Scheduling a Change
During the scheduling phase, you produce a schedule by which all of the tasks of a Change can be completed in the correct order, by the correct people, and with a minimum of disruption to the IT infrastructure. You create a schedule using the graphical tools provided by the Graphical Scheduling application. A Change Owner typically schedules the Change tasks, but you can assign any user to this phase.
About this task
- Scheduling overview
When you accept the scheduling assignment in your inbox, you are launched to the Changes application; the Change to be scheduled is opened. After supplying basic scheduling information in the Schedule tab, you create a project in the Graphical Scheduling application, where you can generate a schedule automatically or do so manually. The Graphical Scheduling application can consider resource constraints when looking for a schedule. - Defining resource constraints
Graphical Scheduling takes CI blackout periods, change windows, and other criteria into account when it looks for a scheduling solution. Considering these resource constraints minimizes the disruption of a Change to your IT infrastructure. To include constraints, you must supply information about blackout periods, change windows, target CIs, and more. - Supplying basic scheduling information
Before you create a project in the Graphical Scheduling application, you supply basic information in the Schedule tab of the Changes application. Graphical Scheduling uses this information when it looks for a schedule. - Opening the Graphical Scheduling application
You can open the Graphical Scheduling application in two ways: by launching directly from the Schedule tab of a Change that you are scheduling, or by selecting the application from the Go To menu. When you launch directly from the Change, the Graphical Scheduling application is automatically populated with information that is needed to identify the Change. When you open the Graphical Scheduling application from the Go To menu, you supply this information. - Creating a Graphical Scheduling project
A Graphical Scheduling project is a work space in the Graphical Scheduling application where you can produce a schedule. Schedules that you create in the Graphical Scheduling application help you to optimize the resources that are used to complete tasks. After you create a schedule, you save the schedule and resume work in it at a later time. When you commit a schedule that you have produced, you bring the schedule information into the Change record. - Using the Gantt view
After you create a Graphical Scheduling project, use the Gantt view to visually manage and schedule work in your organization. To access this view, you click the Gantt View tab. - Scheduling a Change in the Gantt view
You can schedule a Change in the Gantt view in either of two ways: by invoking the critical path method (CPM) to automatically schedule all of the tasks, or by performing a variety of operations to manually schedule tasks. The automatic scheduling operation is successful only if task times can be found that do not violate any resource constraints. - Saving and committing a Graphical Scheduling project
You can save a Graphical Scheduling project without committing the schedule to the Change. When you are ready to commit the schedule, you can do so. - Advanced Graphical Scheduling topics
CPM logic ensures that you can produce a schedule that accounts for important resource constraints in your environment. The Gantt view gives you an at-a-glance view of the work order record or records that are associated with the current Graphical Scheduling project, and enables you to graphically schedule tasks within non-conflicting time frames. - Viewing scheduled tasks
At any time during the Change process, you can view the implementation tasks that have been scheduled for a change. You can also view scheduled tasks for a release. While a change or release is in progress, viewing scheduled tasks before you create a new task helps you avoid conflicts between the new task and the tasks that are already scheduled. - Detecting and resolving task schedule conflicts
As you create and schedule implementation tasks during the Change process, conflicts among the scheduled tasks will almost invariably occur. All of the task conflicts for all of your Changes are automatically detected periodically; you can change the interval by which they are detected. You can examine and resolve the detected conflicts, and you can run conflict detection manually for a particular Change that you are working with.
Parent topic: Managing changes