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Vote for the future improvements of NCM's Change Request Approval feature

All,

After the first release of Change Request Approval feature in NCM 7, we are now thinking about future improvements.

I would love your prioritization of the list below, as well as other suggestions.

You can also describe your ideal "workflow", but our view is that when this becomes too complex, we would rather allow for integration with Change Management or Trouble Ticketing system, which have this type of flexibility

- A) Audit trail of all requests and approvals (logfile)

- B) Integration with Change Management / Trouble Ticket system to externalize the configuration of complex workflows

- C) All users subject to approval (including Administrators)

- D) Approver cannot modify the content of the request

- E) Approved request can have an approver comment (only requester comment today)

- F)  Approved Requests to be executed at specified date/time (vs. at the time of approval, today)

- G) Approved Requests to be returned to Requester for execution (would be in addition to today's mode - approved requests executed right away - not in replacement)

- H) Email of approver can be different per node (vs. the same list for all nodes, today)

- I) Requesters can see a history of what they requested and was approved

- J) Approvers can see a history of what they approved

To vote, just paste the above list and prefix each line with your priority order (1=high to 10=low)

Also, feel free to add others and prioritize them.

  • FormerMember
    0 FormerMember

    - A) Audit trail of all requests and approvals (logfile) 10

    Comment: Also, make this content available via the web, so not just in a text file, display via NCM web interface

    - B) Integration with Change Management / Trouble Ticket system to externalize the configuration of complex workflows 8

    - C) All users subject to approval (including Administrators) 10

    - D) Approver cannot modify the content of the request 10

    - E) Approved request can have an approver comment (only requester comment today) 5

    - F)  Approved Requests to be executed at specified date/time (vs. at the time of approval, today) 10

    Comment: This is important as change request only happen usually outside of business hours

    - G) Approved Requests to be returned to Requester for execution (would be in addition to today's mode - approved requests executed right away - not in replacement)

    Comment: If you add the time frame in option F as mandatory , then this option is not needed and personaly I would do this.

    - H) Email of approver can be different per node (vs. the same list for all nodes, today)  5

    - I) Requesters can see a history of what they requested and was approved 10

    - J) Approvers can see a history of what they approved 10

  • A) Audit trail of all requests and approvals (logfile) - 10

    - B) Integration with Change Management / Trouble Ticket system to externalize the configuration of complex workflows - 10

    - C) All users subject to approval (including Administrators) - 2

    - D) Approver cannot modify the content of the request - 5

    - E) Approved request can have an approver comment (only requester comment today) - 3

    - F)  Approved Requests to be executed at specified date/time (vs. at the time of approval, today) - 2

    - G) Approved Requests to be returned to Requester for execution (would be in addition to today's mode - approved requests executed right away - not in replacement) - 8

    - H) Email of approver can be different per node (vs. the same list for all nodes, today) - 5

    - I) Requesters can see a history of what they requested and was approved - 5

    - J) Approvers can see a history of what they approved - 4

  • I agree that all the features listed would greatly improve the functionality of this tool.

    My number one request is:
    - F)  Approved Requests to be executed at specified date/time (vs. at the time of approval, today)

    ...as per this post here.

    Once the request is approved, then the requester should be able to apply the change manually, or have it scheduled to run during their change window.

    Perhaps there should be a time limit applied to the approval - say 7 days. If not completed by then, it is revoked or deleted.

  • These would be my top three in order

    - C) All users subject to approval (including Administrators)

    - G) Approved Requests to be returned to Requester for execution (would be in addition to today's mode - approved requests executed right away - not in replacement)

    - A) Audit trail of all requests and approvals (logfile)

    These are very nice

    - D) Approver cannot modify the content of the request

    - F)  Approved Requests to be executed at specified date/time (vs. at the time of approval, today)

    These would be good

    - E) Approved request can have an approver comment (only requester comment today)

    - H) Email of approver can be different per node (vs. the same list for all nodes, today)

    - I) Requesters can see a history of what they requested and was approved

    - J) Approvers can see a history of what they approved

    This would be great, but with number of systems out there it might take a lot of effort (I would rather have other things first), an email at mile stones or or a email of the audit log could be sufficient.

