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Freeze windows and overrides

Declare a freeze, see what it catches, and record an override when a change genuinely must proceed.

Project administrator About 4 minutes Step 4 of 6

A freeze window is a named period during which changes should not go ahead — a retail peak, a migration weekend, an audit. Declaring one in Change Guards does more than write it on a wall: it re-checks every change already scheduled and blocks approval for the ones that fall inside.

Declaring a window

Project administrators only, from Project settings → Change Guards.

  1. 1

    Select Add a freeze window

    The form appears under the existing windows.

  2. 2

    Name it

    Something people will recognise on the calendar — “Year-end freeze”, “DC migration weekend”.

  3. 3

    Set the start and end

    Read in your own timezone. The window must end after it starts.

  4. 4

    Record why

    Required, not optional. This text is shown to anyone whose change is blocked, so they do not have to go and ask.

  5. 5

    Create it

    Every change already scheduled inside the window is re-checked and flagged there and then.

Seeing what it caught

The change calendar shades frozen days across the grid and marks any change scheduled inside one. The CAB workbench has an In freeze filter carrying its own count.

The December 2026 change calendar with the year-end freeze shaded from the 20th onwards, scheduled changes shown as chips, and one change inside the freeze marked with a warning.
Freeze days are shaded on the grid itself — a list is something you have to remember to cross-check.

What a blocked change looks like

The panel shows a freeze conflict status and names the window and its reason. The change cannot move to approved.

A change panel showing a freeze conflict: a red message names the year-end freeze and its reason, with an override reason field and a Record override button visible to an administrator.
The block explains itself, and offers the administrator the one route through it.

Two ways through

Reschedule the change

The cleanest answer. Move the planned window outside the freeze and the conflict clears by itself — no override, no paperwork, nothing to justify later.

Record an override

Sometimes a change genuinely must proceed. A project administrator — and only a project administrator — can record an override with a written reason. Both go on the audit trail and appear in evidence exports.

Removing a window

Administrators can remove a freeze window, and the removal is itself recorded — so the fact that a freeze once existed survives the freeze being deleted. Changes previously flagged against it are no longer blocked.

Good practice