ITSM NowLearning 1.7 Improve IT Services: Change Management

What roles are used in Change Management?

itil: Can create, update, and close change and configuration items. This role is assigned to all support groups who implement changes. itil_admin: Can create, update, close, and delete changes and related records. This role is typically assigned to team leads.Note: Deleting of records should be restricted due to auditing purposes change_manager: Can manage schedules, change approval policies, and standard change(template) proposals. sn_change_read sn_change_write

What does the Scheduling Assistant do?

quickly finds a time block where no conflicts exist

Which persona is required to check whether the change plan is technically sound?

Peer approval

What can you use the Conflict Calendar for?

Use the conflict calendar to resolve any identified conflicts. The Conflict Calendar button appears in the change form title bar once the Planned start date, Planned end date, and Configuration item fields are populated and the request is saved.

Where can the approver take approval action from?

-The links in the approval notification email -The My Approval card on the Service Portal -The Service Desk > My Approvals or Self-Service > My Approvals module

True or False:All changes start in the Draft state before approval.

False. Changes start in the New state.

What is CAB?

A Change Advisory Board is a governing body that is responsible for the review and approval of proposed changes. They have the ability to discuss the overall landscape of changes and understand business risks, impacts, and financial implications. CAB members may include IT stakeholders and business representatives. Customer change policies and processes define the CAB structure for an organization. CAB members will make decisions on whether to authorize a change or not. If the change is approved by a single CAB member, it will automatically move to Scheduled state. If the change is rejected by any CAB member, it will be returned to New state and a reason will be provided.

What is a Change Task?

A change task tracks a unit of work that supports the parent, such as an implementation step performed by a specific group, or post-change testing and validation. It's parent is a Change Record. Tasks are related records associated with the parent change, which can be: Assigned to other teams or team members to help with the work on the change. Created automatically as part of the overall workflow, or created manually.Some information from the parent change record is copied to the task record. Sequential or concurrent, as determined by the workflow. A change task is distinguished from the parent change record by a unique CTASK number

Which of these statements are true regard to risk calculation and assessment? Select all that apply. A) After you run a risk assessment, you can rerun the assessment multiple times before you request approval. B) When a risk calculator and risk assessment are both used to determine the risk, the lower risk value is selected. C) When the automatic risk calculation runs, the risk and impact values can change. D) ServiceNow change application automatically calculates the risk and impact of the change from predefined risk conditions.

A,C,D

What is Agenda Management?

Agenda Management helps you determine, as a general rule, which change requests to include on your ongoing meeting agendas, such as: High/moderate risk Ready for approval Changes with CAB required check box selected Changes planned for next two weeks These defaults can be updated on each meeting session, as needed.

How do approvals work in Change Management?

Any of the approvers defined in the change workflow may approve or reject the change. If Approved, the next action in the workflow sequence commences; this could be a change task or another approval. If Rejected, comments as to reasons why need to be provided and the change is rolled back to the New state.

What steps are skipped for an Emergency change?

Assess & Evaluate

What steps are skipped for a Standard Change?

Assess & Evaluate Authorize

What state is the form in during Assess & evaluate of Change Management?

Assess

What state is used during the Authorize stage?

Authorize during manager or CAB approval

What are the three main areas of Change Advisory Board module?

CAB Workbench: Provides functionality to assist CAB managers to plan, schedule and execute CAB meetings within the Platform. CAB Definitions: Contains information about the CAB forum, meeting schedule definitions, and links to meeting sessions. CAB Meetings: Provides ability to view and schedule meetings.

What are Blackout Schedules?

Define blackout windows to guide when not to schedule changes. Blackout windows specify times during which normal change activity should not be scheduled. To create or modify a blackout schedule, navigate to Change > Schedules > Blackout Schedules.

What are Maintenance Schedules?

Define maintenance windows to guide when to schedule changes. Maintenance windows specify times during which change requests should be scheduled. To create or modify a maintenance schedule, navigate to Change > Schedules > Maintenance Schedules.

What is My Proposals?

Displays proposals for standard change templates submitted by the logged-in user

What other applications can a change be created from?

During the course of an incident or problem investigation, a change can be requested to implement the fix. To create a change directly from the incident or problem, click Additional actions > Create Normal/ Standard/ Emergency Change. Certain field values are copied across to the change record, including Configuration item, Priority, and Short description.

