Example of Using Change Activity Planner

This section provides use cases when using Change Activity Planner.

Sections include:

Automating Activity Planning

For example, the System Manager or DBA wants to track and ensure the application of critical security patches to all production databases within three months.

The System Manager or DBA would perform the following steps:

Create a new plan and provide the priority of the activity plan, activity plan description, and the target type to which the activity plan applies.

The new activity plan is associated to the selected target type.
Create new task definitions/task groups under this plan. This is an iterative process until you finish entering all task definitions and task groups.

Task definitions can be set to complete automatically based on the evaluation of compliance standard rules, or require manual status update from task owners.

For information regarding compliance standard rules, see Manage Compliance.
Optional step. Assign at least one target to these tasks on which tasks need to be performed.

Task definitions that have a specified target type must be assigned at least one target of the specified type. If multiple targets are assigned to a task definition, a separate task will be created for each target. Note: Task definitions with target type 'None' do not require a target selection.

Note: For tasks involving jobs and deployments procedures, if you do not see the associated job or deployment procedure for your assigned task in the task details region, ensure you have the required permissions to see the job and deployment procedure. If you do not have access, contact the person who created the job or deployment procedure. You may also need to request permission to see specific job or procedure runs if they were submitted by another user.
Decide whether Enterprise Manager should automatically assign owners to the new tasks or you can manually assign owners to tasks after you have decided to activate the plan.
Activate the activity plan now or at some later point in time.

System either activates the activity plan immediately or schedules it to be activated at the time provided by the manager. Whenever the activity plan is activated, tasks are created and assigned to task owners. Tasks are automatically assigned to a target owner or will be assigned to owners the user has assigned.

If a task is defined such that the task owner updates the task status, the task owner has to manually mark it as completed. If the task status is updated based on a compliance standard rule, the task will be automatically marked as complete when the target for the task is compliant with the rule.

Task groups will be marked complete when all sub-tasks are complete.

Additional Steps in Automating Activity Planning

Here are additional steps you can perform when automating activity planning:

Supply URL links to the activity plan or task.
Get graphical topological view of the activity plan.
Automatically close the task using a compliance standard rule. The system will automatically close the task if the rule check passes on the chosen targets.
Close the task manually.
When you assign targets to a task group, all tasks in the task group will get the assignment. You can assign targets at the task group level or the individual task level. So if all tasks should be performed on Database1, and you select the task group folder and assign target type Database1, all tasks in the group will be assigned Database1. You can then continue to select a single task within the group to be assigned to an additional database target if needed.
Close the task group automatically. The system automatically closes the task group when all subtasks are complete.
During the task definition phase, rearrange tasks using delete, move and copy functions. Task definitions and task groups can be relocated in the plan hierarchy to ensure proper dependencies and flow.
During the task creation phase, create dependency between two tasks, for example task B depends on task A implying that task B cannot start until task A is completed. The system allows users to create dependencies at the same level (dependency only between siblings).

Using Change Activity Planner for Patching

To create patching tasks, select a patch template and associate targets to your patching tasks. Once tasks are assigned to target owners, target owners can apply the patches present in the patch template using the Patch Plan tool.

For information on how to patch targets, refer to Patching Software Deployments.