Westblog

Westbury and the world of Business Intelligence for ITSM

Business Objects auditing

March 11, 2010 by Martijn No comments »

Business Objects Enterprise includes auditing functionality that allows you to verify if reports and user management are appropriate, are efficient,

and are adequately controlled to ensure valid, reliable, timely, and secure input, processing, and output at all levels of a system’s activity.

What’s in it for me?

A controlled environment in which it’s clear which users and user groups use objects and reports.
Root cause analysis to easily relate the disruption of a service to changes and users.
Which reports are used and which reports are ‘dead’.
It enables efficient license usage. Why pay for want you do not use?

The audit should answer the following questions:

Who is using your reporting solution?
Which groups use your reporting solution the most?
Which objects they are accessing?
Which reports are they using?
How many user licenses are we using at any given time?

You can audit the actions of individual users of Business Objects Enterprise as they log in and out of the system, access data, or create file-based events. You can also monitor system actions like the success or failure of scheduled objects. For each action, Business Objects Enterprise records the time of the action, the name and user group of the user who initiated the action, the server where it was performed, and a variety of other parameters available in the documentation with Business Objects.

The auditable actions I like the most are:

Track when Objects are created, deleted of modified;
Track when reports are opened, saved, refreshed, created, modified and deleted;
Job monitoring and failure;
Changes and history in login behaviour of users and groups;
Monitoring of license usage.

A post last year on the Chennai Bi blog gives some useful guidelines on how to implement auditing: http://chennaibi.wordpress.com/2009/04/07/business-objects-auditing-in-xir3/

Martijn

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Posted in Tips & Tricks

Tags: auditing auditor budget business objects governing user licenses license usage monitoring SMI

New Release: SMI Suite version 7.206

March 8, 2010 by Arnon No comments »

The latest release of Westbury’s SMI Suite is now available, introducing exciting features that will serve our rapidly expanding customer base.

Building tomorrow’s product requires listening to the market. And with this version, Westbury’s product team has done just that. Process owners, for example, will find their quest for process optimization finally answered with this version’s ability to automatically analyze and identify inconsistent use of the processes implemented in HP ServiceCenter or HP Service Manager. The latest version furthermore offers full support for HP ServiceCenter/Service Manager environments that rely on the IBM DB2 database platform.

Continuing to work in tandem with our customers, we are looking forward to further enhance SMI Suite in upcoming versions.

The Westbury Product Team

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Posted in Announcements, Products

Tags: release SMI Suite version

Vivit HP Service Management SIG update

by Floris No comments »

Latest news from the Vivit HP Service Management Special Interest Group

HP Service Management at the HP Universe 2010 in Washington DC:

If you’re planning on attending the HP Universe event, there are several activities and sessions taking place that might be of interest to you

1) Vivit training sessions

There are two special Vivit training sessions taking place:

- The first is called ” A practical approach to operational reporting from HP Service Manager and HP Service Center” (https://www.hpsoftwareuniverse2010.com/event/trainingandcert.html#4) and takes place Monday afternoon from 1pm to 5pm.

- The second is called “HP Service Manager advanced tailoring concepts and best practices” (https://www.hpsoftwareuniverse2010.com/event/trainingandcert.html#5) and takes place Tuesday morning 8am – 12pm.

2) HP Roundtable session on Service Management (https://www.hpsoftwareuniverse2010.com/event/roundtables.html#6)

3) Track Sessions – HP Service Manager falls under the umbrellas of both “HP Lifecycle Management” (https://www.hpsoftwareuniverse2010.com/event/tracks.html#2) and “Pragmatic IT Service Management” (https://www.hpsoftwareuniverse2010.com/event/tracks.html#15)

Aside from HP Universe there are several other Vivit events coming up with a focus on Service Manager:

1) The Chicago chapter is hosting an ITSM User Group (https://www.vivit-worldwide.org/chapters.cfm?id=122&action=event&chapterid=4&chaptereventid=538), taking place at the DoubleTree, Downers Grove, IL, on 10th March from 10am – 3pm

2) The Colorado chapter’s winter meeting (https://www.vivit-worldwide.org/chapters.cfm?id=122&action=event&chapterid=117&chaptereventid=536) includes sessions on HP’s ITSM roadmap for 2010 and reducing the cost and improving service levels of your help desk. The meeting takes place on March 5th, from 9am to 3pm at Denver Water on 12th Avenue in Denver.

