Production changes must be staged through a non-production environment

Control Statement: Configuration changes must be verified in a non-production environment before they reach production.

Description: Creatio makes editing production directly the path of least resistance; this control requires that it be the exception rather than the practice. An emergency change applied directly does not violate this control when the exception is recorded and the change is reproduced in the non-production environment afterwards — what it forbids is the quiet version, where production and the environment that supposedly mirrors it drift apart one unrecorded shortcut at a time.

Rationale: Every verification performed in production is performed on users. A non-production environment is only worth having while it resembles production, and each unstaged change makes it resemble production a little less — which makes the next person likelier to skip it too, because verifying there no longer proves anything. The control holds the environment’s value, not just the individual change’s safety.

Audit Procedure:

1. Confirm a non-production environment exists and is available to those who change production.
2. Sample recent production changes and confirm each was verified in it first.
3. For changes applied directly to production, confirm a recorded exception exists and the change was reproduced in the non-production environment.
4. Confirm the non-production environment is current enough for verification there to be meaningful.

Remediation:

1. Establish a non-production environment if none exists.
2. Route changes through it and move them to production as packages.
3. Record exceptions with their reason, and reproduce direct changes in the non-production environment so it does not drift.
4. Refresh the environment on a cycle so verification stays meaningful.

Default Value: Creatio supports moving configuration between instances as packages but does not require it. Editing production directly is always available, and nothing in the instance distinguishes one that stages its changes from one that never has.