What is the goal of Change Management?

Ensure that beneficial changes are made with minimal disruption to IT services, particularly the number of incidents that result from changes. Ensure that standardized procedures are used to handle changes promptly and efficiently.

If you are assigned to a Change task, how do you finish it?

Enter Closure Information and clock Close Task

How does the Change advance to the Review state?

Following completion of all change tasks, the change automatically advances to the Review state. Alternatively, click Review or change the state to Review.

What situations is CAB not required?

For low-risk changes, CAB is not required. Any member of the assignment group defined in the workflow can approve the change. In the Assess state, if any group member other than the manager approves the change, the change advances to the Authorize state. Approval is requested only from the manager of the assigned group. Once approved, the next action in the workflow sequence commences. In the Assess state, if the manager of the assigned group approves the change, no further approval is required. The Authorize state is skipped, and the next action in the workflow sequence commences.

What happens during the Authorize stage of CM?

Formal authorization for the changes is obtained from the change manager, the Change Advisory Board (CAB) for normal changes, or the Emergency Change Advisory Board (ECAB) for emergency changes.

What are the two ways to propose a new standard change template?

From a Change Request Click Additional actions, and then click Propose a Standard Change Template. This method automatically populates the form with values from the change. From Template Management

Can you copy a change?

If applicable, copy or clone details from an existing change to a new normal change record. Click the Additional actions, and then select Copy Change. You can copy change records even when they are closed or canceled.

What is an alternate way in which a change can be closed?

If it is cancelled

What happens to Change tasks that are not completed when the Change is advanced into the Review state?

If the change advances to Review before related change tasks are completed, the tasks are automatically canceled.

What is on the Schedule tab?

In the Schedule tab, complete the change schedule before you submit the change for approval: Planned start/end date: This is the change window. Enter the estimated date/time for completion of the implementation. Actual start/end date: This is populated automatically when the change state is updated to Implement (start) and then Review (end). CAB date: Enter the date that the change is expected to be presented to CAB.

What is a conflict status and what does it do?

It determines if theres a CI and other scheduling conflict. Before you save the change record, the read-only Conflict status field displays Not Run. The conflict check cannot run until you enter the Configuration item, the Planned start date, and the Planned end date. A conflict check runs automatically each time you save, submit, or update the change. The Conflicts tab displays a list of any conflicts identified. If a manual check needs to be run to recheck for conflicts, click the Check Conflicts button.

What are the Authorize activities?

Locate and perform the change approvals Change Advisory Board (CAB); for medium or high-risk changes only

In addition to Change tasks created by the flow, how else can they be made?

Manual creation of additional tasks allows the change owner to maintain accountability for the change record as a whole, but request assistance with the implementation from other groups or individuals. To create a new change task, go to the Change Tasks related list and click Create New.

What state is associated with the Record & Review stage of Change Management?

New

When you Close Change, what fields do you have to update?

Once the review is complete, update the fields on the Closure Information tab before you close the change. The following fields become mandatory if you attempt to close the change first: Close code: Indicate whether the change was successful. Select the appropriate option from the list drop-down. Close notes: Enter additional comments upon closure of the change.

What are the four types of Change Tasks?

Planning Implementation Testing Review

What are the 5 parts of the Change Management lifecycle?

Record & Review Assess & Evaluate Authorize Plan & Implement Review & Close

What are the R's of Change Management?

Request, Reason, Return, Risk, Resource, Responsibility, Relationship Who requested the change and who submitted the change request? What is their reasoning for the change? What return is expected from implementing the change? What risks might be assumed, both by implementing the change and not implementing the change? What and how many resources need to be involved in the change? What is the resource impact? Who has primary responsibility for the success of the change? What relationships, such as services and other CIs, will be affected by the change?

What are Risk Conditions?

Risk is assessed based on Risk Conditions defined in Change > Administration > Risk Conditions.

What states are associated with Plan and Implement?

Schedule following completion of all approvals Implement while Implementation is taking place

What is displayed on the Impacted Services/CIs tab?

Services related to the CIs are displayed on the Impacted Services/CIs tab. Impacted services/CIs can be services, systems, or applications that could be affected by the change because they rely on, depend on, or use the component(s) you are changing.

What are the three Change task types?

Successful Successful with issues Unsuccessful

What is a CAB Definition?

