Using Change Schedule to track multiple outage windows

Dan R
Kilo Expert

Hello SNC,

I have a request from the business to create new fields on a catalog item form to capture the start and end date/time of maintenance windows. Furthermore the requestor wants these "maintenance windows" to apply to a calendar so they can view them all on the calendar. (To me this seems similar to what the Change Schedule does so I thought of trying to use that).

 

What I am trying to do is as follows:

1) I created new fields on the request form (4 sets in total, but for simplicity purposes I'll only mention 2 here.)

       the new fields are "Maintenance Window 1 Start Time" and "Maintenance Window 1 End Time" and

      "Maintenance Window 2 Start Time" and "Maintenance Window 2 End Time"

 

2) I have updated the Change Request form with 4 new fields that would match the above fields on the request form.

3) I created a Change Schedule Definition that uses the "Actual Start" and "Actual End" Date/time fields to create the entire window of the ticket.... this seems to work fine

**this is where things seem to get a little wonky**

4) I tried to create a "Related definition" underneath the definition I created as part of Step 3, however I have some roadblocks and questions here....

 

1st- on the "related records" table, there is a field for "Table Name" and then one for "reference field". Based on what I'm trying to do, I would think table name = change_request would make sense considering the maintenance window fields all exist on the change_request form. The issue is, there's a "reference field" field, and I don't understand what value is supposed to go in there. According to the wiki doc: https://docs.servicenow.com/bundle/london-it-service-management/page/product/change-management/task/add-related-tasks-to-chng-schedule.html

This definition is... to say the least... unhelpful.

When I select table name = change_request I have the following options for Reference field

find_real_file.png

 

I don't think any of these reference field values makes sense, and I'm not sure how it's determining the list of reference fields to show...

 

What am I doing wrong here? Essentially I want to be able to create up to 4 different "outage" schedules on the change schedule. This would be based on the fields filled out on the catalog item form. My goal is to add 4 pairs of fields (start/end) for 4-different maintenance windows to the cat item, and then when a ticket gets opened from the portal, a business rule would open a change request, applying the filled-out maintenance window information to the change schedule, and then I can expose the change schedule to the portal so it can be visible to end-users to see the ticket # and related outages on the calendar.

 

Happy to provide more information if anyone wants to take a stab at this. I don't see much information around the web so it's been challenging just understanding if this is even possible, or if the change schedule with related schedules is meant for something else...

I also have the idea of taking these maintenance window values and having individual change tasks open under the change request, with each change task applying the "maintenance window" to it's "actual start" and "actual end" date fields on the tasks. Would that help? (I might make custom fields instead of using these pre-existing ones)

Thanks in advance,

 

Dan R

 

 

 

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION

Tony Cattoi
Mega Guru

Hi Dan,

On your Change schedule definition page there should be a related list at the bottom of the page.  From there you can create another Change schedule definition related to the primary definition.  That will allow you to setup multiple schedules related to the schedule you are using.  I'm not sure if it will allow you to do different colors though.  I don't recall that being an option on them.

find_real_file.png

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7 REPLIES 7

Tony Cattoi
Mega Guru

Hi Dan,

Are these going to be one time only schedules each time (meaning they do not recur)?  If so, have you looked into Outages? 

https://docs.servicenow.com/bundle/london-it-service-management/page/product/service-portfolio-manag...

There is already a lot of functionality built into them, which may help to accomplish what you are looking to do.  Just thought I would bring that up as another option.

Hi Tony,

 

Thanks for the reply. In essence, yes, they would be one-time only schedules as each ticket would have it's own "start/end" window dates, and a new ticket would be opened to accommodate for other dates.

 

You think Outages makes more sense? Do outages apply to the change calendar similarly to change requests do?

Tony Cattoi
Mega Guru

I think outages make a lot of sense for this since it sounds very similar to one of their intended usages.  They don't integrate with the change calendar but a calendar report could be used or the out of box System Status page on the Portal could be used as well to display them.  Take a look at all the items under this category in the documentation.  https://docs.servicenow.com/bundle/london-servicenow-platform/page/build/service-portal/concept/serv...

 

I think you could also probably use schedules, these just sounded a lot like what you were trying to accomplish.

I appreciate the information Tony...

I think I should have included more information as these "windows" are not just for maintenance. This is why we want to have it similarly to what the change schedule does where it puts the start date->end date "window" in a viewable calendar that can be setup with different colors, etc to differentiate.

 

Thanks Tony but I'd like to return to my original question around using the Change Schedule with Related Change Schedules associated with it.

 

When I create a change schedule definition with related definitions, the related definitions don't add anything to the change schedule. How are these "related definitions" supposed to be used for the change schedules?

 

In essence I have 8 fields on the change request form, and I want all of them to create different color windows on the change calendar.

 

Ex: I have 8 new custom fields on the change_request form: Prep Start/End, Maintenance Start/End, Post Start End/, and Other Start/End. I want all of these fields to show something on the Change Calendar.

Is this possible? If so, how?