    - B) Integration with Change Management / Trouble Ticket system to externalize the configuration of complex workflows

  • Tks Steve and Network_Guru and others for your votes.

    We are recording them (62878)


  • I vote for C

    - C) All users subject to approval (including Administrators)

  • Below are my answers in order of need/want.

    I would also like to ask if we could have approvers that are not admins to NCM.  In my case, I have non technical compliance people that have to approve changes first, and I don't necessarily want the compliance people to have admin rights to all of NCM.

    Must have:

    - C) All users subject to approval (including Administrators)

    - G) Approved Requests to be returned to Requester for execution (would be in addition to today's mode - approved requests executed right away - not in replacement)

    - F)  Approved Requests to be executed at specified date/time (vs. at the time of approval, today)

    Nice to have

    - H) Email of approver can be different per node (vs. the same list for all nodes, today)

    - A) Audit trail of all requests and approvals (logfile)

    - E) Approved request can have an approver comment (only requester comment today)

    Good to have

    - I) Requesters can see a history of what they requested and was approved

    - J) Approvers can see a history of what they approved

    Not applicable to me

    - B) Integration with Change Management / Trouble Ticket system to externalize the configuration of complex workflows

    - D) Approver cannot modify the content of the request

  • Well, I was going to type all that in, but as he's nicely formatted it for me, and as it fits my votes pretty much exactly, I'll just plagiarize the above.


    Must have:

    - C) All users subject to approval (including Administrators)

    - G) Approved Requests to be returned to Requester for execution (would be in addition to today's mode - approved requests executed right away - not in replacement)

    - F)  Approved Requests to be executed at specified date/time (vs. at the time of approval, today)

    Want to have

    - H) Email of approver can be different per node (vs. the same list for all nodes, today)

    - A) Audit trail of all requests and approvals (logfile)

    - E) Approved request can have an approver comment (only requester comment today)

    Good to have

    - I) Requesters can see a history of what they requested and was approved

    - J) Approvers can see a history of what they approved

    Not applicable to me

    - B) Integration with Change Management / Trouble Ticket system to externalize the configuration of complex workflows

    - D) Approver cannot modify the content of the request

  • 10 - A) Audit trail of all requests and approvals (logfile)

    9  - G) Approved Requests to be returned to Requester for execution (would be in addition to today's mode - approved requests executed right away - not in replacement)

    8  - F)  Approved Requests to be executed at specified date/time (vs. at the time of approval, today)

    7  - H) Email of approver can be different per node (vs. the same list for all nodes, today)

    6  - J) Approvers can see a history of what they approved

    5  - I) Requesters can see a history of what they requested and was approved

    4  - E) Approved request can have an approver comment (only requester comment today)

    3  - D) Approver cannot modify the content of the request

    2  - B) Integration with Change Management / Trouble Ticket system to externalize the configuration of complex workflows

    1  - C) All users subject to approval (including Administrators)

  • 1 - A) Audit trail of all requests and approvals (logfile)

    10 - B) Integration with Change Management / Trouble Ticket system to externalize the configuration of complex workflows

    4 - C) All users subject to approval (including Administrators)

    5 - D) Approver cannot modify the content of the request

    7 - E) Approved request can have an approver comment (only requester comment today)

    2 - F)  Approved Requests to be executed at specified date/time (vs. at the time of approval, today)

    8 - G) Approved Requests to be returned to Requester for execution (would be in addition to today's mode - approved requests executed right away - not in replacement)

    9 - H) Email of approver can be different per node (vs. the same list for all nodes, today)

    3 - I) Requesters can see a history of what they requested and was approved

    6 - J) Approvers can see a history of what they approved