Canceling Tasks
Now that the new emergency change is saved, let’s take a look at the tasks that are linked to it. In the Gantt chart preview that is available at the bottom of the change workflow, you will see that a small warning icon is displayed in front of the subject of the last three tasks. This means that they have at least one empty field that still requires a value before the change workflow can be started.
The easiest way to update these tasks is to open the Gantt chart. Click on the Gantt chart button in the toolbar to do this. Next, click on the second task to open it. This opens the second task in Edit mode. You will see that the Team field is empty. A workflow cannot be started with a task that cannot be assigned, because this would cause the workflow automation to fail.
Rather than selecting a team, however, you decide to cancel this task, because Jo-Ann specified in request #704360 that she has already updated the configuration management information. To cancel this task, select the “Canceled” option in the Status field of this task and specify the reason for the cancelation in the Note field.
After you saved your update of the second task, you open the next task. Since Barney Turban is also the continuity manager (as well as the capacity manager) for the Windows Server service, you can assign this task to yourself, Barney Turban. Save this task and move on to the last task that has a warning icon.
Because you, Barney, are also the capacity manager for the Windows Server service, you could assign the task for updating the capacity utilization overview to yourself. But since the CMP00069 now provides exactly the same capacity as CMP00006 used to provide, the capacity of the Windows for Sales Tracking Production service instance has not been affected by the emergency change. So, go ahead and also cancel this task.
Now that you have ensured that the tasks of the new change workflow are properly filled out, you are ready to start the change workflow. To do this, click on the subject of the workflow in the upper left corner of the Gantt chart. This takes you back to the workflow form. Press the Start button in the toolbar to start the change workflow.
Questions:
Why do you think the Widget Data Center organization has chosen to include task templates (like the ones that generated the two tasks that you canceled) in the emergency change workflow template, even though they are not needed for many emergency changes?
If these task templates are not included, it is likely that a change manager is going to forget to include these tasks when they are needed.
Why could you not simply delete those two tasks after you decided that they were not needed for this specific emergency change?
Auditors and approvers may wonder why you did not include them if they cannot see that they were canceled. By specifying in the Note field why you decided to cancel a task, no one will ever need to ask you why it was canceled.