Process Automation

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Introducing the Service Desk Pack for SmartCloud Control Desk

alucches Tags: smb pack halverson content process sccd service-desk wayne ‎ 6,548 Views

by Wayne Halverson

"Seems so simple, why can't I get one up and running quickly?"

Those thoughts have no doubt crossed the mind of many a person tasked with setting up a Service Desk or Help Desk for their group, department or even company. There sure are a lot of Service Desk vendors to choose from, or maybe you build your own instead of buy?

Immaterial of whether you are building or buying your Service Desk, "efficient," "easy-to-install" and "fast times to production" are the words every manager wants to hear. Getting your service desk into production quickly proves that your investment is giving you value now, not some time down the road. If you're building, only you know if delivery will be fast. Of course with buying, a little voice says, "but what is the quality when I get it so quickly?"

Well, the quality should be based on ITIL processes and the real-world, hard-knock experience of implementing that standard. Quality should reflect the best practical implementation of ITIL within the realm of company culture and the need to get current, if not immediate, value from a production deployment of your Service Desk.

And if I said you could have all of the above, would you believe me?

The IBM Tivoli ATG Team has created another Process Content Package for Service Desk implementation with SmartCloud Control Desk. Based on the lessons learned from the Service Catalog package, we brought the 2nd package to market this past week.

Install it alone or with the Catalog; they both work. Add your own client-specific data and bingo, in a day or so, you have your Service Desk running in production--if you want that outcome. You get it fast and you get the quality you demand and require.

The Service Desk package provides a prescriptive approach to your Incident and Service Request management. Get them as e-mails, phone calls, or through self-service; these tickets show up in your pre-defined Start Center. The workflows to process them are installed ready to use with a "one button" wizard to move the tickets through L1 and L2 as necessary.

If you thought the tickets could only be for IT, think again, there are codes to classify them for Facilities and Human Resources too. This is NOT a single-function Service Desk--this is a SERVICE desk for your ENTIRE company! And for you Service Desk Managers, the security is defined for Agents, Analysts and you. Service level agreements are auto-populated depending on your decision matrix, not the systems. This Service Desk is ready to go. Are you?

Once again we used Control Desk applications that will never limit your growth or the increased demands of your customers.

Did I mention this comes at no extra cost? Once you have SmartCloud Control Desk, you can download the Service Desk content pack from the ISM library at no charge.

*The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.*

SmartCloud Control Desk content makes Service Catalog implementation a no-cost option for Small & Medium size businesses

alucches Tags: pack smb content service_catalog wayne halverson process sccd ‎ 7,304 Views

by Wayne Halverson

The challenge of implementing a Service Catalog can be daunting to any size company. But with limited resources and subject matter expertise, this challenge can be too big, too costly, and too time consuming for a small or medium size company (SMB). Decisions and work must be completed to create the Service Catalog.

SMBs don’t have lots of resources with spare cycles to implement a Service Catalog, and they manage their cost closely. They would love the efficiencies a Service Catalog might offer, but are leery of the potential costs of getting a Service Catalog up and running.

Service Catalogs and their offerings are IT operational stuff; they are business process stuff, and they can be no-brainer stuff. No offense, but what do I mean by no-brainer? It means we don’t have to think very deeply to come up with catalog offerings which are standard, normal, and obvious.

You see, Service Catalogs can provide standard offerings which are common to any company and certainly an SMB. The service offerings in a catalog can support the process the on-boarding a new employee; change a phone; order a new lap top or desk top; move to a new desk space. Catalog service offerings can facilitate the provision a Server or allocate disk storage space. All of these offerings are standard services which employees of any company will typically need.

But how many phone calls and e-mails or office visits does it take to get them accomplished, especially in an SMB, where everyone has multiple hats and multi-tasking is the norm. Getting ‘standard’ business processes completed can be a challenge. Who is responsible for what, and did the ‘what’ get completed?

Given the above, I am glad to tell you there is a Process Content Pack for the Service Catalog function within SmartCloud Control Desk. This content provides all the data, workflows, escalations, and user portals, for 10 service catalog offerings, and is available on the ISM Library, free, for any one using the SmartCloud Control Desk. All documentation is included with the download. Take a look; the Pack should get you running a Service Catalog pretty quick.

Here's the URL for the Process Content Pack in the ISM Library:

http://www.ibm.com/software/ismlibrary?NavCode=1TW10CO04

*The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.*

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