Change Management

[dobsonl]

Hi All

 

Just wondering if anyone has come across a simple change management logging system before I go off creating one?

 

I need to get my technicians logging any changes that are made across all the schools in the trust.

 

Open to opensource & paid for (reasonably priced!)

[TechMonkey]

Do you have a helpdesk system that could be adjusted to this?

[psydii]

Its part of our Service Desk (which for historic reasons is SysAid). we have a drastically simplified template from the defaults (because we dont have a six person ITIL compliant process).

 

The challenge is identifying the Configuration Items. In a classroom, there is a computer, a connection box, a projector, a board and speakers. There is also the cable loom, and network sockets. Does one treat that as a single item 'classroom av setup in room xx' but for software pushed to the subcomponents (e.g. the computer or the Andriod in the TV) - should that be booked against the specific device CI or the collection CI?

 

There isn't really a good answer - we tend to go for the individual items that make up a room, but also have the room as a CI with the items linked to it so we can browse what has occurred in a room from the CMDB.

 

We have a documentation repository, and service record reference numbers are in each document relating to changes made.

 

If that is we actually have time to do it properly. Which we often don't, but we are better at it than we were.

 

 

Our CIs are a combination or all the assets in the asset database, all users and groups, all group policy objects, and mdm settings, all software (Sysaid knows all software installed, but for CI purposes you have to select software you care about to import into the CMDB), Services, Servers (software), and a few school processes that are so heavily dependant on IT that we had a hand in designing them.

[psydii]

For simplicity though, we link tickets of the type 'request' to assets and CIs for most quick and dirty changes. All tickets are linked to an Asset or CI, so we have a history of what has happened across everything. Using the more powerful CMDB piece for more wide reaching or structured changes.