The CAB definition contains: -Information about the CAB forum, including the name, scope, and participants -Meeting schedule definitions -Links to meeting sessions Click All CAB Definitions > New to create a new CAB definition; this is similar to a recurring meeting invitation, where all meetings created from the CAB definition inherit its values. Individual meetings can then be edited, have agenda items added, and more.

What happens during the Review & close stage?

The change is reviewed for completeness, unexpected impacts, and expected outcomes before being closed. Major changes may do this formally in a Post Implementation Review (PIR)

What is the difference between Normal and Emergency change requests?

The difference between the two change requests is in the workflows, not in the form.

What is the Standard Change Catalog?

User-friendly catalog of standard change templates, organized by category

What is an Unauthorized Change Activity?

When an unplanned CI activity occurs on CIs that are part of the application service, an unauthorized change request is automatically created as an emergency change. With the help of the following details that are automatically populated in the form, you can identify the change as unauthorized.

How is the Actual end date populated?

When the Change is put in the Review state

What can you do on the Agenda Management tab?

change or set conditions for which change requests are added to the agenda for this meeting. You can filter with conditions and with date. You can add Agenda Items and update the order as needed. You can view the Agenda under the Go to this meeting in CAB Workbench related list You can invite attendees via the Send meeting request to attendees related link. Email recipients are listed in the Attendees tab of the CAB Meeting form, along with their response.

What is Risk Assessment?

A Change Management - Risk Assessment plugin may be activated to allow risk assessment surveys to be defined. Risk assessment surveys may be defined based on type of change or other condition.

What is a Normal Change?

-Any change that is not a standard or an emergency change. -More complex and has more impact than standard changes. -Does not need to be implemented as immediately as emergency changes. -Require a full range of assessments and authorizations such as peer or technical approval, Change Management, and Change Advisory Board (CAB) authorization, to ensure completeness, accuracy, and the least possible disruption to service.

What are the Change Management Plugins?

-Change Management core application (com.snc.change_management) - Provides base functionality for Change Management which both Change Management State Model and Standard Change Catalog plugins depend on. This plugin will update the Type field on Change Request to have the values normal, standard and emergency. The Type value on existing Change Requests will be updated: Routine -> standard (Standard) Comprehensive -> normal (Normal) Emergency -> emergency (Emergency). When creating a Change Request, an interceptor will prompt you for the Type of Change you want to create. Change Request (com.snc.change_request) - Base Change Request plugin which contains the core tables for Change Management, including the change request and change task tables. CAB Workbench (com.snc.change_management.cab) - Change Management feature which allows CAB Managers to schedule, plan and manage CAB Meetings all on the NOW platform. Change Risk Best Practice - Change Risk Calculator (com.snc.bestpractice.change_risk) - Simple risk and impact calculations for Change Management. Change Success Score (snc.change_management.change_success_score) - A numerical expression that represents the change success history for a particular group. It can be used to evaluate the likelihood of future success and help determine the level of change rigor required. Risk Assessment (com.snc.change_management.risk_assessment) - Change Management feature which allows risk assessment questionnaires to be created and required to drive the assessment of risk associated with a requested change. Change Scheduling Change Request Calendar (change_request_calendar) - Activates the Change Conflict Calendar. It enables you to view a change request and its potential conflicts once a primary configuration item, planned start date, and planned end date have been provided within a Change request. Change Schedule (com.snc.change_management.soc) - Allows schedules to be defined to graphically display change activity. The schedules can be forward looking, or for activities which occurred in the past, and allow related blackout and maintenance schedules and change tasks to be displayed and shared with other users. Change Schedule foundation (com.snc.change_management.soc.foundation) - This plugin contains six change schedules to help users. Enabling this plugin automatically enables Change Management - Change Schedules Version 1.0.0. Collision Detector (com.snc.change.collision) - A feature of the Change Management application which identifies potential scheduling conflicts based on the configuration items in scope for the change or user or group assigned to fulfill a change. Color Picker - The color picker component used in Change Schedules. This plugin is required for the Change Schedules application. Standard Change Catalog (com.snc.change_management.standard_change_ catalog) - Allows Standard change templates to be proposed, approved, and published in the ServiceNow Service Catalog. Change Type State Model (com.snc.change_management.state_model) - This plugin provides the current Change Management state models for Standard, Normal and Emergency change types. Change Management Workflows (com.glideapp.workflow_change_management) - Activates the workflows which control the change processes associated with the Emergency, Standard, and Normal change types. ITSM Roles (com.snc.itsm.roles) - This plugin automatically enables: The change product specific plugin ‐ ITSM Roles — Change Management. (com.snc.itsm.roles.change_management), which activates sn_change_read and sn_change_write. The Business Stakeholder plugin (com.snc_business_stakeholder), which automatically activates approver_user and sn_change_read.

