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ITIL Analyst User Guide 04
ITIL Analyst User Guide 04
Commercial in confidence
Managed Services
Internal Analyst User Guide
Document Number: version 1.0
Date: January 2011
Status: ISSUED
Information contained in this document and associated documents is confidential, proprietary to, and constitutes
the trade secrets of, Hitachi Consulting. Without prior written permission from Hitachi Consulting, it may not be
disclosed to any other parties or to employees or representatives other than those with a need to know for the
purpose of evaluation of this proposal.
1 Introduction ............................................................................................................. 6
1 Introduction
The purpose of this document is to provide business process and functional guidance to Managed Services
Consultants when using the Assure Service Desk service management system.
This user guide describes Hitachi Consulting‟s Managed Services‟ the use of Assure Service Desk, including:
Incident Management
Problem Management
Change Management
System Reporting
Hitachi Consulting has adopted ITIL best practice service delivery and support processes to deliver managed
services to our clients. These form part of our HC Assure service delivery framework.
The latest version of the User Guide is stored on Front Porch in the Managed Services / AMO team site.
Term Definition
Business Service The top-level of a CMS structure relating to the services which a
Customer is receiving from Hitachi Consulting. A strict definition
has been defined for Business Services and is as follows:
Term Definition
Problem Management The HC Assure process for undertaking route cause analysis of
one or more Incidents, the objective being to reduce / remove the
risk of future recurrences.
Task Task is the collective word for Incidents, Problems and Changes
within Assure Service Desk.
It is of paramount importance for the retention and growth of our Managed Services client base that Customers
receive a consistent Hitachi Consulting experience. All Support Consultants should ensure they are familiar with
these guiding principles and adopt them on a daily basis.
Do not start working on a Task until it has been logged within the Assure Service Desk system.
Why? If the Customer has not logged the Incident/Problem/Change record, then you MUST do so before you
start to work on it.
Why? This protects you, ensures SLAs are operating correctly and reduces the risks of two people working
on the same issue
“....if it not in the system – you haven‟t done it...” – all progress against any support task must be recorded within
the assure Service desk system.
Why? Because this keeps our customers informed and reduces the chances of them thinking that we are not
working on their issue when we actually are.
Why? Because it helps maintain an audit trail in case your colleagues need to pick up your work mid-flow.
Why? Because this adds to the overall knowledge within the system
Why? If you do not update Tasks regularly, Customers will think they are being neglected and will place
inbound „chase‟ calls with the Service Desk thus generating additional workload for the Service Desk and
you.
Why? Because this sets a clear expectation with the Customer and your colleagues
Why? Because all updates generate an automated email to the Customer. Writing this as though it were an
email in its own right will present a professional image of our company. Updates such as “Got it”, “Will do”,
and “Investigating” are not acceptable and do more to antagonise Customers than inform them when they
are delivered in automated email form.
Ensure Tasks are owned promptly – if a Task is assigned to you incorrectly, take responsibility for ensuring it is
re-routed promptly and correctly. If you are the L2 Scheduler, ensure you allocate tasks to individuals promptly
Why? Leaving incorrectly assigned tasks in your Queue means they are not being allocated efficiently
Why? Leaving Tasks without an individual owner means they are not being owned.
Why? Customers do not see any progress when you provide Internal-only work note updates. In theory, ay
internal update can also e accompanied by a Customer-facing work note – after all, you have undertaken
some additional investigations / actions to justify the internal note.
Do not assume Internal Notes will remain Internal. Never enter details into an Internal note that you would not
be comfortable with the Customer seeing.
Why? Because Customers have a right to see ALL data relating to their interactions with our business – and
we should remain professional and business-like in our Task updates regardless.
3 System Overview
Assure Service Desk is a SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) based offering, built upon the Service-Now (www.service-
now.com) product. As a SaaS model the service can be accessed by any web browser and does not involve the
installation of any local software on your desktop / laptop computer.
