Change request status values and transitions

A Standard or Normal change control process flow has certain status values and transitions and these are incorporated in the change request’s status as it follows the process through its lifecycle. 

The change request status has the following values and transitions:

At any given time, only a subset of these states is displayed on the Change UI to make it easier for you to determine the next possible state transitions. You can also click on the buttons (Next State and Previous State for Smart IT and Next Stage and Previous Stage for Remedy IT Service Management) to change the state transitions and to move the change request forward or back in the process respectively. 

Along with the Status field, there is another corresponding Status Reason field. Using the menu that is attached to the Status Reason field, you can select a predetermined status reason to explain why the record is in a certain state. For example, if the change request is in a Pending state, you can select the reason for this using the Status Reason field.

Change Initiation and Recording

When you submit a change request in Smart IT, the status is set to Draft. From Remedy IT Service Management, you can set the state of a change request to Draft, Request For Authorization, Pending, or Cancelled.

The following diagram explains the state transitions mentioned above:

The Draft state represents that a request that is still being filled in or worked on to get the needed requirements documented before the request moves ahead to approval or planning. You can keep a change request in a Draft state for any length of time as required. In this state, no notification events or approval requests are sent. From this stage, the possible state transitions are:

• Draft to Request For Authorization—This is the most common status transition for a change request, as this represents a change that is ready to become an active request. This state transition will move the change request to the Authorization for Business Assessment stage.
• Draft to Pending—This state transition signifies that you cannot compete the change request at this time for a reason selected in the Status Reason field.
• Draft to Cancelled—This state transition signifies that you do not wish to proceed with this change request. 

Approval: Authorization for Business Assessment

After the change request is moved out of the Draft state and in to the Request For Authorization state, one of the following four state transitions occur automatically, assuming there are change reviewer approvals. 

• Request For Authorization to Rejected—The application automatically performs this state transition, when one or more approvers reject the change request.
• Rejected to Cancelled—This state transition signifies that the change coordinator and the change manager have decided not to proceed with the change request at this time due to the Change Reviewer Approval rejection reason.
• Rejected to Request For Authorization—This state transition signifies that the change coordinator and the change manager have updated the change request based on the Change Reviewer rejection reason and want to get it re-assessed for approval.
• Request For Authorization to Request For Change—This state transition signifies that the change request has passed the Change Reviewer approval phase and is ready for the Business Approval phase.

If there are no change reviewer approvals configured or no change reviewer approvers selected, the system automatically moves the change request to the Request For Change state to begin the Business Approval phase. The possible state transitions are:

• Request For Change to Rejected—The application automatically performs this state transition when one or more approvers reject the change request.
• Rejected to Cancelled—This state transition signifies that the change coordinator and the change manager have decided not to proceed with the change request at this time due to the Business Approval rejection reason.
• Rejected to Request For Change—This state transition signifies that the change coordinator and the change manager have updated the change request based on the Business Approval rejection reason and want to get it re-assessed for approval.
• Request For Change to Planning In Progress—This state transition signifies that the change request has passed the business approval and is ready for planning.

If there are no business approvals configured or no business approvers selected, the system automatically moves the change request to the Planning In Progress state to begin the Change Assessment, Planning and Scheduling phase.

The following diagram explains the status values for a change request at certain points in the flow as well as the state transitions mentioned above for the Change Reviewer Approval and Business Approval phase:

Change Assessment, Planning and Scheduling

Once the change request has been approved for business approvals or there were no business approvals, the change request automatically moves to the Planning In Progress state.

From here, the possible state transitions are:

• Planning In Progress to Request For Change (RFC)—This state transition moves the change request back to the RFC state and restarts the business approval process. This is typically done if something was missed, or if something has changed with the original scope of the change request.
• Planning In Progress to Scheduled For Review—This state transition signifies that all of the planning and scheduling tasks have been completed and that the change request is now ready for review by the change manager and CAB.
• Planning In Progress to Pending—This state transition signifies that you cannot continue with the Planning and Scheduling stage at this time for a reason selected in the Status Reason field.
• Planning In Progress to Cancelled—This state transition signifies that you do not want to proceed with this change request.

The following diagram explains the status values for a change request at certain points in the flow as well as the state transitions mentioned above:

Change Plan and Schedule Review

Once the planning and scheduling for the change request are complete, the change request is moved to the Scheduled For Review state. From here, the possible state transition options are:

• Scheduled For Review to Scheduled For Approval—This state transition signifies that all of the planning and scheduling tasks have been reviewed and that the change request is now ready for Implementation approval.
• Scheduled For Review to Pending—This state transition signifies that you cannot continue with the review at this time for a reason selected in the Status Reason field.
• Scheduled For Review to Cancelled—This state transition signifies that you do not wish to proceed with this request.
• Scheduled For Review to Request For Change—This state transition moves the change request back to the RFC state and restarts the business approval process. This is typically done, if something was missed or something has changed with the original scope of the change request. 

