In practice this means that although it is possible to extract all the data from HP Service Manager, the best practice will be to extract only the data required for reporting. After all,  from all the data stored in the HP Service Manager database only roughly 20 – 40% at most is real information that will help you during your day-to-day activities and allow you take maturity of your ITSM platform to the next level.

Let me throw you some numbers at you, based on HP’s Best Practices for HP Service Manager 9.x reporting, and the out-of-the-box HP Service Manager model:

Apart from the obvious support for the main ITSM processes (Incident Management, Interaction Management, Change Management, Request Management, Service Level Management, Problem Management, Configuration Management, Known Error Management, Knowledge Management) you will be able to report on all the supporting data like Operator, Contact, Location, Department, Assignment Group, Tasks, Clocks, Activities and many more as well, either in combination with the main ITSM processes or standalone.

Next to reporting on the available data from the HP Service Manager database, SMI 2011 also offers the possibility to enrich the data with additional computed data, for example duration calculations like first touch duration and Boolean calculations like the first line resolved indicator. In theory, any computation can be made, but again as a best practice you only want to perform calculations that facilitate easier reporting and do not want to perform for example your SLA or SLO calculations on this level, that should be done in the HP Service Manager application because you would want access to that data in the application as well.

Calculations, derived date objects like Year, Month Name, Week Nr, etc and pre-defined conditions for dates are all objects made available for easier and more standardized reporting. They enrich the service management semantic reporting layer (also known as a universe) and facilitate the self service reporting capabilities of SMI 2011. Users without in-depth technical knowledge or knowledge of the HP Service Manager data model are capable of building and tailoring the reports to meet their specific needs.

A new Forrester Research report,

Non-tech people typically still have little insight in the value and activities of IT. IT is  being correlated to as “stuff”, facility management… IT spending is based on % of the revenue and IT costing is based on the investments in assets instead of services. That makes it a black box and the comparison with competitors impossible; the competitive disabler.

But we are heading for change. IT changes from asset management to being an internal service provider knowing and showing true value.

You will be asked to:

1. Translate assets into insight in meaningful services (don’t pick-up your ITIL book from behind your desk but study your organization – http://westbury-it.com/blog/how-to-improve-your-itil-processes/);
2. Expose and communicate those services (service catalog and start measuring the quality of the service and compare it with the service conditions);
3. Deliver a bill and/or report to your customer;
4. Start controlling services instead of assets.

In general you should be prepared for change in the way you are discussing IT processes and assets from a customer centric approach.

Your IT manager and CIO will have the following problems or disadvantages if they can’t deliver:

• As long as IT costs are not related to the organization services and products it will lead to false assumptions. Such as having too much overhead leading into a new round of cost savings (perhaps at your department?). In the end it might direct you to a competitive disadvantage no one knows of.
• It could cause managers to make wrong decisions in allocating more investments in certain fields believing it is more profitable.

To start IT cost-transparency, the following is learned from real live experiences:

1. Start by making IT more credible;
2. Don’t underestimate the magnitude of the effort;
3. An organization change with new roles, skills and based on customer focus.

Are you ready? Why wait? It could start with you!

We are and know the field experts.

Just drop us a line:

http://westbury-it.com/about-us/office-locations

Others:

http://www.cio.com/article/608063/Why_IT_Costs_Must_Come_Out_of_the_Black_Box_Now

http://westbury-it.com/blog/report-openness-our-window-dressing/

Martijn

How to improve your ITIL processes?

Measuring is knowing, but without real understanding no use.

I just read a good article which sums it all up: “Before you can improve a process, you have to understand the current process. You have to get out from behind the desk and walk the process …”

So we are not talking about only knowing but also about understanding. “… how a process currently works is often very different from how you think it is (or should be) working.”

I want to deliver you the following takeaways as important steps you should take before you start improving processes:

1. About processes, control and truths – The very first thing you have to do is accept that no one really knows what is going on and how people perform their work, neither workers nor managers. Regardless of what you think you know, the work really getting done, and how it gets done, is different.
2. Workflow: what is real and what imaginary? – The only way to actually discover what is really getting done is to get up from behind the desk, walk out of the office, and literally walk around, observe, and take notes. You cannot practice ITIL from behind a desk. This sounds simple, but as in many things, the doing is not so straightforward. To practice ITIL you have to walk the process, literally. Keep in mind that your goal is to collect and model the existing process as it works today; not what you imagine it ought to be, but rather the actual tasks and workflow in place.
3. Walk the walk – It takes time to learn the workflow with the right accuracy and detail.  You need to capture the “who, what, when and where” of the process, and should skip the “how and why” to start with.
4. Than model the workflow – Based on the new info you will probably be surprised about the actual work and time involved. Now you are ready to map your processes with ITIL standards and to my opinion other best practices and your own experiences.

