Responding to an RFC

One of the ways in which a Change can be initiated is through the creation and submission of a Request for Change (RFC) in the Process Requests application. If you are a Change Owner or in any role whose responsibilities include making an initial response to RFCs, your start center displays a list of the requests. You can then examine each RFC and respond appropriately.

About this task

To accept a change request, all required information must be logged; omitted or incomplete information can cause a change request to be returned. The return of the request will usually indicate that the request can be re-submitted if the missing or inadequate information is provided.

Consult the rules that have been established by your company or business unit to help you decide how to respond to each request. This activity begins with the examination of the change request to determine if it can be accepted for consideration.

1. View the details of the request. Are they complete?
2. Evaluate the request according to your standard practice. Is there any reason why you should not accept it? Note that when you accept a request, you are not promising that the Change will be made. You are agreeing that the request meets the criteria for being evaluated further.
3. If the request does not meet your criteria, reject it. With the request selected in the list, or while viewing the details of the request, select the Reject action. The process state of the request is set to Resolved and the resolution is set to Rejected. If you reject the request, record the reasons for your rejection in the Log tab. For example, indicate what information is missing or inadequate, so the requestor can resubmit the Change with more complete information.
4. If the request does meet your criteria, accept it. With the request selected in the list, or while viewing the details of the request, select the Accept action. The process state of the request is set to Accepted, and the Change work order is automatically created.

What to do next

When you have accepted or rejected a request, it no longer appears on lists of requests that require a response. If you accept an request, a new Change work order is created, and the Change is displayed on lists of Changes that are in progress. As the user who accepted the request, you are specified as the Owner of the Change; you can assign a different owner if necessary.

All of the information that was entered in the RFC is carried over into the Change; you can modify any of this information, add new information, or otherwise modify the Change in the Changes application. A job plan can be added, target CIs can be added or modified, a different owner can be assigned, and so on. When the new Change is routed to the workflow, the Change is validated and the assessment phase can begin.