Products

SalesLogistix ChangeControl™

In large development or production environments, it's important to coordinate the application of changes to any system. You don't want developers and administrators stepping on each other's work, but SFDC doesn't provide any structured way of controlling or approving changes.

Over 600 organizations in 40 countries have taken advantage of the free versions of our JunQue and ChangeControl products.

What it is

This free application provides a simple way to notify team members and manage changes to SFDC. ChangeControl is a native SFDC application that involves no code: it's just a configuration of custom objects and workflows. Upon installation, it provides a new tab with a form for users to request changes. Once a request has been made, administrative team members are notified and the request is approved or rejected via an SFDC approval process. The application includes a dashboard and supporting reports to view the pipeline of requested and completed changes.

You might want to check out the FAQ as well.

What it does

The Changes tab gives a View of change requests that have been recently made or acted on. Click on the New button to create a new change request, filling out as many of the fields/text boxes as are relevant. Save it as usual, and you'll notice that there are related lists for Change Objects, Notes & Attachments, Change Control History, and Approval History.

Saving the initial request triggers an approval workflow, to individuals that you set up. While the approval process is in process, nobody can edit the request -- but it can be unlocked by administrators if need be. Once the initial request is approved or denied, the request is worked on by developers or administrators.

When the requested change is ready for deployment, the developers/administrators do not set the Request Status to Completed (in fact, they can't). Instead, they push the Approval Request at the bottom of the related list page, which -- you guessed it -- triggers a final approval workflow. While the approval process is in place, the record is locked and only administrators can unlock it. Once the designated approver accepts the change, the Request status is changed to Completed.

ChangeControl works with SFDC unlimited and enterprise editions.

Installation

This application is provided without charge, and is provided to everyone on an as-is basis. Read the licensing terms here -- by using this product, you are agreeing to its terms. If you do not want to be bound by those terms, the only recourse is to stop using this product and to contact SalesLogistix to acquire the product under the terms that you need.

Go to this location to download the package (follow the registration procedure, and follow the wizard's "next" buttons). When you reach step 4, you'll probably want to select "Grant Access to all Users" (if you're paranoid, use the "Admin access only" option, but this will mean some extra steps later). Then push the "Deploy Now," followed by the "Deploy" button. When the wizard is complete, you'll be presented with the Package Detail and Package Items manifest. The package automatically creates a Custom App, Custom Tab, two Custom Objects, some reports, and a dashboard. There is no JavaScript or APEX code involved here.

You'll need to create two Workflows for the initial and complete approval cycles and you may want to modify the page layouts for searches.

Configuration

The main areas for configuration are in the workflows -- do you want to have mandatory approval, or just notification emails to the team? The two workflows (initial approval and deployment approval) may be identical, but in most cases they're different. it depends on your organization and business rules.

You'll probably want to change the mail template that goes around to the approvers. This is particularly true if they're using a Blackberry or other email client with a very small screen.

There are lots of cosmetic configuration options -- in the dashboards, reports, page layouts, etc. You can even use record types to hide nasty notes from the requesters, or time-based triggers to automatically notify people when a request has gone dormant.

To report bugs, look at this page. No promises that we'll be able to fix it but it will be nice to hear from you.

User Tips

Most sites initially resist using this application because, well, nobody likes to be limited by process. Give it a few weeks, and people will really start to fall into it as they realize the confusion that they've been able to avoid.

One of the good ways of getting people hooked on this is to install it and tell people that it's there, but don't make its usage required until something blows up because of bad team communications. Don't make this a disciplinary action, just gently say "to avoid this in the future, everyone needs to start using the ChangeControl feature."

If there's some feature you'd like to see, go to this page.

Contact SalesLogistix for product and service add-ons to the free version of ChangeControl, such as:

Support and training.
Development of workflows and APEX triggers.
Consulting for extending ChangeControl and integrating it with other products.

Uninstalling ChangeControl

Before you uninstall anything, use the Data Loader to get a snapshot of all the data in ChangeControl's custom objects. You never know when you might need to refer back to it.

Use the Setup > App Setup > Develop > View Installed Packages item to identify and remove the ChangeControl bundle from your system. Depending on the workflows you have set up, you might have to remove them first...but the system will warn you accordingly.

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