Be aware of:

• It takes work, time and attention to detail
• Get up and leave your office!
• Accept that you don’t really know what is going on, but that you are heading for an exciting journey
• It’s sometimes difficult to observe unbiased
• During your analysis your goal is documentation, not improvement
• Improvement in: the time it takes to do things. You should capture how long it takes to perform the work before you can answer the question “should this be changed”. That’s an important measure (consider our start-up reports on actual duration)
• The value of an accurate process model cannot be underestimated. You cannot improve anything without understanding it first.

Read on

http://www.itsmsolutions.com/newsletters/DITYvol6iss32.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+DoITYourself+%28Do+IT+Yourself+%28DITY%29+Feed%29

Martijn

Service Manager offers dashboards that can give you a real time overview of possible SLA breaches, open incidents by service, priority or location. This gives management a clear overview on how it is doing right now.

SMI Suite offers you a service management reporting solution that extends this dashboard feature in such a way that reports can be shared with others with a user friendly intuitive interface with drag and drop functionality. They can be incorporated in documents, PowerPoint presentations and even can be refreshed on the fly. Additionally one can drill down to the details of the underlying records a report is based on. To avoid heavy queries on the database during working hours, SMI Suite offers automatic scheduling and distribution of reports.

Luc

In the world of massage, anatomy is a very important part. Anatomy is the biological science concerned with the structure of the human body, including the human bones, muscles, ligaments and other structures. The most common functions are to hold the body together and to make it possible to move the body. The processes of how every structure of the body works together are very complex. Luckily we have a brain that’s taking care of all the complexity and a nervous system that’s taking care of all kind of communication between all structures. This saves us a lot of energy.

When I look at the HP ServiceCenter / Service Manager (SC/SM) database I see a similarity in the complexity. Maybe not that complex but when you think of reporting on the SC/SM database you need high skilled people (sort of like surgeons) to make reports and even then it’s not always possible to report on the subject you want to report on.

Westbury has created the ‘brain’ of SC/SM. This ‘brain’ is taking care of organizing the data from the SC/SM database into a relational database with a standard structure so you can easily report on it. Furthermore the ‘brain’ is doing all kind off calculations to enhance the ease of reporting. The ‘brain’ also contains a universe layer on top of the structured database. Next to the ‘brain’ Westbury created a nervous system. This nervous system is taking care of informing the right people at the right time by scheduling and publishing the reports.

And like the real brain, Westbury’s ‘brain’ and ‘nervous system’ can save companies that want to report on SC/SM a lot of energy, along with time and money.

Anyway, the news is that HP has a great blog all about IT Service Management, which features a few different contributors and a nice mix of news items, opinion pieces, tips and tricks and so forth.

The blog seems pretty active – three entries on Tuesday alone. Definitely one to keep an eye on.

On a vaguely related note; we’re increasingly using Twitter (I know, I know… sooo 2009!) as a means of opening up communication channels with partners, ITSM experts, potential customers and other interested parties. So please follow us @westbury_it and retweet anything we mention that piques your interest.

Tom

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

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

It is therefore with some trepidation that I announce that Westbury has started its very own special interest group… and hastily clarify that it’s the HP Service Manage Special Interest Group (SIG) in conjunction with Vivit, the HP user group. Not a single narrow-gauge hopper wagon in sight.

Vivit (http://www.vivit-worldwide.org/) is a  non-profit corporation founded in 1993 (as OpenView Forum) by customers of Hewlett-Packard’s Software products to represent the interests of HP Software customers, developers, and partners world-wide. It operates through a network of local chapters that bring together users of HP’s wide variety of products into regional groups, and through Special Interest Groups, which are for Vivit members worldwide, but which focus on specific areas of interest.

The HP Service Manager SIG  is a new group set up, by Westbury, to act as an information hub for all users of HP Service Manager, partners involved with Service Manager and anyone thinking about migrating to Service Manager. Although the SIG it is not home to experts on Service Manager, it is a place where you can be connected to those experts in just one click.

The website for the SIG is here: http://www.vivit-worldwide.org/chapters.cfm?action=chapter&chapterid=186 and new members are welcomed with open arms.

We put together a little video to show everyone what the SIG is all about:

Tom

Westbury’s booth will be number C1:

(that we’ve been put at a point on the floor pretty much diametrically opposite the beer bar is surely no mistake on the part of the organizers.)

The exhibition floor will be open from 11:00am on Wednesday 16th, and from 9:30am on Thursday and Friday (17th & 18th).

This year there are also some pretty interesting sessions going on. Our highlights are:

Thursday

09:00-09:45 – The secrets behind change, config and release management
10:00-10:45 – Global Service Management featuring Electrolux and Steria
11:45-12:30 – ICM – Information Consolidation ManagerAutomated CMDB management
16:30-17:15 – Achieving IT Operational Excellence with HP Service Manager 7!

Friday

09:00-09:45 – End-to-End virtual service management: the key to maximizing
virtualization ROI
10:00-10:45 – Service Manager Tailoring Tips and Tricks
11:45-12:30 – Integrated approach to monitoring and the challenges encountered
and overcome

See you there!
Tom