How do I correct/update a Change State when a Change is started BEFORE its Planned Start Date?

[CDS1971]

One of my teams accidentally moved the state of a change request from Submitted to Work in Progress several days before the Planned Start Date. What is the best way to correct the state of the change record?

[Dr Atul G- LNG]

Hi @CDS1971 

Is these are the custom choices? in that case you need to see the workflow or cancel the change

But if you are using OOTB change, then you can revert to new before schedule state but if you are in Implementation state, you either complete the change or cancel the change. 

[CDS1971]

Good morning, Atul.

I am new to this forum and am unfamiliar with what constitutes out of the box functionality for ServiceNow. I have been working with ServiceNow at PNC in various roles over the last few years, and the functionality that we have may actually have been customized from what was out of the box. 

To give you some background, our change requests have a State field with drop down options that consist of:

Draft, Submitted, Work in Progress, Executed, Successful, Successful with Issues, Unsuccessful No Impact, and Failed with Impact. In the case that I mentioned above, the change was previously in a Submitted state and was moved to Work in Progress by mistake a few days before its true Planned Start Date.  

Given what I have clarified, the best course of action, is to cancel the change and then to start over by creating a new change record, duplicating the content of the existing change record, correct?

Thank you in advance for your timely assistance.

[CDS1971]

This is a follow-up to my previous reply, Atul. In talking with the manager of the resource from the team who encountered this issue with the change record, stated: "The current thinking is to leave it alone, and on Saturday (when the CR is supposed to execute) manually update the "actual start" timestamp and proceed as normal.  ServiceNow has this field setup as user editable."

Would this course of action be feasible/possible within the functionality of ServiceNow?

Would the functionality prohibit that manual update by the change owner?

What might be the negative outcomes of such an action? 

[Dr Atul G- LNG]

Given what I have clarified, the best course of action, is to cancel the change and then to start over by creating a new change record, duplicating the content of the existing change record, correct?

Atul: Do one thing, once the change get cancel then copy the change from the cancelled change (which build a relationship ) and support for tracking why the previous change cancelled.

Would this course of action be feasible/possible within the functionality of ServiceNow?

Atul: Yes , feasible to update the Actual date manually but you need to check is actual date field is editable.

Would the functionality prohibit that manual update by the change owner?

Atul: Depends on the configuration in your instance.

What might be the negative outcomes of such an action? 

Atul:

Manual update in actual dates never ever recommend, a user can put any date.

In can create issue in audit

The manual date entry can give false picture if process owner think to improve change process.