Next week we’re going to be hosting two webinars showcasing the capabilities of SMI Suite.

These sessions are open enrollment, so anyone can join, but if you’re interested we need you to get in contact so we can let you have the logon details for the Webex session.

The webinars will be taking place on:

Tuesday, March 23rd, 2pm – 3pm EST

Wednesday March 24th, 2pm – 3pm EST

If you’d like to be involved in either session, please email info@westburyusa.com, specifying which one you’d like to attend.

And, as if any extra incentive were needed, there’s a free t-shirt for everyone who attends (let’s say maximum of five per company, just to weed out any t-shirt hungry ne’erdowells).

Hope you can make it

Tom

Looks like Boris Evelson is quickly becoming Westbury’s most favorite analyst (see post below). In this post Boris explains what he is looking for in, what he calls, 2nd gen meta driven BI apps.

My excitement about blogs like these is obvious, because like 2nd gen BI apps, Westbury’s goal is to auto-generate as many steps as possible out of the ETL components necessary for our SMI suite.

Here’s the link:

Next gen of metadata driven BI apps

Take a look!

Floris

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:

1. Who is using your reporting solution?
2. Which groups use your reporting solution the most?
3. Which objects they are accessing?
4. Which reports are they using?
5. 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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Let me know what you think!

David vH

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 This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

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