What is a Normal Change?
A Normal Change is a “one-time” task that fundamentally or structurally alters the environment. The Normal Change requires more preparation and/or execution time than a Standard Change and may involve greater risk. The Normal Change may require communication beyond an outage notice and/or training/preparation for end-users. See CHECKLIST-what-is-it.docx (login required).
Submitting a Normal Change
Submit a Normal Change as soon a you know the project is a Go and at least by the Friday prior to the selected Change Advisory Board (CAB) date.
Change Advisory Board (CAB)
A Normal Change requires presentation to the Change Advisory Board (CAB). CAB meetings are held the first and third Wednesday of each month. CABs should be scheduled early in the process. The purpose of the meeting is to make sure all parties are on the same page re: implementation time line, communication, and training.
CAB members include ITS/PAIRS leadership, communications, and potentially major stakeholders as well as interested people from the campus community (eventually). Anyone from ITS/PAIRS is welcome to attend any CAB meeting.
The Normal Change has one required CAB at the beginning. Additional CABs may be scheduled as needed.
Complete the Normal Change Form
- To access the Normal Change form, go to TDNext > Tickets > New > Change Management > Normal Change.
- Complete as follows:
Title
Short description to explain the nature of the ticket
Status
Ticket opens On Hold. Do not change status.
Goes Off Hold
Select a CAB date (1st or 3rd Wednesday) and set a time PRIOR to the start of that 1 p.m. meeting. The ticket will change to “Open” at the chosen time.
Requestor
For Normal Change, the person completing the ticket; may be Tech or supervisor. NOTE: Uncheck “Notify Requestor” to turn off normal customer communications on this ticket.
Acct/Dept
Will auto-populate based on Requestor
Location
Physical location, if applicable. Use spy glass and search.
Ticket Type
This is Ticket Type. Use spy glass and search for “Normal”. Select the appropriate category/Normal Change to fit your situation. EX: Administrative & Business/Normal Change
Service Category
Select the high-level category under which this services falls.
Impacted Services (specific)
Which specific system(s) will be affected by this change, i.e., phones, printers, PASS, wireless, etc.? Think “end user”. List all. NOTE: This is a temporary entry field because all services are not built out in the service catalog yet. In the future, we will use this list to create services, at which time this may become a drop-down menu.
Description
Details including what will be changed and how
Reason for Change
Why is this change necessary, important, or advantageous?
Rollback Plan
Under what circumstances will you implement the rollback plan? NOTE: While it is not required at this time, it is strongly recommended that a rollback process be documented somewhere for future reference.
Start Date
Date the work will begin
End Date
Date the work is anticipated to end
Attachment
Optional; attach related documentation
Knowledge Base Article
Optional; attach a related TDX Kb article
Responsible
Person (or group) doing work. NOTE: Uncheck “Notify Responsible” to turn off normal customer communications related to this ticket. Those Responsible will still receive work flow notices.
Impact
Breadth of the impact in terms of number of customers: individual, group, department, organization
Outage Required
If this change requires a disruption of service for its users, whether a “blip” or several hours, choose Yes.
When will the outage take place
Friday outage (starting between 5-6PM) or not a Friday outage
Duration of outage
Less than 30 mins; 30-60 mins; more than 60 mins (for communication purposes)
Outage start time
Specific time to be shared in the communication
Outage end time
Specific time to be shared in the communication
Additional Communication Notes
Include any details customers need to know about this change, such as actions required afterward (reboot, clear cache) or changes to a process or interface. List any noticeable impacts the customer may see or experience; including but not limited to interruption of service (calls cut off, print queue cleared), required manual actions like reboots, UI changes, pop-up messages, etc.
NOTE: Even if the change does not require an outage, a communication may be needed to alert customers and provide instructions.
Asset/CI
Optional for now; currently, most assets are hardware (computers, phones); if a CI exists in TDX for what you do, feel free to select it.
- Save the ticket. The Normal Change work flow is applied.
The Normal Change Work flow
- At "goes off hold" time on the date of the CAB, ticket status will change to Open.
- After the CAB meeting, an ITS Admin will select: Approved, Approved with Adjustments, or Rejected. This choice will either move the work flow forward or resolve the ticket.
- If the change is approved, three choices and one task will be created and assigned:
Evaluate Change for Communication Needs > Communications group
Evaluate Change for Training Needs > Documentation and Training group
Evaluate Change for Security Concerns > Information Security group
Pre-Implementation Work > Responsible
- For each Evaluation, a No/None completes that branch of the work flow. A Yes creates and assigns subsequent Tasks:
Create Communication Plan > Implement Communication Plan
Create Training Plan > Implement Training Plan
Address Security Concerns
- When all four branches/evals/tasks are completed (Communication, Training, Security, Pre-Implementation), the Change Implementation task will be assigned to Responsible, indicating the change is ready.
- On the date of the change, Responsible will complete the work and mark the Change Implementation Task completed. The status will change to Resolved-Monitoring.
- After a 2-work day delay, Responsible will mark Confirmation of Change.
- Assuming all is well, ticket will Resolve, then Close automatically.