Criticalities

Change criticalities

Mirroring infrastructure’s change management criticalities, Customer Support Operations defines changes on a C1 - C4 scale that helps determine appropriate planning horizons.

Criticalities are taken into effect when deciding on which deployment an issue/MR will make it into.

Change criticality definitions

Change criticality 1

These are changes with high impact or high risk that may significantly modify Support Engineer or Customer experience. If a change is going to cause downtime to the environment, it is always categorized a C1.

Some examples of Criticality 1 requests are:

• Changing the functionality of a widely used Zendesk View
• Altering Zendesk in a way to support a significant process change
• Changes to any SLA policy in use

Change criticality 2

These are changes that aren’t expected to significantly impact Support Engineer or Customer experiences, but which still carry some risk of impact if something unexpected happens.

Some examples of Criticality 2 requests are:

• Updating the theme on the Support Portal
• Adding a new ticket form
• Changing any triggers/automations relating to SSAT or Support KPIs

Change criticality 3

These are changes with either no or very-low risk of negative impact, but where there is still some inherent complexity, or it is not fully automated and hands-off.

Some examples of Criticality 3 requests are:

• Adding a new form field on a Support form
• Bulk removing expired Zendesk organizations
• Adding a new Zendesk app that will make things more convenient for Support Engineers
• Removing or deactivating active macros

Change criticality 4

These are changes that are exceedingly low risk and commonly executed, or which are fully automated. Often these will be changes that are mainly being recorded for visibility rather than as a substantial control measure.

Some examples of Criticality 4 requests are:

• Adding or removing users from a ZD organization
• Creating or updating macros

Determining a change criticality

When you first begin working an issue or MR, you should determine the change criticality of the task at hand.

For guidance on determining the change criticality, see change criticality definitions.

Always use your best judgment on determining the criticality level. When in doubt, reach out to a Customer Support Operations leadership for assistance.

System criticalities

System criticality definitions

For definitions of this, please see Designating Critical System Tiers.

Customer Support Operations System Criticality

Level	Item	Data classification
Mission Critical	Support Readiness Token Checker	Green
	System Checkers > GitLab	Green
	System Checkers > Zendesk Global	Green
	System Checkers > Zendesk US Government	Green
	Zendesk Global Instance	Red
	Zendesk Global Provisioning	Yellow
	Zendesk Global Roles	Green
	Zendesk Global Salesforce Sync	Orange
	Zendesk Global SLA Policies	Green
	Zendesk Global Theme	Green
	Zendesk Global Ticket Forms and Fields	Green
	Zendesk Global Triggers	Green
	Zendesk US Government instance	Red
	Zendesk US Government Provisioning	Yellow
	Zendesk US Government Roles	Green
	Zendesk US Government Salesforce Sync	Orange
	Zendesk US Government SLA Policies	Green
	Zendesk US Government Theme	Green
	Zendesk US Government Ticket Forms and Fields	Green
	Zendesk US Government Triggers	Green
Business Critical	Notify Oncall (via slack)	Yellow
	Support Super Form	Green
	Support Super Form Processor	Orange
	System Audits	Yellow
	System Checkers > Pagerduty	Green
	Zendesk Global Contacts (CMP sync)	Orange
	Zendesk Global Help Center Categories	Green
	Zendesk Global Help Center Management Permissions Groups	Green
	Zendesk Global Help Center Sections	Green
	Zendesk Global Help Center User Segments	Green
	Zendesk Global Organization Deletion	Orange
	Zendesk Global Organization Fields	Green
	Zendesk Global Views	Green
	Zendesk US Government Help Center Categories	Green
	Zendesk US Government Help Center Management Permissions Groups	Green
	Zendesk US Government Help Center Sections	Green
	Zendesk US Government Help Center User Segments	Green
	Zendesk US Government Organization Deletion	Orange
	Zendesk US Government Organization Fields	Green
	Zendesk US Government Ticket Round Robin	Red
	Zendesk US Government Views	Green
Business Operational	1Password Support Operations Vault	Green
	1Password Support Vault	Green
	Calendly	Orange
	CES processor	Orange
	CES survey form (source)	Green
	CES survey form (target)	Green
	Dev Pulse (Zendesk Global)	Red
	Mid-ticket feedback form for US Government	Green
	Mid-ticket feedback processor for Global	Orange
	Mid-ticket feedback processor for US Government	Orange
	Support Team YAML files	Yellow
	System Checkers > Calendly	Green
	System Checkers > Unbabel	Green
	Unbabel	Red
	US Government Customer Feedback Form	Green
	Zendesk Global Applications	Green
	Zendesk Global Audit Events Analyzer	Yellow
	Zendesk Global Contact Management Projects	Orange
	Zendesk Global Groups	Green
	Zendesk Global Ticket Processor	Red
	Zendesk Global User Fields	Green
	Zendesk US Government Applications	Red
	Zendesk US Government Audit Events Analyzer	Yellow
	Zendesk US Government Groups	Green
	Zendesk US Government Ticket Processor	Red
	Zendesk US Government User Fields	Green
Administrative	Calendly Events to gCal Events	Yellow
	VBT slackbot	Green
	Webhook payload multiline to singleline (Zendesk Global)	Orange
	Zendesk Global Agent Sync	Yellow
	Zendesk Global Automations	Green
	Zendesk Global Dynamic Content	Green
	Zendesk Global Light agent provisioning	Yellow
	Zendesk Global Macros	Green
	Zendesk Global Maintenance Tasks	Orange
	Zendesk Global Salesforce Cases	Orange
	Zendesk US Government Agent Sync	Yellow
	Zendesk US Government Automations	Green
	Zendesk US Government Macros	Green
	Zendesk US Government Maintenance Tasks	Orange
	Zendesk US Government Salesforce Cases	Orange