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Change management in Serval helps you track, audit, and control changes made to your internal systems, configurations, and physical assets. Change tickets enforce a structured lifecycle from submission through implementation, with configurable approvals, automations, and transition conditions at every stage.

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What Is a Change Ticket?

A Change ticket is a dedicated ticket type for managing modifications to your environment — software deployments, infrastructure updates, hardware swaps, configuration changes, or any controlled alteration to a system or asset. Unlike requests (which fulfill an ask) or incidents (which restore service), change tickets ensure that modifications follow a governed process with proper assessment, authorization, and post-implementation review. Serval supports three ITIL-aligned change models out of the box, plus the ability to create your own:

Normal Change

Risk-assessed change that requires Change Advisory Board (CAB) approval before implementation

Standard Change

Pre-approved, low-risk, routine change that follows a known procedure

Emergency Change

Expedited change that requires Emergency CAB (ECAB) approval for urgent situations

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Creating a Change Ticket

1

Open the Create Ticket dialog

Click Create Ticket from the ticket list or use the keyboard shortcut. In the dialog header, select Change as the ticket type.
2

Select a change model

Choose which change model applies — for example, Normal, Standard, or Emergency. The model determines which statuses, approvals, and transitions apply to this change.
3

Fill in ticket details

Provide a title and description. You can also set priority, assignee, labels, category, due date, and any custom fields configured for that change model.
4

Add relevant items

Attach assets or configuration items that will be affected by this change, so you can track the impact.
5

Submit

The ticket is created at the starting status and the lifecycle begins.
If your team has no change models configured yet, you will see a prompt to set them up in Team Settings → Ticket Types before you can create change tickets.

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Change Models

A change model defines how a category of change is handled: which statuses a ticket moves through, what approvals are required, what automations run at each step, and what conditions must be met to advance.

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Prebuilt ITIL Models

Serval ships three prebuilt ITIL change models that your team can install from Team Settings → Ticket Types:
ModelDescriptionApproval
NormalFull lifecycle with risk assessment and authorization gatesCAB (Change Advisory Board) approval required
StandardStreamlined lifecycle for low-risk, routine changesPre-approved — no additional approval needed
EmergencyExpedited lifecycle that skips assessment but retains authorizationECAB (Emergency Change Advisory Board) approval required
During installation, you select the approvers (CAB or ECAB members) who will authorize changes. You can also configure a default assignee for change tickets.
Prebuilt ITIL models have locked statuses and transitions to preserve compliance, but you can still configure approvers and default assignees.

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Custom Models

If the prebuilt models don’t match your process, you can create custom change models. There are two ways to build one:
  • With the automation agent — Describe the change process you want in natural language, and Serval builds the model for you — including statuses, transitions, automations, and custom fields.
  • Manually in settings — Go to Team Settings → Ticket Types, click Add model under the Change section, and configure each part of the model yourself.
Custom models give you full control over every aspect of the change process.

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Ticket Lifecycle

Every change model has a lifecycle — the series of statuses that a change ticket moves through from creation to closure. When a change ticket is created, it starts at the first status. From there, it can only move to statuses allowed by the configured transitions, ensuring changes follow your defined process. The prebuilt ITIL models come with standard lifecycle statuses already configured. For custom models, you define your own. For custom models, you can configure the full change process in Team Settings → Ticket Types — including the lifecycle statuses, how tickets transition between them, what automations run at each stage, and which custom fields are required.

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Automations at Each Status

At every step in the lifecycle, you can attach automations that run as the ticket progresses. For example:
  • Trigger approvals
  • Send notifications
  • Run validation checks
You can configure which automations run at each status from the change model settings. Each status can have multiple automations attached.
The prebuilt ITIL models come with approval and tracking automations already wired to the appropriate lifecycle statuses.

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Transition Rules

You can control how tickets move between statuses by defining transition rules. Each transition can have conditions that must be met before the ticket can advance — for example, requiring certain fields to be filled or a minimum time in the current status. Transitions can also be set to automatic, so the ticket advances on its own once the conditions are satisfied.

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Custom Fields

Each change model can have its own set of custom fields tailored to the information needed for that type of change. For example:
  • A Normal Change might include fields for risk assessment, backout plan, and implementation window
  • An Emergency Change might include fields for justification and post-incident review
  • A Standard Change might only need a runbook link
Configure fields per model in the Fields section of the change model settings.

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Impact Tracking

Change tickets support tracking which assets and configuration items are affected by the change. You can attach relevant items during ticket creation or from the ticket detail view, giving your team visibility into what the change impacts.