The baseline product has been customised to fit with the HC Assure service delivery framework, our organisational
structure, and customer requirements.
Generic
Support Consultants can access all transactional data across the entire system, regardless of which
Customer it relates to.
Contacts can access the vast majority of transactional data – but relating to their own Company only. The
system restricts the data which can be accessed through an inherent domaining system based upon the user
logon name.
Outbound email notifications – to inform Support Consultants and Customers of key events during the
service request lifecycle
Customisable dashboards
Incident Management
Ability to associate Incidents with the Customer, Caller and Business Service to which it is relates
Automatic application of Service Level Agreements (SLAs) based upon combinations of Incident data in
accordance with the Customer‟s contractual agreement with Hitachi Consulting
The ability to link Incidents with related: Incident, Problem and Change records
Problem Management
Ability to associate Problems with the Customer and Business Service to which it is relates
The ability to link Problems with related: Incident, Problem and Change records.
Change Management
Ability to associate Changes with the Customer and Business Service to which it is relates
Categorisation of Change Requests as either: Fast-Track (i.e. Urgent); or Standard (the default). Change
requests undertake a different scoping an approvals workflow process depending upon their categorisation.
The ability to link Changes with related: Incident, Problem and Change records.
Configuration Management
CMS-Lite – an initial Configuration Management System deployment, associating Business Services with
Customers. In future releases this will evolve to include full asset structures and related attribution.
The remainder of this document provides information pertaining to the business processes and system usage for
the above functions.
Google Chrome
Internet Explorer
Mozilla Firefox
Safari
Although the choice of browser is a personal one, we recommend the use of Google Chrome to access Assure
Service Desk for two primary reasons:
1 The latest version of Google Chrome performs tasks involving Java script more efficiently (quickly) than most
other browsers,
2 Google Chrome allows you to save the website as an „application‟ which results in a better user experience.
Launch a new Google Chrome session and log in to the Assure Service Desk application
Choose where you want the shortcuts to appear (you can rename them later if you wish)
When you launch the application by using one of these shortcuts, it will run in an application Window rather than
a standard browser interface
You will then be presented with the login page. Login using the username and
password credentials assigned to you by the Service Desk team. The
username is normally your email address.
Figure 3: Login Panel
This section explains the common panels / sections and icons which reside on all home pages.
Common
icons
The
Application
Menu bar
Home Page
/ dashboard
Panels
Run a pre-defined Query – for example, List all Fast Track Change Requests
Display process-specific dashboards – for example the Problem Management Overview dashboard
As the Application Menu Bar can provide so many different options, t is important that it remains easy to navigate
and use. The Application Menu Bar provides several handy shortcuts to help you quickly find the desired option.
The currently
Logged-in User
Name
The Application
Menu Filter Bar
Application Menu
(currently shown
in their collapsed
state)
Figure 5: Application Menu Bar
Expanding or collapsing an Application shows application components - create records, query records, process-
specific dashboards, etc...
Expand or
Collapse an
application using
this control
You can use the text Filter box to quickly filter the number of applications shown in the Menu Bar...
You can temporarily hide the entire Application Menu Bar – thus allowing greater
screen space for working with Tasks – by selecting the icon highlighted below. Select
it again to reveal the Application Menu Bar.
Figure 7: Hiding /
Revealing the Application
Browser Controls Menu Bar
The browser controls displayed in the top right-hand corner of the Home page
provide additional functionality.
Google-style search...
Google-style Searching
You can use the “Search” box to perform Google-style searches of all data which is visible to you within the system.
In the example below we have searched for the word “oracle” within our test environment and it has returned
various records which contain this word (Incidents, Problems and Support Group data).
You will notice we can further refine our search results using the search bar, filtering out the types of records
returned either by "Tasks" (Incidents, Problems, Changes") or "People and Places” (Companies, Users, groups,
etc)
If the return list is lengthy, you can jump to the type of record you require by clicking on its title next to the "Found:"
label - for example "Companies" to jump to the single record in the example above.
