As soon as the Change Manager app is installed you will need to authorise api access like this:

Once, granted you will then be able to create a series of ticket fields like this: 

After clicking to create the fields, you will then need to refresh your browser.

Once refreshed, when you go into a ticket you will receive a new "Ticket type" field containing an extra type... Question, Problem, Incident, Tasks and now Change. 

If the "Ticket type" field is not visible, you will need to add the ticket fields to your form via the app window on the right-hand side as seen below.

Your new "ticket type" field will retain the extra functionality associated with each of the native types. For example, if you select "Incident" you will still have the option of linking it to a problem ticket. Or if you select "Task", you will still be able to set a date for it. 

But, when you select "Change" you will get a bunch of extra functionality. 

Firstly, by selecting "Change" you will see an extra field called "Change Type" below it. This drop-down field will contain two options by default "Emergency" and "Normal" but you can add as many change types as you want within the settings of this app (as you will see later in this article). 

Let's say you select "Normal" from the "Change Type" drop-down menu. This will trigger a series of other ticket fields to appear. These fields are also automatically created the moment you install the app and you are able to control which of them appear depending on the change type selected. 

Here is a full list of all of these fields and their definitions...

• Configuration Item: This field is asking, what is the "thing" that requires the change? Examples of configuration items include hardware/software, documents, models, plans, people and networks.
• Impact: This allows you to gauge the scope of the change at hand. The higher the impact, the more people in the company the change will affect.
• Risk: Defining the risk will inform the people responsible for approving the change of the likelihood of something going wrong.
• Identified risks: If there are known risks, this field allows you to describe what those risks are.
• Outage required: If there's an outage required to make a change, that's a pretty important thing to note as a known risk! By giving this risk a dedicated checkbox you'll be able to build workflows or views in Zendesk to highlight these tickets.
• Reason for change: Justification as to why this change needs to take place.
• Resources required: This fields allows you to record the people, time, equipment and cost involved in order to make the change a reality.
• Implementation plan: This will allow you to get a picture of what specifically will be changing, how the change will take place, who will be responsible for each part of the change and estimated timeframes for completion.
• Backout plan: If something with the change goes awry, then you may need to stop the implementation and revert to how it was before. This field allows you to record what this process will look like.
• Required outcome: Define what the result of the change will be if everything goes to plan.
• Root cause: Define what caused the problem to occur in the first place.
• Workaround: How to get around the problem in absence of it actually being fixed.

Ok, so the next step is learning how to add new "change types" and control which of the fields above are required for each of them. 

To create a new change type, click the change manager icon on the left of the screen (1). Then click to "Add change type" (2).

Next simply type a name, in this example, we're creating a change type for replacing a printer. 

TAG: Under tag, you can specify a tag, but this is optional. If you leave this blank a tag will automatically be generated from the name of the change type. 

LINK: The link section will let you provide a link to further documentation on this change type. This documentation should outline the process that needs to be followed for each change type to be completed. 

If a link is provided, when selecting the change type on the ticket, a popup notification will appear at the top right-hand side of the screen indicating to the agent, that documentation exists that they need to be following. There will also be a link to the documentation that appears in the apps pane on the right under the "Change manager" app like this:

TICKET FIELDS: This section allows you to select the change management fields that are relevant for this change type. By default, all change type fields will be listed and you can remove any/all of them that are not relevant. On the flip side, if you have other fields that you would like to add to be used as part of this change you can search for the fields and add them to the process as you can see being done here:

• Note that adding a non-standard field to a change type will mean that this field will always be hidden and will only be visible when this particular change type is selected.
• Also note if you're using Zendesk forms, you will need to make sure that you have manually added all the non-standard fields to each form after adding them to the change type.