The change management workflow

Opening a change case

To open a change case, go to WORKFLOW/CHANGES and click on Add. In the dialog box that pops up, you can set the characteristics of your change case.

Every change case has a case ID. OTbase automatically assigns a unique ID to your change case, but you can overwrite the ID if you want to. Note that case IDs must be unique, so you cannot use a case ID that is already assigned to another change case.

The start and end fields are set automatically. If implementation start is different from the date when you open the change case, you can specify implementation start in the respective field right to the case ID.

The next two fields, Reason and Description, are used to briefly identify the reason for the change, along with a description. While these fields are not mandatory, it is good practice to use them as they will be displayed in the change case table. Using these fields will help you and others to navigate the table much easier.

You can assign user-defined tags to a change case and also provide verbose comments in the respective tabs.

In the Devices tab, specify the devices that are part of this change case. Clicking on Add will open a device listing similar to the device inventory that you can filter and sort. Select one or more device using the mouse with the Shift or Ctrl button and then click Add selected.

Assigned Persons

In the Assigned Persons tab, select the users that are assigned to this change case.

If you don't see any users in the table that you can assign, the most likely cause is that no user group has been assigned a specific responsibility. OTbase will only list users who are member of a user group with a responsibility assigned that covers the device(s) in question. The remedy is to ask your administrator to add responsibilities to one or more user groups.

Dependent Devices

The tab Dependent Devices shows devices that might be affected by the change because one or more devices which are part of the change case send data to these devices. This listing is created automatically by OTbase, based on the authorized (intended) data flow relationships. It informs you about potential side effects of your configuration change. Note that the table will be empty if no authorized data flow has been defined for the devices that are part of the change case.

Save your changes

When you are done with all initial settings, go back to the Case tab and click on Request Change. If you are a member of a role which is authorized to permit changes, you may also click on Permit Change. Save the change request by clicking the Save button.