3) The Greater Toronto chapter’s 8th Vivit GTA meeting on 9th March (8:30am to 12pm at HP Canada in Mississauga) will include a presentation by Robert Lee of Achievo on migrating to SM7, and a session on responding more quickly to incidents, by HP’s John Moore.

In other news:

1) Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for the IT Service Desk report (https://h10078.www1.hp.com/cda/hpms/display/main/hpms_content.jsp?zn=bto&cp=1-11-85^12473_4000_100__) pits Service Manager against its competitors

2) HP has released a new video focusing on ITSM: http://h30423.www3.hp.com/index.jsp?fr_story=6d59bb1b1c901defc095321a2717b0b9a87189d6&rf=bm

Other resources:

The HP Service Management SIG pages on the Vivit site (http://www.vivit-worldwide.org/chapters.cfm?id=122&action=content&contentid=1094&chapterid=186) includes a list of forums (or fora for those of you who had the benefit of a classical education) where you can discuss, ask and answer anything about HP Service Manager.

See you at HP Universe 2010!

Floris

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Posted in Announcements

Tags: HP ITIL reporting Service Management Service Manager ServiceCenter SMI

Tip: how to change the default color palette for graphs and charts in BusinessObjects XI?

March 3, 2010 by David van Heusden No comments »

Have you ever wondered, just like me, how you could change the default color palette that is used for graphs and charts in BusinessObjects XI?

Here’s how! The color definitions of the (first) palette are located in a file called ‘defaultConfig.xml’ located in one of the 16(!) folders that contain that file under the BusinessObjects home directory:

For the Web Intelligence Rich client this file is located under:
%BusinessObjectsHome%\BusinessObjects Enterprise 12.0\classes\AppletConfig

For the http Web Intelligence client this file is located under:
%BusinessObjectsHome%\Tomcat55\webapps\AnalyticalReporting\webiApplet\AppletConfig

Search for the following string in the file and that’s were you will have to change things:
<!– Palette used by graph –>

Next task on my ToDo list is to come up with a good set of colors to use in the palette so if you have any suggestions let me know!

David

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Posted in Tips & Tricks

Tags: BusinessObjects charts color graphs palette

Self Service Reporting training at HP Universe

by Floris No comments »

If you are thinking about attending the HP Universe 2010 in Washington DC, please find below an other reason why you should!

Westbury will perform a hands-on training for all HP ServiceCenter or HP Service Manager people working on reporting, regardless of the BI tool you are using.

Please register for the event and training at:

https://www.hpsoftwareuniverse2010.com/event/index.html

A practical approach to operational reporting from HP Service Manager and HP Service Center
(Monday afternoon) 1pm – 5pm

Attend this class and hear from Richard Verburg and David Van Heusden about the HP Service Manager reporting options. You’ll also gain practical insight into how you can access data from HP Service Manager. Specific topics will include:

The importance of ITSM reporting from HP Service Manager, and the need for an iterative approach
Steps involved in the reporting process, from requirements gathering to the distribution of completed reports
HP Service Manager reporting options, from dashboards to generic reporting technologies to point solutions
Data storage and access
HP Service Manager data challenges such as array fields (e.g. clocks, journals), CLOBS and BLOBS
Hands-on exercises for defining, building, and running reports
Tips on how and where to zoom into reports for added value

Floris

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Posted in Announcements

Tags: 2010 DC hands-on HP Universe reports Service Manager ServiceCenter SMI Suite training

Carlsberg don’t make customers… part three: the budget guy

February 24, 2010 by Tom No comments »

Well, it’s been a few weeks, but I’m back to continue this series on our ideal customer profiles. We’ve already had the Process Guy and the Tech Guy, now it’s time for the budget guy.

If you remember, the way it generally works is that the Process Guy is the alpha – he’s the one with a problem to solve that is related to process. Often the organization wants to get a handle on some real qualitative data about IT performance – either for budgetary reasons or for lofty ambitions like ITIL and continuous improvement. The Process Guy brings the Tech Guy in to establish a) that trying to get that data out of ServiceCenter or Service Manager is going to be like divorcing Cheryl Cole - painful, drawn-out and expensive, and b) that SMI Suite will remove all the pain, time and some of the money.

