Change Requests

Changes to the project scope, schedule, or costs can affect further project planning. Change Requests can be used to record, review, and approve such changes in a structured way.

In smenso, a Change Request can be created as a separate task. Flavors can be used to record relevant information about the change. A workflow represents the processing and approval process.

Record a Change Request as a task

Create a separate task in the project for each Change Request. A consistent naming convention, for example CR-001 - Erweiterung des Projektumfangs, makes it easier to identify and find Change Requests later.

Flavors can be used to record additional information about the Change Request in a structured way. Depending on the use case, this can include the type and description of the change as well as additional costs.

Other impacts, for example on schedules, resources, or project objectives, can also be documented using suitable Flavors or in the task description. The information required can therefore be adapted to the respective Change Request process.

Control the processing status using a workflow

A dedicated workflow can be used to represent the processing status of a Change Request consistently. Possible statuses are, for example, Entwurf, In Arbeit, In Prüfung, Freigegeben, and Abgelehnt.

This makes it possible to see directly in the task which processing step the Change Request is currently in.

Approve a Change Request

An approval can be configured for a status change. For example, you can specify that the change from In Prüfung to Freigegeben only takes place after approval by one or more specified persons.

Depending on the configuration, approval by one of the selected persons may be sufficient, or approval by all selected persons may be required.

For more information, see Requesting approvals for status changes

Evaluate and find Change Requests

Within a project, the Flavors used for Change Requests can be displayed in task views and used for filtering, sorting, or grouping. This makes it possible to evaluate Change Requests by type or other recorded characteristics, for example.

Tasks can also be found across projects using the global search. A consistent naming convention for Change Request tasks, for example CR-001, CR-002, etc., makes them easier to find. Select Tasks to restrict the search results to tasks.

Best Practice

• Create each Change Request as a separate task.
• Use a consistent naming convention for Change Requests.
• Record relevant information and impacts of the change in a structured way using Flavors and the task description.
• Use a consistent workflow to make processing and review transparent.
• Use approvals for status changes when a change must be approved by specified persons.