Impact analysis looks at the services, consumers, and assets affected by a change to determine impact of a change on your organization. The handling of the RFC depends on its impact level and how the change manager or CAB assesses the impact. The impact level is based on a combination of predefined thresholds and the analysis result, which is a calculation based on the number of affected services, consumers, assets, and detected conflicts and on the weights assigned to each of them. An implementation date that coincides with another scheduled change is an example of a conflict.
| Analysis Result | Impact Level |
|---|---|
| Less than 15 | Low |
| Greater than or equal to 15 and less than 30 | Medium |
| Greater than or equal to 30 | High |
The following Impact Assessment selections are available:
- Under Investigation
- Investigated but determined insignificant
- Investigated, no action required
- Investigated, rescheduling required
- Ignored
- (None)
If either the impact level is "Low" or the impact assessment is "Investigated but determined insignificant" or "Investigated, no action required," the RFC is approved and moves to the Approved Changes state and continues through the rest of the workflow. Otherwise, the RFC moves to the CAB Review/Planning state for a formal review of the impact.
Impact Analysis Process
The change manager should update the change item with pertinent data before it leaves the Classification state. This ensures that the full impact of the RFC is taken into account when the impact analysis is initially conducted.
The impact analysis process involves the following steps:
- Associate CIs with the change item. The Primary CI field stores CIs directly acted upon by the change request; the Affected CIs field stores CIs that could be impacted by the change request. This step can be performed when the RFC is submitted or classified, and then adjusted prior to the impact analysis.
- Schedule the change by selecting an Implementation Start Date and Implementation End Date on the Implementation tab.
- Generate the Impact Analysis Results by clicking the Impact Analysis tab.
- Review the results. If there are warning icons in the results, rule out potential technical problems before proceeding.
- Approve the RFC by clicking the Approve button.
- Make an initial evaluation of the impact by selecting an Impact Assessment value on the Impact Analysis tab of the Approve transition form.
- At this point, the impact analysis routing is performed. If the RFC
does not meet the approval criteria described above, it is moved to the
CAB Review/Planning state so its impact can be
formally reviewed. Otherwise, it moves to the
Approved Changes state.
Note: Pre-approved changes normally skip the CAB Review/Planning state, but if they do not meet the approval criteria described above, they are routed to this state anyway.
- Make adjustments and then regenerate the impact analysis to see the new results. For example, you can try to change the implementation dates to reduce the impact to an acceptable level.
- If the impact still does not meet the approval criteria, do one of
the following:
- Approve the RFC, and on the Impact Analysis tab of the Approve transition form, change the Impact Assessment value to Investigated but determined insignificant or Investigated, no action required.
- Keep the RFC in the CAB Review/Planning state by selecting one of the other Impact Assessment options.
Impact Analysis Results
The results shown on the Impact Analysis tab include the following information:
- Potential Impact. This section includes the
CIs in the
Affected CIs field. It is divided into the
following three lists, which display the ID, title, category, and state of each
CI.
- Affected Services. Service CIs, such as "IT Service" or "Business Service."
- Affected Consumers. CIs that model end-users or customers.
- Affected Configuration Items. CIs that represent IT assets, such as applications or servers.
- Schedule Conflicts. This section lists other change items scheduled to be implemented during the same period of time. It includes the ID, title, implementation start and end dates, and state of each change item.
- Related Activity. This section includes
incidents and other change items that are associated with the same services and
CIs. It is divided into the following two lists, which display the ID, title,
type, and state.
- Active Incidents against Affected Services and CIs. The items in the Incident Management application that have one or more of the same CIs in the Affected CIs field.
- Active Change Requests against Affected Services and CIs. Other change items that have one or more of the same CIs in the Affected CIs field.
- Analysis Result. This number is calculated based on the number of affected services, consumers, configuration items, and detected collisions; and the weights assigned to each of them. It is updated automatically each time the report is generated.
indicates a collision. A collision is detected when other change items have the
same implementation time as this RFC; or other change items associated with the
same CIs were submitted, under review, or scheduled for implementation.
The results also include the following fields that are populated after a formal impact analysis review:
- Impact Assessment. The option that was selected during the review.
- Impact Assessment Date. The date and time the review took place.
- Impact Level (when reviewed). The level of impact when the review took place.
- Analysis Result (when reviewed). The analysis result that was calculated when the review took place. This can differ from the current, real-time value.
Impact Analysis Reports
The following impact analysis reports are provided. You can search for the reports in Serena Work Center
Change Management reports:
- Active Changes (Impact Analysis). Returns the active change items that have CIs in the Affected CIs field. You are prompted to provide query parameters based on the item ID before running this report.
- Changes in Range (Impact Analysis). Returns the change items with conflicting implementation dates (that is, implementation dates that are in the same range). You are prompted to provide query parameters based on implementation dates and the item ID before running this report.
Configuration Management System reports:
- Config Items (Impact Analysis). Returns the CIs that are affected by change items.
- Config Items Consumers (Impact Analysis). Returns the CIs
that model end-users or customers that are affected by change items.
Note: This report is based on a CI type of "Consumer." It can be modified to include custom CI types that model consumers. For details, see Customizing Reports.
Incident Management report:
- Active Incidents (Impact Analysis). Returns the active incidents that are linked to change items.