At some point in this sales cycle, the Budget Guy shows up, because despite the very low cost of SMI Suite, neither the Process Guy or Tech Guy has any spending power – it simply isn’t a function of their role to sign off on more than a few bucks worth of software.

In some ways the Budget Guy is interesting because he’s the first person we’ve met in the organization whom we don’t have to convince – the Process Guy and the Tech Guy’s advocacy and belief in SMI Suite does far far more to convince the Budget Guy than anything we could say to him. But still, the introduction of the Budget Guy into the proceedings is far from a gimme.

After all, he wouldn’t be doing his job – and wouldn’t be entrusted with signoff on budget – if he didn’t at least do some due diligence. Sometimes this takes the form of fact-checking and re-checking everything that has already been discussed and agreed upon with the Process and Tech guys, but more often than not, the Budget Guy wants to look at the bigger picture.

He’s usually happy to take at face value that SMI Suite can, technologically, do what it promises if the Tech Guy says so, and he also understands, with the Process Guy’s advocacy, that SMI Suite will unlock the door to satisfying certain business needs – like the need to have accurate data about ITSM activities.

But he will almost always question the business benefit of all this. To use a rather labored metaphor, identifying a new type of spot welder that allows workers to weld three times as many bits of steel together as they could before, and is five times safer, and costs half as much to run as the old type, is all well and good… but not much use if you run a day-care facility.

Luckily for us, the business benefits of SMI Suite are pretty universal, so long as the organization in question runs an IT helpdesk and uses HP ITSM software. And, of course, each company we deal with is individual, so the benefits that are applicable change from organization to organization, but when we start to talk about improving helpdesk efficiency by accurately benchmarking and constantly remeasuring response times, or we talk about cutting costs based on accurate workload metrics, the Budget Guy usually takes an interest.

Next time: the Department Head

Tom

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Posted in Processes

Tags: budget efficiency guy improvement ITSM process savings technology

Why isn’t BI / reporting supporting your ITSM efforts?

February 18, 2010 by David van Heusden No comments »

I read an interesting blog on complaints and potential reasons around BI/reporting in the organization.

10 meanings of why-my-BI-application-is-not-useful
By Boris Evelson

Which complaints and/or reasons are (most) applicable to you, your organization or your customers?

An overview from the blog with an ITSM perspective:

1. The data is not there, because

It’s not in the HP service management application (e.g. HP Service Manager)

The data is there, but

2. It’s not usable as is, because

The data is of poor quality (e.g. out of date, inconsistent or not complete)

3. I can’t find it, because I

Can’t find the right report
Can’t find the right metadata
Can’t find the data
I don’t have access rights to the data I am looking for

4. I don’t know how to use my application, because I

Was not trained
Was trained, but the application is not intuitive, user friendly enough
Need extensive knowledge of the underlying HP database structure
Need SQL knowledge to create reports

5. I can’t/don’t have time do it myself and

I don’t have support staff
I am low on BI priority list

6. It takes too long to

Create a report/query
Run/execute a report/query

7. I need to report/analyze on something that SQL can’t do, such as

Faceted search
SQL on data with uneven, unbalanced, ragged, recursive hierarchies

8. I don’t know what I am looking for, but my application is asking to

Run a specific report
Pick specific facts and dimensions

And 2 additional ones that I added

9. I want do it myself but

My application doesn’t provide self service reporting capabilities
My organization doesn’t allow self service reporting

10. I don’t want to do BI, I want to run my business and expect

My application to present helpful information not just present data

Let me know what you think!

David vH

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Posted in Processes, Products

Tags: BI reporting self service

Rubik solutions and Westbury join forces

January 22, 2010 by Tom 1 comment »

It’s only once in a while we issue a press release, so I thought I’d take the opportunity to share it with you in all its glory:

Rubik solutions and Westbury join forces in delivering high quality IT Service Management solutions in the Benelux and Nordics region.
Rubik Solutions and Westbury have signed an agreement to further strengthen their partnership in delivering high quality IT Service Management solutions and services in the Benelux and Nordic Region.

As part of the agreement , Rubik will offer its broad portfolio of services based on the HP Software solutions, including the migration to HP Service Manager, to the Westbury customers running HP Service Desk software.

Over the past years, Rubik solutions and Westbury have cooperated on many occasions, sharing both knowledge and experience. In addition to offering its proven expertise to Westbury’s customers, Rubik Solutions will actively promote and sell Westbury’s Service Management Intelligence Suite (SMI Suite).

