IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL)
Service Management
sitehelpdesk-IT and sitewebdesk have been designed to provide the
essential mechanisms for tracking, collating, reporting and auditing
the IT Service Management processes to provide security and control
features recommended in the IT Infrastructure Library - ITIL®.
We also cover the main record keeping requirements of the British
Standard Institute's standards BS7799 /
ISO 17799 Information Security and BS 15000 IT Service
Management standards.
Click here for
further information on our commitment to these Standards.
Firstly, Beware of Marketing Hype:
There is no ITIL 'compliance' anywhere as it
is not a 'standard' but a set of guidelines.
No helpdesk software solution can cover all aspects of IT
Service Management and a
certain amount of internal organisation, policy documentation and
procedures need to be established outside of any computer software
system.
We have designed
practical working solutions using a continual development program fed
by our customers real world issues. All new features are
incorporated with a view to the ITIL
recommendations whilst striving to keep the products uncluttered and simple to
use so as to remain effective in the support process and
very importantly, without additional burden. It is worthy to note
that ITIL V3 was released as a result of feedback from the industry
that the current version was unfriendly, theoretical and did not
match working practices, which endorses our approach.
IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL)
This is a comprehensive set of documents advising on best management
practices devised by the UK Office of Government Commerce (OGC) for the provision of quality IT services. sitehelpdesk-IT
and sitewebdesk provide the record keeping and reporting tools to
help you to comply with the ITIL process. Many of the requirements
are met by virtue of addressing the standards mentioned above but
others are more specific to the actual working practices in IT
support services and their
monitoring and review.
sitehelpdesk-IT is a fully automated service for users of your IT
resources and gives them instant access to their call history
records, hardware and loan allocations, so that they can share in
the responsibility for security, accountability, problem management
and control.
Continual Improvement may be monitored via reporting of incident
volumes, problem type trend analysis, Operator performance etc alongside
automated SLA calculations and flexible reports expressed in
percentages so that improvements may be measured over time.
Incident Management
Incident Management process provides the tools and mechanisms for
a quick recovery of service issues to the agreed service level
(response and fix times). The service levels are defined within a
Service Level Agreement (SLA) and assigned to calls when first
logged. Incident recording and resolution and tracking of SLA's with
email notifications and escalations are central to all our systems.
FAQ's and document links along with definable scripting provides
users with self help for prompt resolution of problems.
Problem Management
The aim of Problem Management is to decrease of the number of
incidents by pre-empting and resolving the errors, identifying
trends and reporting on these. Association of change requests/
trouble tickets and hardware records identify the trends which are
graphically summarised and available directly from the call
management pages. Underlying trends of continuing problems may be
analysed and flagged as Problems and initiate Change management
procedure. Problem management performance may be monitored and the
effect of change initiatives. Historic calls related to hardware and
the user/customer further helps to identify trends and recurring
issues even of a non problem nature -e.g. user training
requirements.
Change Management
Change Management process provides a mechanism to control and manage
the initiation, implementation and review of all proposed changes to
the operational IT infrastructure, in order to minimise the impact
of change related incidents upon service delivery. sitehelpdesk-IT
and sitewebdesk have integrated change request and release
management which is highly configurable to match your circumstances.
Change Requests may be associated to many calls and/or inventory
items (and one call ticket/inventory item may be associated to many
change requests). Tracking occurs through to Approval and Release.
There may be multiple approvals (or declines) and any member of
staff may be involved in the process so Head of Departments can
approve systems changes that directly effect them. The addition of
WMImonitor takes this a stage further with full audit tracking of
all physical software and hardware installations and configuration
changes and maintains a complete history which is available from a
link in the Call management. There is also the facility to receive
email notification of these changes or they may be viewed remotely
from a browser. Templates may be set up to automatically create and
assign responsibilities for the process to ensure it is completed on
schedule and in a consistent manner.
Configuration Management
The ITIL Configuration Management process covers the identification,
control, status accounting and verification of the components of the
IT infrastructure (configuration items, assets) and their relations.
The main goal of this process is to provide information about these
components that is used in other service management processes. The
hardware records are fully integrated in sitehelpdesk-IT with views
of associated HW from calls or calls from the HW records and audit
logs of maintenance, and warranty returns. WMImonitor can be used to
audit the inventory across the network and keep track of all
physical configuration changes made, with full history.
Release Management (Software Control)
Release Management is the planning, design, build, configuration and
testing of hardware and software for controlled release into the
live environment. Release Management works closely with the Change
Management and Configuration Management processes.
sitehelpdesk-IT and sitewebdesk Change and Release management
processes allow the controlled management of change requests through
all stages to release. Multiple release approvals (or declines) may
be initiated via email and tracked. There are other applications available that
enhance this function and provide secure checking in and out of
compiled code and version release management. One such tools is
Microsoft Visual SourceSafe. There is the facility to record the
location of such compiled code and software version release with in
the Release Management module.
Service Level Management
The ITIL Service Level Management process covers the negotiation,
definition, contract, monitoring and the reviewing of the levels of
customer service. This is achieved in sitehelpdesk-IT through SLA
Categorising and cost tracking and reporting. The basic products provide simplified SLA tracking and notification
with traffic light flags on calls exceeding their response times
and date/time records are held against each ticket for call
initiation, response, events and fix times. An additional SLAmonitor module
may also be installed to enhance the
monitoring and to provide email notification for escalation and
audit logging. Calls may have their SLA clock stopped out of working
hours, during holidays and when passed to third parties for
resolution.
Customer satisfaction surveys are available though the scripting function.
Cost Management
Cost Management aim is to identify, track and report on the costing
and charging of IT services. Our applications allow the allocation of time and related expenses
to call activities which have predefined charge out rates. Billing
and time sheet reports are available for recharging.
Availability Management
Availability Management optimises the availability of the IT
infrastructure. This is provided by WMImonitor which may be
configured to notify Operators of such changes.
Capacity Management
Capacity management deals with the monitoring and tuning of existing
services to ensure that performance and throughput levels are
optimised. The sitehelpdesk-IT central data repository and linking
of calls to items of hardware ensures full reporting of related
issues for ongoing improvements to service. Links into WMImonitor or
MS SMS provide specific capacity reports available from the
sitehelpdesk-IT menu. Contingency Planning
Contingency Planning provides planning for recovering IT services in
a disaster situation and is a key feature of sitehelpdesk-IT with
Insurance and Disaster Recovery pack reporting that will be kept up to date by
virtue of the other features of the helpdesk. Summing Up
One overriding benefit of the sitehelpdesk-IT and sitewebdesk
products are that they hold all these records in one central
database, combining the helpdesk with configuration management (CMDB). This provides the relationships of the record and
associations. The web based interface is ideal for drill down and
pop up windows of related information. The central repository of
CMDB and Helpdesk also provides a focus for entering, managing
changes and enquiry/reporting, ensuring that records are
comprehensive and up to data. You will no longer need to rely on
disparate information held in multiple formats located in often
inaccessible locations across the network. The outstanding feature of
all our systems is the ease and simplicity in
use. Technicians do not want to be burdened with a cumbersome and
complex application that requires a lot of data entry and
maintenance. If this happens then the system is not fully utilised
and statistics and processes suffer and in the worse cases, the
system falls into disuse. Now you have seen how you can implement
ITIL - click here to download a free
trial
| 
