Grouping changes into a Release

[Legacy User]

A client running Service Desk Manager 12.9 has asked for recommendations on how to group Change Orders into a Release - for example, to label all of the changes that will be implemented in a particular Change Window. 

 

The client wants to be able to do the following:

• identify a release along with relevant information such as the planned release date
• mark a particular CO as belonging to a particular Release
• list the COs that belong to a Release

 

The client is already linking changes that are related to a particular project, using the parent-child mechanism.  However, in the client's context a Release may package individual COs that cut across the existing parent-child relationships. 

 

For example:

 

• CO 'A' has as 'children' COs A1, A2 and A3
• CO 'B' has as 'children' COs B1, B2 and B3
• CO 'C' has as 'children' COs C1, C2, C3 and C4
• and a 'Release' to be implemented in this weekend's change window will comprise CO's A2, B3, C1 and C4.  These might for example be Firewall rule changes for 3 otherwise unrelated projects 'A', 'B' and 'C'.

 

I'd be interested to hear from anyone who has implemented anything similar or has any comments on what might be 'best practice' for this requirement.

[Lindsay_Estabrooks]

One way to do this without customization would be to define "release" configuration items. Then you could associate the change orders to the appropriate configuration item.

 

A customization way would be to create a new "zrelease" table and a new attribute on the chg object to link the change to the release.

[Legacy User]

Thanks for those thoughts.  Another customisation thought occurred to me this morning: to create a new Change Type 'release' and a new parent-child relationship between ordinary changes and 'release' changes.  One appealing feature of doing that would be that the 'release' would still appear on the Change Calendar.