“Rubik Solutions is a highly skilled and knowledgeable partner with years of IT Service Management expertise. We have full confidence that they will perform the migrations to the complete satisfaction of our customers. In addition, this partnership enables us to exploit the market for SMI Suite to its full potential in both the Benelux and Nordics region ”, says Floris Verschoor, CEO of Westbury.

“I am happy both Rubik and Westbury can continue to focus and build our core businesses, and this agreement helps us both in doing just that. It is a clear win-win situation”, says Erik Larsen, CEO of Rubik Solutions. “By including the operational reporting capabilities of Westbury SMI Suite we are able to complement our end to end Service Management solution and help our customers in maximizing the efficiency of their Service Management processes.”
About Rubik
Rubik Solutions is a leading provider of solutions for enterprise architecture and IT management in the Nordics and Benelux. Rubik has a solid background in delivering solutions to large and medium enterprises in different industries. The company offers solutions for IT management, project and portfolio management tools and solutions for enterprise architecture and strategic IT planning.

Additionally Rubik develops and markets its own Information Consolidation Manager software, an application that collects and combines data from various data sources and tailors this data for HP Service Manager and for the uCMDB (universal configuration management database). Rubik Solutions is headquartered in Oslo, and has 12 branch offices in Norway, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Netherlands and Belgium. The company has 130 employees.
About Westbury
The Westbury advantage.
Westbury Service Management Intelligence empowers organizations to prove IT’s value to the business.

Our Service Management Intelligence Suite helps you gain Insight, Improve quality of delivered services and Impress your customers. Established in 1998, Westbury has offices near Amsterdam (NL) and in Cambridge (MA,USA) servicing mid & enterprise size customers. The global team of highly professional Service Management Intelligence experts combines over a decade of ITSM and Business Intelligence expertise. Westbury is an HP Software Platinum Business Partner, honored with multiple achievement awards. Westbury is founder of Service Management Intelligence.

Press contact:
Rubik Solutions, Erik Larsen
CEO +47 91 75 52 63
Rubik Solutions, Pieter Spilling
Corporate Marketing Manager +47 93 05 57 31, psp@rubiksolutions.com

Westbury, Suzanne Glorie
Marketing Manager +31-646217033, suzanne.glorie@westbury-it.com

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Posted in Announcements

Tags: agreement Benelux partnership Rubik services solution

Around the interwebs: self-service BI

January 13, 2010 by Tom No comments »

“Self-service BI” is a bit of a watchword these days, and certainly one that we’ve been taking a long hard look at from a marketing standpoint because it describes pretty neatly what SMI Suite is and does, and draws a nice dividing line that separates out the sort of BI that requires written reports in triplicate and fifteen different meetings with the “BI specialists” before you can get your hands on a simple report.

So it was with much interest that I read James Kobielus’ piece on Self-Service Business Intelligence: Dissolving the Barriers to Creative Decision-Support Solutions.

The whole piece is of interest, but the first paragraph struck a resounding note:

Self-service is all the rage in the world of business intelligence (BI), but it’s no fad. In fact, it’s the only way to make BI more pervasive, delivering insights into every decision—important or mundane—that drives your business. It’s the key to empowering users with actionable insights while removing many mundane BI development and maintenance tasks from IT’s crushing workload.

I think we probably need to hire James to sell SMI Suite for us, because what he’s talking about is exactly the same thing we’ve been banging on about for years: operational BI is not (or, at least, should not) be about the same dry reports run week in, week out. It should be about spotting a trend, or spike, or glitch in a particular report and then immediately running off to run a slightly different report that zeros in on that one particular detail. And then spotting a spike in that report and starting the whole process again. It should be about exploring the complexity of the data and about the data inspiring you to want to understand more about where it comes from and what it means. That’s the key to BI being a truly effective tool for saving money, working more efficiently, improving customer satisfaction and all the other things that we all strive to do every single day.

And as James so succinctly points out, self-service is at the heart of that concept.

Tom

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Posted in Tips & Tricks

Tags: internet self-service BI SMI Suite

Around the interwebs: IT Skeptic Awards 2009

January 6, 2010 by Tom No comments »

I’ve mentioned the IT Skeptic blog previously on Westblog, but the Skeptic has given you the perfect excuse to go reacquaint yourself: the very inventive 2009 awards.