What are some Record and Review activities?

-Create or locate the change request and define its scope -Record the planned schedule for when the change will take place -Describe the relevant implementation, test, and backout plan details -Perform a risk assessment and evaluate the risk -Check for any scheduling conflicts -Assign the change

What is an Emergency Change?

-High-impact change. Must be implemented as soon as possible to prevent loss to the business. -Emergencies include: Fix on fail or retroactive situations where the impact to service has already been experienced. Fail situations where the impact to service is imminent if action is not taken. -Time sensitive and does not require the same planning and approval as a normal change. -Planning and schedule details are not required during the creation of the change. -Emergency CAB (ECAB) approval replaces CAB approval. -Reverting to New (state) is only possible when the change is at Authorize; an emergency change can only be modified to normal.

How is Change Management related to other processes?

-Incidents and problems can result from recent changes in the environment. -A change record can be created directly from an incident or a problem record in order to resolve an underlying issue in the environment. -Change requests may be used to add new services and products to the service catalog for request fulfillment. -Change Management provides the capability for standard (repeatable/low risk) changes to be recorded using the service catalog.

How can recording requests for change be done?

-Manual Creation: IT support users can raise changes directly in the change application as they are required. -Configuration Management: IT support users can create a change request from a list of CIs or add selected CIs from a list to a change record. -Incident Management: Incident managers, service desk agents or other IT support staff can raise a change from an incident when they identify the fix required to resolve the incident. -Problem Management: Problem managers, service desk agents or other IT support staff can raise a change from a problem when they identify the fix required to implement a workaround or resolve the problem. -Request Fulfillment/Service Catalog: Standard changes can be raised by selecting the appropriate template from the standard change catalog. -Integrations: Changes can be automatically generated via external systems, e.g. through vendor system integrations.

What is a Standard Change?

-Predefined, pre-authorized change considered to be relatively low risk. Is frequently implemented, has repeatable implementation steps. Has a proven history of success. -Was originally implemented as a normal change, or standardized through the use of templates. -Follows a streamlined process, and does not require approval like a normal change, so it skips the Assess and Authorize stages in the lifecycle. -Allows template selection in the standard change catalog to allow quick creation and scope definition of a change. -Cannot be reverted to New (state); however, can be modified to a normal or an emergency change.

What are the Review and Close activities?

-Update change activity -Conduct PIR, if required -Ensure all change tasks are completed -Close the change -If required, cancel the change, before closure

What is ECAB?

An Emergency Change Advisory Board (ECAB) is made up of a group of individuals who are capable of making a decision about the content and timing of the change on behalf of everyone that would normally approve. This single approval occurs at the Authorize state which means that the Assess state is not used at all for emergency changes. In situations where it is critical to apply a change immediately without any opportunity to raise a change request and seek approval, the emergency change process can handle this as a retroactive change. Emergency change requests allow Planned start and Planned end dates to be in the past. These changes can be immediately moved through to the Review state since they have already been implemented. It is recommended that these changes would undergo a review by the Change Management team to ensure the process is not being used incorrectly and to understand why it was necessary to implement the change without approval first.

How do you get to CAB Meetings?

Change > Change Advisory Board > My CAB Meetings

How do you access Change Advisory Board?

Change > Change Advisory Board.

Where can you find Change Records?

Change > Open Service Desk > My Work ITIL Homepage

What is Change Management?

Change Management is the process for managing the lifecycle of all changes through a formal approach to documentation, risk assessment, and minimization of conflicting changes.

What does the Plan & implementation stage of CM entail?

Change is scheduled and implementation activities are performed. The following two change tasks are predefined in the workflow and are automatically launched when the change advances to Implement: Implement Post implementation testing Additional change tasks can be created manually. -Manually create and assign tasks, if required -Locate and take ownership of task assignments -Complete all change tasks: Implementation and Post Implementation Testing

How do you Close a Change?