Complex Queries
As with Google, you can enter complex query conditions within your search criteria.
For example „+oracle –Linux‟ will show all records which contain the word Oracle but do not contain the word Linux.
Similarly “Microsoft CRM” (in double quotes) will show al records that contain the exact term “Microsoft CRM” only.
You should not work on any Incidents, Problem or Change activities without a supporting Task record. Creating
records is a simple activity and can be performed form any web browser. Please ensure a Task is in existence and
assigned to you before you work on it.
You should also keep the Task record updated such that it accurately reflects the real-world status of the request,
and ensure that Customers and colleagues are kept informed of progress.
Please ensure that you update the task record as frequently as possible – an inbound Customer chase for updates
should be deemed as a failure to update frequently enough.
All Task updates should be in English sentences and should clearly state:
Whenever you update a record, remember that the update is likely to be sent to the Customer in the form of an
automated email notification. Hence you should write it in the same way as you would write an email. Updates such
as “Investigating”, “Got it” and “Will do” are unacceptable and create a poor impression of our business.
The remainder of this section describes the Assure Service Desk approach to managing Tasks.
Regardless of the presentation method, underpinning each of these display mechanisms is a list of related Task
records. Most Queries will generally return a List of records.
This section provides an overview of the various techniques available to you when working with Task Lists.
We can see that there are 27 records in total and we are seeing the first twenty of them. You can turn to the next
page using the record controls at the top or bottom of the list.
Here we have grouped the list by Company Name after right-clicking on the Company field, and expanded the
Incidents relating to one of those companies.
If we want to filter OUT the Closed Incidents we can right-click on one of the "Closed" State fields and choose to
further reduce the record list to see only the 12 active Severity 1 Incidents.
The cookie-crumb trail can be "unwound" by clicking on the last query condition added (in this case the "State !="
Closed" condition).
You can also create more complex queries, using fields which are not even displayed in the record list as selection
criteria if you so wish. Click on the small triage to the left of the selection criteria and the following options appear:
As you can see, the ad hoc query capabilities are powerful – all stemming from a simple task record list.
To recall this Filter again in future, click on the down arrow next to the Incidents title (or Problem / Change if you
are managing those Task types) and select the Filter List. You will then be presented with any personally saved
Filters, plus a selection of globally pre-created Filters for the specific Task type. Simply select the desired Filter to
run that query.
In this section we will use the Incident record to provide an introduction to Task management. The principles
remain the same for Problem and Change records also.
„Task to Task
relationships
Right-Click Menu
A number of context-sensitive actions are available by right-clicking on the menu bar of the Task window. In the
screenshot, we see the options for an Incident record to include:
Copy the specific URL for this Task to the Windows clipboard
Option Buttons
The User Interface buttons displayed in the upper right hand corner of the Task window provide context-sensitive
options for progressing the Task record. Options such as
“Resolve”, “With Customer” and “Workaround” provide
methods for working requests through to an optimal resolution. In most cases the use of these buttons will result in
the system presenting a pop-up window requesting additional information.
Standard Icons
The icon bar, also positioned in the upper right hand corner of the Task window provides
options for: Adding Attachments; initiating the email client; paging Up or Down through record
lists; Collapsing / expanding all sections in the Task window.
Yellow fields signify changes that have not yet been saved
Watch Lists
Task records can optionally contain Watch Lists. The Watch List is a
list of people who will be informed of progress against this task record
by way of automated outbound email notifications. In essence, the
Watch List people will receive the same email notifications as the
original Requestor of the Task record. Using the smart-icons next to
Figure 22: Watch Lists
the Watch List field you can add yourself, other named users or
external email addresses as Watchers.
It is important to note that Work Notes should always be Figure 23: The Progress tab
considered customer-facing even though these are not
visible to the client through the self-service portal. Work Notes should never be used to record anything which may
be deemed unprofessional or critical of clients or colleagues. It should also be stressed that, whenever you add a
Work Note, you should also endeavour to add Additional Comments as this will ensure customers are kept
informed of progress. If you are adding a Work Note then you have attempted to progress the Task and hence an
Additional Comment entry should be feasible.
