

To configure process flows and their approvals

The Change Management implementation involves the configuration of process flows and approvals. These two are combined here because process flows are used with the configuration of the approval process (used to define when an approval process takes place) and approval mappings (used to define the approvers). Change Management uses the data in the process flow and the approval process configuration forms to drive the change request through the change control process flow.

For more information, see Configuring process flows and their approvals in theBMC Helix ITSM: Change Management online documentation portal.

To configure risk assessment

Risk assessment involves computing the total risk of making a change based on risk-related questions and the derived risk. The derived risk can be based on historical performance and the impact or priority of a change or CI. The higher the risk on a change request, the more time you should take to consider the impact of the proposed change and whether to proceed.

For more information, see Configuring risk assessment in theBMC Helix ITSM: Change Management online documentation portal.

To hide the Categorization tab

You can control whether to hide the Categorization tab in the best practice view of the Change Request form. The tab appears by default. If your organization does not use operational or product categorizations (which appear on the Categorization tab) when managing change requests, you can hide this tab. You can do this from the Application Administration Console.

For more information, see Hiding the Categorization tab in theBMC Helix ITSM: Change Management online documentation portal.

To configure change prioritization

As an administrator, you can review and configure priority levels based on the Impact and Urgency values by using the Change Prioritization form. After you log in as an administrator or as a user with the Infrastructure Change Config permission, you can create, update, and delete change prioritization records. This form also displays the prioritization formulas.

For more information, see Configuring change prioritization in theBMC Helix ITSM: Change Management online documentation portal.

To configure change rules

You can configure the enforcement of specific rules for the Change Management application (for example, if work logs, change reasons, or attachments are required). To open the Change Rules form, you must log in as an administrator or user with Infrastructure Change Config permissions.

For more information, see Configuring change rules in theBMC Helix ITSM: Change Management online documentation portal.

To configure notification rules

You can configure the rules in which the Change Manager, Change Coordinator, and Change Requester are notified. For example, the change manager is notified when the Status of a change request is set to Planning in Progress and the Status Reason is set to Assigned.

For more information, see Configuring notification rules in theBMC Helix ITSM: Change Management online documentation portal.

To configure assignment routing

The Change Management application uses assignment routing to select a support group, while the Assignment Engineis used after the support group selection to select a support agent from that group. You must manually select a support group and the support agent for assignment if they are not configured.

Important

This configuration is optional.

For more information, see Configuring assignment routing in theBMC Helix ITSM: Change Management online documentation portal.

To add custom fields to the Change view

To speed up the process of creating an incident record, the Change view in BMC Helix ITSM displays only a subset of the fields that are available on the Change form. However, you can add custom fields to the Change view as per your requirement.

For progressive web applications, a user with admin permissions can add fields to the existing progressive view, or if the progressive view does not exist, you can create it.

For more information, see Adding custom fields to the Change view in theBMC Helix ITSM: Change Management online documentation portal.

To configure asynchronous impact analysis for change requests

When working on a change request, a user can use the Impact Analysis feature to identify the potential impact of the change on other services and CIs. The user can use the impact analysis results to mitigate risks and make informed decisions before implementing the change.

For more information, see Configuring asynchronous impact analysis for change requests in theBMC Helix ITSM: Change Management online documentation portal.

To configure the impact analysis settings for change requests

For a change request, you have two options to run the impact analysis; the IT impact analysis and the Network impact analysis. To display these options under the More menu for a change request, you must configure the Change_Impact_Analyzer_Option parameter.

To access the Change_Impact_Analyzer_Option parameter, log in as an administrator by using the http://midTierServerInstallDir/arsys/forms/serverName URL under the AR System Administration > AR System Administration Console > System > General > Centralized Configuration > arsystem.bmc.arsys.itsm component.

Change Impact Analyzer parameter.png

The Change_Impact_Analyzer_Option parameter has the following values:

IT—The Initiate impact analysis option is displayed under the More menu for a change request.
Network—The Initiate network impact analysis and the Network impact analysis console options are displayed under the More menu for a change request.
Both—The Initiate impact analysis, Initiate network impact analysis, and the Network impact analysis console options are displayed under the More menu for a change request.

For more information, see Performing an impact analysis for a change request.