Click Close or update the state to Closed. If you attempt to close a change while open change tasks exist, a warning message is displayed at the top of the form. You are prompted to manually complete the related change tasks.

How do you start the Assess & evaluate stage?

Click Request Approval on the form title bar to start this stage. This triggers the workflow to create approval records, sends out approval notifications, and all technical approvers are automatically requested to approve in parallel. The technical approvers are chosen based upon the assignment group on the change request.

What is Conflict Detection?

Conflict detection identifies potential scheduling conflicts for a change request based on the configuration items (CIs), planned start date, and the planned end date in scope for the change. Conflict detection identifies conflicts for any of the following reasons: -The CIs are already scheduled at the given date and time. -A parent or child of the CI is already scheduled at the given date and time. -The CI, parent of the CI, or child of the CI are not in the maintenance window. -The CI, parent of the CI, or child of the CI are in a blackout window. -The Assigned to person is already scheduled at the given date and time.

Who is involved in the PIR?

Depending on customer's change policies and processes, a PIR might be performed by just the Change Manager, the CAB members, service owners, implementers, or any combination of affected stakeholders. Who and how many are involved in the review often depend on two factors: size/complexity of the change and whether the change was successful or not.

What happens during the Record & Review stage of the Change Management lifecycle?

During the Record and Review stage of the change lifecycle, create a new change record or locate one that was generated through another application. All new, unassigned changes are identified by a state of New. Within the change form, complete all relevant information about the change request. Describe the issue, assess the resulting impact and risk, and enter information about the schedule, planning, and conflicts. Once all the relevant fields are complete with the information available, assign the change to a group and submit for review or approval.

What is the Baseline Process of Approvals?

In the baseline process, which can be configured differently through the workflow, approvals are requested of assignment group members in parallel. The approvers are notified when a change request is awaiting their approval and as soon as any one of the approvers approve or reject the request, the approval process is complete. If the change request is approved and has not been placed on hold, the state is updated from Assess to Authorize and all other requests for approval are marked as No Longer Required. If the change request is rejected, the state is updated from Assess to New and all other requests for approval are marked as No Longer Required.

What does the Related Schedule related list contain?

It contains links to related schedules to determine exceptions to the schedule. Parent field: When a schedule record lists a value for the Parent field, schedule entries from the parent schedule apply to both the parent schedule and the child schedule. By default, there are no sample schedules that use the Parent field. Child schedule: When a schedule record has one or more child schedules in the Child Schedules related list, schedule entries from the child schedule apply to the parent schedule. By default, there are several sample schedules that use child schedules. For example, see the 8-5 weekdays excluding holidays schedule that includes the U.S. holidays schedule.

What information do you have to fill out on the Planning tab?

Justification: Enter the business or technical benefits of implementing this change, including the impact if this change is not implemented Implementation plan: Type sequential steps to implement this change. In addition, enter dependencies between steps and assignee details for each step. Risk and impact analysis: Type potential risks and effects associated with this change. Include impact details if this change implementation is unsuccessful. Backout plan: Type steps to backout the change if the change implementation is not successful. Include when this can occur and if change window includes time to back out. Test plan: Type details of planned and completed tests. enter details of planned post-implementation tasks to confirm the success of this change.

What is Risk Calculation?

Organizations may use a simple risk calculator or a risk assessment to determine the risk of the change. -A risk calculator uses predefined properties and conditions to calculate a risk value. -A risk assessment uses information provided by the end user to assess a risk value. The two methods can be used individually or together. If the methods are used together, the higher risk value from the two methods is always selected.

What is the Assess & evaluate of Change Management?

Peers and technical SMEs assess feasibility, justification, impact, costs, benefits, and risks. Approval is required to move to the next stage.

What are the Change task states?

Pending Open and waiting for some action Open Open and unassigned In progress Open and actively being worked on Closed Inactive and closed. Requires close code and close notes to be provided. Cancelled Not completed and closed

What is part of a PIR?

Regardless, the following key topics should be part of any PIR: Was the change started on time and was it completed within the change window? Were there any unexpected incidents that arose due to the change implementation? Did external providers, if part of the change, meet service-level targets? Did the change meet its targeted objective (i.e. expected outcome)? What lessons were learned during the lifecycle of this change? Is all critical information captured on the change request and related change tasks?

What states are associated with Review and Close?