The audit trail can be manipulated to expand or contract the view using the icons in the top right
hand corner of the Activity list, or filter the types of records that are displayed by selecting the
chevrons beside the Activity label. You can then (de-)select the required audit trail entry types to be displayed.
Related Lists
At the bottom of the Task record you will find one or more Tabs showing related information – usually „child‟ records
for the Task itself. These related lists contain such entities as: Attachments, SLAs and Time Worked logs.
For example, you may decide to link a Problem record to the Incident(s) which it has been created to address.
Similarly, you may wish to link a Change record to the Problem records which it provides a permanent structural fix
or, or to any Incident records which are created as a result of the Change being implemented.
You link Tasks using the Related Items feature within the Task window
Click the + sign next to the Related Items header to present the Add/Remove relationship window.
You can undertake additional filtering of the results list if you wish.
In the left hand panel you will see a list of available relationship
Types available for this type of Task (i our example, an Incident).
Select the Relationship Type which you wish to create, select the
record which you wish to link to the current record in the right hand
panel and the click the Add button. The related record will now
display in the left hand window. Click “return” to submit the change.
The ability to add Time Worked to Tasks as you work on them will aid this process and should result in more
accurate time tracking and less time-consuming time entries at the end of each period.
To log time against any Incident you select the Time Worked tab at the bottom of the task Window and choose the
NEW button. Note: you can log time against any Task - it does not need to be assigned to you personally but you
are expected to record details of what you spent the time actually achieving.
You will then be presented with the time entry window where you
Figure 30: The Time Worked tab
must enter as much information as you can regarding your time
worked.
Reports are available within the Reporting sub-system which will assist you in entering time into Portera for the
reporting period.
Note: in the initial release of Assure Service Desk it is not mandated that all time worked is entered into the system.
At this point in time, this is an optional feature which Support Consultants can elect to use or not. You are still
required to enter your time into Portera as you have been previously.
In future phases we expect to mandate the use of this feature with Assure Service Desk, and allow Support
Consultants to enter aggregate time entries into Portera, rather than detailed granular time entries. This should
reduce the overhead of tracking time accurately.
Tagging Records
You can tag records that are of interest to you using the Assign Label function from within a Task record. In the
screenshot sequence below we tag an Incident as being of interest and see it appear in the “My Tagged Records”
list within the Application Menu Bar.
Any type of record can be tagged (Incidents, Problems, Changes, etc.). Clicking the record within the “My Tagged
Records” application group will hyperlink directly to that record. You can un-tag a record by clicking the large „X‟
next to it in the Application Menu Bar.
6 Incident Management
This section of the document describes the specific activities involved in managing Incidents within Assure Service
Desk. Incidents are a type of Task, so please ensure you review Section 5 “Working with Tasks” in conjunction with
the following information.
Incident Logging
Incident records can be raised by Customers or Hitachi Consulting employees. Hitachi Employees may raise
Incidents as a result of their normal daily operations or as a result of a HEMS (Hitachi Event Management System)
alert.
If a Hitachi employee raises an Incident on behalf of the customer, the Caller field should be set to “Hitachi
(customer)” for example “Hitachi (ACME)” to signify that this record has been created on behalf of the Customer
organisation by Hitachi.
It is important that an Incident record is created for every Incident BEFORE you start to work on resolving it –
regardless of whether the is inside working hours or outside normal hours. This ensures that we have a full audit
trail of the Incident, all stakeholders are informed of progress via automated notifications, and we are managing
against SLAs in real-time.
All incidents are initially assigned to the Service Desk queue. The Service Desk will normally assign these to the
relevant Support Group but it is also acceptable for Support Consultants to create Incidents and assign them to
their own Support Group in one action.
