Workflow recipe: Setting up basic change management (IT example)

Overview

This recipe will outline a very simplistic change management process.  If you don't yet have a formal change management process, or are looking to track basic change requests in Zendesk Support and don't know what to do, this is a great place to start.

In this recipe, we make some assumptions - specifically, we assume only the Change Approval Board has to approve changes, emergency changes do not need to be approved, and there is a limited amount of information to be collected for a given change.

Skill Level: Basic

Time Required: 30-60 minutes

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Ingredient List

• 2 custom fields
• 1 group
• 2 views
• 2 triggers

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Instructions

Fields

Begin by creating your custom fields.

First, create a new drop-down field named "Change Type."  Add the following options:  N/A, Minor, Major, Emergency.  This field will help identify the type of change being implemented.

Next, create a second drop-down named "Approval."  Add the following options:  Requested, Pending Approval, Approved, Rejected, Not Required.  This field will help track the approval status of the change being requested.

Groups

Now it's time to create a new group.  Name it "Change Advisory Board."  You may have multiple groups that will need to approve a change, but for this recipe we are only including one.

Views

Your Change Advisory Board will want to have a list of change requests to work from. Create a view called "CAB Review" to facilitate the CAB process.  Set up the conditions as follows:

Meet all of the following conditions:

Status [less than] Solved
Approval [is] Pending Approval
Group [is] Change Advisory Board

Before saving your view, modify Columns included in table .  You'll likely want to include ID, Change Type, Approval, Subject.  Group by Change Type, and Order by ID.  Then make the view available for all agents in group "Change Advisory Board."

While you're in views, create a second view called "Emergency Changes."  Set up the conditions as follows:

Meet all of the following conditions:

Status [less than] Closed
Change Type [is] Emergency
Approval [is] Not Required

You can set up similar columns as the first view, to taste.

Workflow

For the icing, we'll be creating a workflow to request approvals for minor and major changes, and automatically approve emergency changes.  To begin, create a new trigger named "Auto-Approve Emergency Changes."  Set up the conditions as follows:

Meet all of the following conditions:

Status [less than] Solved
Change Type [is] Emergency

Meet any of the following conditions:

Approval [is] Requested
Approval [is] - (blank)

Set up the actions for "Auto-Approve Emergency Changes" as follows:

Perform these actions:

[Approval] Approved
[Email group] Change Advisory Board

Subject:
CAB Approval Requested for #{{ticket.id}}: {{ticket.title}}

Body:
Change request (#{{ticket.id}}) has been submitted and is awaiting CAB approval
<br /><br />{{ticket.comments_formatted}}

The email step is totally optional, but it might be nice to notify members of CAB that an emergency change request came through.  If you decide to email the group, enter an appropriate subject and body.

Now when an emergency change request is logged, it will be automatically approved, and will be visible in your "Emergency Changes" view until the change has been closed. Let's move on to requesting approvals for non-emergency changes.  

Create a new trigger named "Request Change Approval."  

Set up the conditions as follows:

Meet all of the following conditions:

Status [less than] Solved
Change Type [is not] Emergency
Change Type [is not] - (blank)
Approval [is] Requested

Set up the actions for "Request Change Approval" as follows:

Perform these actions:

[Group] Change Advisory Board
[Approval] Pending Approval

After a change requester fills out a change request ticket, they can flip the "Approval" field to "Requested."  The ticket will be automatically routed to CAB for review.

Voila!  Simple change management.

Need something more advanced?  Try out our Change Management Process Wizard.