Change tasks?

[jborn]

We're having some debate as to the proper use of manual change tasks.   So, looking for guidance and perspective.

Most of the manual or templated change tasks appear to be related to approvals or predefined/standard actions.   Is it a good idea to utilize tasks to add to or change the scope of the change activity (if not originally called out in the approved change request)?   Thoughts?

[ntate]

I would say no, from a compliance perspective.   If a task changes the scope of the CR, how do you get approval for the scope change?   I would think this might make your auditors go a little crazy trying to hunt down what the change actually did after everyone make change tasks to change their CRs.   I might not be following the question correctly, just my two cents.

At MetroPCS, we stuck to the out of box change tasks.   Implement, Test, and close the record as successful or unsuccessful.   Something like that.

Hope that helps!!

[jesusemelendezm]

I think ideally, the Request for Change (Normal, not an emergency change) once It is pre-approved and final approved. You should be able to add change tasks manually... In some companies, this is done by the CAB or Change Manager who knows who will implement the approved   Request for Change... They will raise one, two or more tasks. The completion of these tasks either - complete or incomplete will trigger a post implementation review... which will be approved/rejected and will determine the end state of the change.

[solutioningnow]

Hi John,

As mentioned by Nicole the best practice suggests not to go for this business requirement. As the architecture or the process of servicenow also suggests that change tasks are created in association with the change request and are mainly used by many to track which state the change request and "who handles what"

Change tasks are usually for monitoring the next or more granular level of work on the change request, where the change manager checks which team is working and where is any team stuck on CI, approval, operations and etc.

Though servicenow understands the ITIL best practices they have given the liberty to add ad-hoc change tasks to change request mainly because of business requirements from many of the clients, where client wants to attach a task ad-hoc which might not have been covered as integrated task of the parent change request, or client wants to attach an additional approval or activty on top of the pre-defined tasks that are associated with change request.

Coming back to your question, yes change task can be used manually for additional/supportive activities of the current change activity, but what i suggest it should not be used to add new/more activity apart from the defined in the change request, which makes it difficult for the change manager to manage. Though certain scenarios are possible where you can impose restrictions and more approvals on ad-hoc addition of change tasks but this liberty then can lead to complex and more invovlement of the human resource rather then opting for an automated solution.

Though the views presented here are just from our past implementations/observations from our clients. Servicenow is a FredomToCustomize product, you can tweak accoridng to your requirements as you want.

Please mark answer as correct, if it was really helpful 🙂

Regards,

Solutioner

Enhance Knowledge NOW@ www.solutioningnow.com

http://www.solutioningnow.com/

[BhupeshG]

But can we add - Ad hoc approver in Change Request?