The following diagram explains the status values for a change request at certain points in the flow as well as the state transitions mentioned above:

Approval: Authorization for Implementation

After the change request is moved out of the Scheduled For Review state and into the Scheduled For Approval state, one of the following state transitions occur automatically:

• The change request stays in the Scheduled For Approval state, if the implementation approvals have been configured and if the approvers are selected to approve the change request.
• The change request is moved into the Scheduled state, if there are no implementation approvals either configured or found for the change request.

Assuming that there are implementation approvals, the possible state transitions are:

• Scheduled For Approval to Rejected—The application automatically performs this state transition when one or more approvers reject the change request.
• Rejected to Cancelled—This state transition signifies that the change coordinator and the change manager have decided not to proceed with the change request at this time due to the Implementation Approval rejection reason.
• Rejected to Scheduled For Review—This state transition signifies that the change coordinator and the change manager have updated the change request based on the Implementation Approval rejection reason and want to get it re-evaluated for implementation approval. This option is available from the Restart option in Mid Tier and Smart IT.
• Scheduled For Approval to Scheduled—This state transition signifies that the change request has passed the implementation approval and is ready for the implementation.

The following diagram explains the status values for a change request at certain points in the flow as well as the state transitions mentioned above:

Change Implementation

After the change request is moved into the Scheduled state, the Change Coordinator can perform one of the following state transitions:

• Scheduled to Implementation In Progress—This state transition means that the change coordinator can begin implementing the change based on the approved tasks, date, time, and plan.
• Scheduled to Cancelled—This state transition means that the change coordinator and the change manager have decided to cancel the change request, usually due to business priority changes or new conflicts.
• Scheduled to either Request For Change or Planning In Progress—This state transition means that the plans or schedule of the change request have changed, so the request may need to go through approvals again.
• Scheduled to Pending—This state transition means that the change coordinator and the change manager has moved the change request to the pending state.

Assuming that the change request is being implemented, the possible state transitions are:

• Implementation In Progress to Completed—This state transition means that the change implementer has completed the implementation tasks for the change request. The value of the Status Reason is automatically set to Final Review Required, signifying that the request is now ready for the Close Down Approval stage.
• Implementation In Progress to Request For Change—This state transition means that the change request plans have changed during implementation, so the request may need to go through business approvals and planning again.

• Implementation In Progress to Planning In Progress—This state transition means that the change request plans have changed during implementation, so the request may need to go through planning again.

  Important

  If any of the tasks related to the change request are in implementation stage or if the current task phase is in implementation stage, and the change manager or the change coordinator tries to move the change request from Implementation In Progress to any of the previous stages, the following error is displayed:
  This Change Request has at least one open task or task group. Cannot perform back operation at this stage.

• Implementation In Progress to Pending—This state transition signifies that you cannot continue with the implementation at this time for a reason selected in the Status Reason field.
• Implementation In Progress to Cancelled—This state transition signifies that the change coordinator and the change manager do not wish to proceed with this request.

The following diagram explains the status values for a change request at certain points in the flow as well as the state transitions mentioned above:

Approval: Authorization for Close Down

After the change request is moved into the Completed state with a value of the Status Reason field as Final Review Required, one of the following state transitions occur automatically:

• The change request stays in the Completed state with the value of the Status Reason field as Final Review Required, if the close down approvals have been configured and if the approvers are selected to approve the change request.
• The change request is moved to the Completed state with the value of the Status Reason field as Final Review Complete, if there are either no close down approvals configured or found for the change request.

Assuming that there are close down approvals, the possible state transitions are:

• Completed, Final Review Required to Rejected—The application automatically performs this state transition when one or more approvers reject the change request.
• Rejected to Restart Change (existing change status is set to Request For Authorization)—This state transition signifies that the change coordinator and the manager have decided to restart the change request to address the implementation issues based on the close down approval rejection reason.
• Rejected to Cancelled—This state transition signifies that the change coordinator and the change manager have decided not to complete the change request at this time, due to the close down approval rejection reason. This is typically done for unsuccessful changes that do not need to be backed out.
• Rejected to Create New Change request (existing change status is set to Cancelled)—This state transition signifies that the change coordinator and the change manager have decided that a new change request is required to address implementation issues based on the close down approval rejection reason. The existing change request will be set to Cancelled.
• Completed, Final Review Required to Completed, Final Review Complete—This state transition signifies that the change request has passed the Close Down Approval stage and is ready to be closed. This is typically done for successful, partly successful, or backed out changes.

The following diagram explains the status values for a change request at certain points in the flow as well as the state transitions mentioned above:

Change Completion and Close Down

After the change request is moved to the Completed state, with the value of the Status Reason field as Final Review Complete, the change coordinator can perform one of the following state transitions with the appropriate status reason:

• Completed to Closed, Backed Out
• Completed to Closed, Successful
• Completed to Closed, Successful with Issues
• Completed to Closed, Unsuccessful

In addition, the change request can be moved back into on the following states:

• Draft
• Request For Change
• Planning In Progress
• Pending
  
  

The following diagram explains the status values for a change request at certain points in the flow as well as the state transitions mentioned above: