Howto Manage Changes in ServiceNow

HOWTO: Managing Changes in ServiceNow

All change records submitted within ServiceNow must be approved by the Change Advisory Board (CAB). If you do not participate in the CAB Change Management Review (CMR) process, please do not open change records in ServiceNow.

Creating a Change

1. In the Change Management application, click Create New
2. Choose the type of change you are creating:
   
   1. "Normal Change" - Planned changes that require approval and CAB authorization. Most changes are "Normal Changes"
   2. "Emergency Change" - Unplanned changes necessary to restore service. These changes require CAB authorization only and are usually opened in response to a critical service interruption. A high priority Incident should already be opened for the service interruption when creating an Emergency Change.
      
      Note: ITIL also references "Standard Changes" which have repeatable, pre-defined plans. We have not yet implemented Standard Change capability within ServiceNow
3. On the new change form, fill out the following fields:
   
   1. Category - Pick the most appropriate option
   2. Configuration Item - Pick the configuration item (CI) this change will affect. If you can't find an appropriate CI, leave this field blank and note the affected item in the Description box.
   3. Priority - How critical is this change to implement in order to maintain services?
   4. Risk - How much risk is associated with this change?
   5. Impact - Will this change have low, medium, or high impact to systems and services?
   6. Outage - If services will be interrupted during this change, select Planned. If no interruption is expected, pick None. If you experience an unplanned outage while implementing your change, change this field to Unplanned.
   7. Assignment Group - Select the group that will be performing the change.
   8. Assigned To - Indicate the individual performing the change.
   9. Short description - Describe the change in several words using a Verb-Noun-Outcome phrase: "Reboot servername to resolve memory issue" "Apply patches to Oracle cluster for security"
   10. Description - Describe the change in several sentences.
   11. Planning tab
       
       1. Justification - What is the justification for the change: "Required by vendor" "To mitigate risk of unplanned outage due to memory leak"
       2. Implementation Plan - What steps will be taken during implementation?
       3. Risk and Impact Analysis - Describe the systems and users that will be impacted by the change: "All campus users will experience a 5 minute network outage"
       4. Backout Plan - If the change needs to be undone, how will the change be reversed?
       5. Test Plan - How will the success of the change be validated?
   12. Schedule tab
       
       1. Requested by date - Enter the date and time that this work must be completed by. This is frequently a later date then the planned change window.
       2. Planned start date - Enter the date and time when the change implementation will begin.
       3. Planned end date - Enter the date and time when the change implementation is planned to end.
       4. CAB recommendation - Used by the CAB during CMR to recommend action for the change
       5. Actual start - Automatically filled in by ServiceNow as the change is updated during implementation. Can be edited for correctness.
       6. Actual end - Automatically filled in by ServiceNow as the change is updated during implementation. Can be edited for correctness.
       7. CAB date - The date of the CMR meeting where this change was reviewed.
4. Save your change by clicking "Save"
   The change will be saved in the "New" status. This is essentially a draft change. No action will be taken on this change record until it is submitted for approval.
5. Submit your change for approval by clicking "Request Approval"
   Clicking "Request Approval" will change the Status to Authorize and will ask for approvals from the members of the Assignment Group assigned to the change. You can view the status of these approval requests in the "Approvers" related list at the bottom of the change form.
6. Once a member of the Assignment Group approves the change, the change request will automatically transition to a status of "Authorize" and ask the Change Advisory Board for approvals for the change.
   The CAB will review the change request at the next meeting during the CMR process and approve or reject the change.
7. Once a member of the CAB approves the change, the change request will automatically transition to a status of "Scheduled". This indicates the change request is approved and ready to be implemented during the planned implementation window. This will also send a meeting invite to the individual assigned to the change for the scheduled change window.

Implementing a change

1. During the planned implementation window, locate and open the change request assigned to your group for the change in question.
2. Click "Implement"
   This will set the status to "Implement" and will set the Actual start field to reflect when implementation started. You may adjust Actual start if necessary.
3. Perform the change, making notable updates in the Additional Comments and Work Notes as appropriate during the change.
4. Once your change has been implemented, click "Review" and begin evaluating whether your change was successful. This will set the Actual end field to reflect when implementation ended. You may adjust Actual end as necessary.
5. Once your review is complete, fill in the Closure Information tab
   
   1. Close code - Indicate whether your change was Successful, Successful with issues, or Unsuccessful.
      If your change was Successful with issues or Unsuccessful, you should open an Incident for the issues encountered.
   2. Close notes - Describe the final status of the change "Successful patch to 4.2.3" "Successful but with unplanned outage. See INC123456" "Unsuccessful but restored from backup successfully within change window."
6. Click "Close" to permanently close the change. No further action is required.