Incident Progression
The Incident record should always reflect the current status of the investigations, and should be updated on a
frequent basis in line with good Task management practice as defined in section 5.1 of this guide.
Section 0 provides an overview of the Incident Management process and the various States that an Incident
progresses through during its lifecycle.
At any point in its lifecycle an Incident record can be related to existing Problem / Change records, or can result in
a new Problem / Change record being created in order to address the root cause of the Incident.
Two-Stage Closure
In line with ITIL best practice, Assure Service Desk enforces two-stage closure of Incident records. The first stage
is when the Support Consultant (or the Customer in some circumstances) sets the State to “Resolved”.
The Incident will progress to the second stage “Closed” status either when the customer agrees that the Incident is
complete, or when the Incident has remained in a “Resolved” state for at least 10 working days. Only the Service
Desk team can set an Incident to a “Closed” state.
At any time when the Incident is in a “Resolved” state it may be un-resolved and will return to an “In Progress”
status should the customer be unsatisfied with the resolution actions.
Resolution Time SLA – the time between the Incident being logged and it being set to a Closed state
The SLA-clock is automatically paused at specific points within the Incident Management lifecycle namely:
Whenever the time of day is outside the core hours for the specific SLA. For example, if an SLA is operable
between the hours of 08:00 and 18:00 Monday to Friday, the clock will be paused outside of these hours.
Whenever the Incident is in one of the following States: With Customer; With Vendor; On-Hold; or Resolved.
The SLA which is applied to each Incident is based upon the contractual agreement which we have in place with
the client and can be influenced by any combination of the following attributes:
Customer Name
Incident Severity
You can see the progress of the SLAs within the related tasks section of the Incident Window.
In the example below we can see the two SLA targets for this Incident within our test system. The Response time
SLA (UK-SPO-P3-RESP-SAP) was achieved within 45 minutes and is showing in a green state. The resolution
time SLA however was not achieved and the SLA has breached after 3 hours of active elapsed time.
In addition to the Task window notifications, Assure Service Desk will send automated email notifications to the
relevant Support Team / Consultants as an Incident progresses toward the SLA breach time (at 50%, 75% and
100% of the way through the allocated time).
In addition, SLA Reports are available to highlight any Incidents in danger of breaching our contractual
commitments to the client.
7 Problem Management
This section of the document describes the specific activities involved in managing Problems within Assure Service
Desk. Problems are a type of Task, so please ensure you review Section 5 “Working with Tasks” in conjunction
with the following information.
Problem Logging
Only Hitachi Consulting employees can create new Problem records, as Problem Management is primarily an
internal support process. Customers do have full visibility of Problem records relating to their organisation, and can
update existing problem records should they so wish.
Problem Progression
Problem records will progress through a very simple lifecycle in accordance with the Problem Management
Process Flow defined within section 7.3 of this document.
Each problem record commences life in a “Diagnosing” state until such time as the root cause has been identified.
Once the root cause has been confirmed it moves to a “Known Error” state. Only when the Problem has been
addressed will it progress to a “Closed” state.
At any point in its lifecycle, a new Workaround can be added to the Problem record identifying how any further
recurrences of the issue can be addressed, prior to the permanent structural fix being introduced.
Permanent structural fixes will typically be introduced by way of a related Change Request record under the
Change Management process.
It is totally feasible for a Problem record to remain in a “Known Error” state indefinitely in cases where it is deemed
either uneconomical or technically unfeasible to address the root cause in the form of a permanent structural fix.
8 Change Management
This section of the document describes the specific activities involved in managing Change Request within Assure
Service Desk. Changes are a type of Task, so please ensure you review Section 5 “Working with Tasks” in
conjunction with the following information.
The processes underpinning Assure Service Desk have been designed with pragmatism in mind, coupled with an
acknowledgement that our services can be change-intensive. That said, we must balance this rate of change
against the real risk of changes being implemented incorrectly.
