Approve and schedule changes

This page is for members of the CAB (change advisory board) and of the ECAB (its counterpart for emergencies), and for those who manage the change calendar in Portail ZAPP.

Who approves?

a normal change is approved by the CAB;
an emergency change is approved by the ECAB;
a standard change is not subject to approval: submitting it approves it;
administrators can always decide.

The rollback plan is required as soon as a normal or emergency change is sent for approval.

Decide from the record

A change enters approval when someone clicks Send for approval, from the Submitted or In assessment state. The Approval section of its record shows the pending step (Waiting since…) and the history of decisions.

If the change's type carries an approval flow (CAB and ECAB are provided; the administrator can extend them: several levels, conditions on risk, deadlines, delegation), only the approvers designated by the current step can decide. Others see This approval is waiting for another approver. When the flow concludes, the change automatically moves to Approved or Rejected.
Without a workflow, it is a Direct approval: a board member clicks Approve or Reject.

A Comment (optional) can come with each decision. If conflicts or a freeze window concern the change's window, the section reminds you of it (See details) when you decide.

If no workflow is running for a change pending approval (workflow attached to the type afterwards, or interrupted by an error), the record says so and the board decides directly with Approve / Reject: a change is never stuck. A workflow failure is never treated as a refusal.

The designated approvers receive an approval request notification; the requester and the implementer are informed of the decision.

The Changes awaiting my decision widget lists the approvals waiting for you and your board's direct decisions, including emergencies to regularise (Retroactive badge).

Regularise an emergency

An emergency change implemented before ECAB approval must be regularised: the ECAB workflow starts for this purpose, or an ECAB member clicks Record ECAB approval on the record. The change cannot be closed before that.

CAB meetings

Changes → CAB meetings prepares and records the board's meetings.

New CAB meeting or New ECAB meeting: title, date and participants.
Register a change awaiting approval on the Agenda: only changes Pending approval for the board concerned are offered (emergencies for the ECAB, the others for the CAB).
During the meeting, decide each item: Approve, Reject or Defer, with a Meeting comment (optional). A meeting decision follows the same path as a decision from the record: if a workflow designates other approvers, the item shows Decision expected from another approver of the workflow.
Write the Minutes, then Close the meeting: the agenda and minutes are then frozen.

A decision taken outside the meeting (on the record, by the workflow, or a cancellation) is carried over to the agenda: the item becomes Approved, Rejected or Withdrawn (canceled). Creating and running a meeting is reserved for CAB and ECAB members and administrators; agents can view them.

The change calendar

Changes → Change calendar shows the planned windows of submitted changes (excluding rejected and canceled ones) by month, week, day or agenda, with a color per state (Awaiting approval, Approved / scheduled, In progress, Completed, Emergency) and hatched freeze windows. When the Releases module is installed, Show releases adds their windows. The By CI tab gives one row to each CI touched: two changes that overlap on the same row are in conflict. A click opens the record.

Depending on the components installed, the calendar may be replaced by the list of Windows in the next 60 days.

Scheduling conflicts

Two changes are in conflict when their windows overlap and they touch at least one same CI (target or dependent). Two windows that merely touch (one ends when the other starts) are not in conflict. The conflict is reported from submission in the history, in the Planning: conflicts and freezes section of the record (with the Shared CIs) and at approval time. Without impacted CIs, only global freezes can be detected.

Freeze windows

Changes → Freeze windows lists the upcoming windows (Also show past windows for history). A New freeze window has a Name, a Start, an End, a Reason, an active or Disabled state, and an optional Scope:

without CIs, the freeze is global: it applies to every change;
with CIs (Add a CI), it only targets changes whose impact touches one of them.

During a freeze, a change whose window overlaps it can neither be sent for approval, nor be approved directly, nor be scheduled, nor be started; a standard change cannot be submitted. The corresponding buttons are not offered. Emergencies are not blocked: a warning reminds you to justify the freeze to the ECAB. To get out of a freeze that appeared afterwards, move the change's window or take it off the schedule; rejecting is always possible.

Creating, editing and deleting a freeze window is reserved for the CAB and administrators.

Monitoring

Changes → Change dashboard: over 30, 90 or 365 days, the Success rate (post-implementation reviews in success, partial successes counted separately), Emergency changes, Rollbacks, Ongoing changes, the Average submission → approval time per type, and the Risk of ongoing changes as a matrix: click a cell to list its changes.
Changes → Kanban: one column per state. Drag a card onto a highlighted column to apply the transition; only the columns allowed for this card and for you light up, and the approval, freeze and permission rules apply as from the record. If refused, the card goes back to its place with the explanation message. Early implementation of an emergency is done from the record. If the Kanban is not available on your instance, a message invites you to use the list.