Review during PIR Closed upon completion of PIR Change can be Cancelled at any point before closure

What is the CAB Workbench?

The Change Advisory Board (CAB) Workbench supports meeting facilitation, participation, and decision making for upcoming changes. It is a dedicated tool to assist change managers in planning, scheduling, and executing CAB meetings within the ServiceNow platform. The CAB Workbench meeting agenda view allows: The change manager (or designee) to click Start meeting to commence the CAB meeting. All CAB meeting participants to view changes that are to be discussed in the meeting, as well as the time allotted per scheduled agenda item. CAB approvers to navigate to their approvals within the current displayed change request. Select each information (i) icon on the graphic to reveal details.

What does the Schedule Entries related list contain?

The Schedule Entries related list contains the definitions of the time periods you want to include or exclude from the schedule. Use schedule entries to define the timing for the meeting sessions. In the Schedule Entries tab, click New, then complete the form fields, and then click Submit. You can only associate one schedule entry with one schedule.

What are Proposed Changes?

There is a proposed changes feature that allows you to pre-configure changes to configuration items (CIs) and their associated relationships. This is useful when you want to make modifications to configuration data only after change approvals are complete.If a change is never approved, there are no recorded changes to reverse.

What is the Authorize stage for in CM?

This stage is primarily used to handle CAB approval. All high and moderate risk normal changes will automatically require a CAB group to approve. All emergency changes will automatically require an ECAB group to approve. In addition, the Authorize stage is where the scheduled dates and times for a change are fully confirmed.

What is the Scheduled state of the change for?

Though the Scheduled state of the change request is primarily a place holder for implementation date and time, it is also a good time to "dot your I's and cross your T's". Things constantly change, especially in the IT world. The longer the time between receiving the change authorization and the implementation window, the greater the risk of flux -Validate resource availability for completing tasks. Go over roles to make sure everyone is clear. Update project schedule as required. -Validate that implementation and post-implementation testing tasks are assigned to committed resources (individuals, not just groups). -If required, validate vendor availability and contact information during the change window. -Review the procedures again for implementing, testing, and backing out - you can never be too prepared. -Review logs, any new incidents, changes, problems, etc. that could have an impact on the change waiting to be implemented. -Setup bridge calls, messaging groups, etc. to support the facilitation of the change implementation. -Notify event management, service desk and any other critical stakeholders that the change has been authorized and scheduled - no surprises. -Discuss with event management about any need to turn off monitoring. -Discuss with service desk any special instructions for handling incidents that may come in during the change window.

When does the On hold reason field become available?

When the On Hold checkbox is checked.

What happens if you incorrectly classify an emergency change as a normal change during the Record and Review stage?

You can Revert to New. Click Additional actions > Revert to New. In the Type list drop-down, select Emergency. Click the Request Approval button again to progress the change as an emergency change. Once the normal change has advanced to Authorize, you cannot revert to New. For a normal change, you can only update the Type field to Emergency.

What does Change Schedule module do?

You can browse all schedules available for the current, logged-in user at Change > Schedules > Change Schedules. Choose from the following schedules: Pinned Schedules: Add (pin) an existing schedule from the All Schedules view to have quick access to frequently viewed schedules. Your Schedules: Displays schedules that belong to the current logged-in user. All Schedules: Displays all schedules available to the current logged-in user.

When can you cancel a change?

You can cancel a change at any point before the change advances to the Review state. Click Additional actions, and then select Cancel Change. When you cancel a change this automatically cancels all open associated change tasks.

How do you pause a change?

You can pause a change by placing it 'On hold' once approval is requested, and the state advances to Assess. You cannot pause a change while it is in the New state. The On hold checkbox is visible on the change form while the change state is Assess, Authorize, Scheduled, Implement, or Review. When selected, the On hold reason field becomes visible and mandatory. Due to state automation between a change and its associated change tasks, when the state of the parent change is set to On hold, the state of all associated change tasks is also set to On hold. On hold reason comments are copied from the change to the change tasks.

When does the change move into Implement?

if the State has not already been updated based on the Planned start date and time, you can click Implement in the Change request form header to start the implementation. Once the change advances to Implement, the Actual start date field in the Schedule tab is automatically populated.

What can you do to Change tasks during their lifecycle if something has come up?

you can pause a task. Select the On hold check box to place the change task on hold. Type your reason(s) in the On hold reason field.