All permanent Changes to customer solutions must be managed under a Change Request record within the
Change Management process. All Change records should be managed in line with best-practice Task
Management as defined within section 5.1 of this document.
All Changes, no matter how urgent or apparently simple, must be peer reviewed by at least one other Support
Consultant prior to be being implemented.
Standard Changes
These different types of Change follow different workflow processes governing scoping, approvals and
implementation.
The specific differences are defined within the process flows in the next section of this document. The guiding
principles of this classification are described below:
Fast Track Changes should only be used to implement a Change which is to correct an issue which is causing -
or about to start causing - failures on a Production system AND the change cannot wait for the Standard change
process to be followed.
Fast Track Changes require a reduced level of approvals when compared with Standard Changes, although
they will be subject to post-implementation reviews by the SDM/CAM and must be peer-reviewed before
implementing.
Fast Track Changes do not follow a formal approvals Workflow within Service-Now, whereas Standard Changes
do.
Fast Track Changes can ONLY be created as a result of an Incident record (using the “Create Fast Track
Change” option on the context sensitive menu within an Incident record. They cannot be created outside of the
Incident Management process.
Standard Changes can be created through: the “Create Change” application menu choice, or through the
context menu within an Incident record.
All Changes will go through a Scoping state, regardless of their categorisation. During this stage, the Support
Consultant is expected to complete a „checklist‟ of questions to confirm they have considered all pertinent points –
and obtain a peer review - before progressing to the “Implementation” State.
Fast-Track Changes
Fast Track changes do not follow a workflow process as they are not subject to in-line workflow approvals and
scoping stages. The schematic below provides and overview of the business process to be followed for fast Track
changes.
Standard Changes
Standard Changes comply with the following process workflow.
9 Reports
Assure Service Desk includes a feature-rich and flexible reporting system. This works in concert with the query
sub-system which was described previously in section 5, “Working with Tasks”.
The Reports system comprises a number of pre-defined globally available reports coupled with the ability to define
personal and group-level custom reports.
Only privileged users (i.e. trained Service Desk personnel) are able to produce/amend globally available
reports. All such changes will be subject to Change Management.
Support Consultants are able to create / amend / schedule their own reports, but not publish these to a
broader audience
Where a report is only applicable to a specific territory (e.g.: US or UK) it should not be visible to people
outside of that territory.
Standard Record Lists should be agreed and maintained (e.g. Incident Record Lists will always contain
Incident ID, Company Name, etc.) wherever possible
Pie Chart – used to show the relative breakdown of a record set (e.g.: Active Incidents by Status).
Bar Chart (either vertical or horizontal) – used to show the actual number of records in a specific state (e.g.:
Active Incidents by Assigned Group)
Stacked Bar Chart (either vertical or horizontal) – used to show the actual number of records in a specific state,
with a further level of breakdown (e.g.: Active Incidents by Assigned Group, with further breakdown by Severity)
Line Chart – used to show trends over a period of time (e.g.: new Incidents raised per month). Line charts can
contain multiple lines (e.g. Incident Resolved by Team per Month)
It is permissible to include the record contents in a grid format below the chart where appropriate to do so, using
the standard grid option within the Assure Service Desk reporting sub-system.
The use of Pivot Table Reports in preference to Charts where applicable is also encouraged.
Global – the reports is available to all Support Consultants, and to Customers where the report is available
within their restricted Application Menu Bar
Personal – the report is available only to the currently logged-in Support Consultant
These different visibility levels can be seen within the screenshot below, which is accessible by selecting
“View/Run” from the Reports application menu bar option.
Personal Reports
Global Reports
Group Reports
In the example below, we have selected the “Active Incidents by Raised User” report. This particular report is
presented as a Pie Chart although a wide variety of presentation methods are available within the system.
Base Chart
Definition
Report Output
As well as creating Reports based upon existing reports, you can create a report from scratch using the “NEW”
option within the View / Run window.
Complete the required field. It is recommended that you test the report to your own account prior to sending to
other users.
10 Future Enhancements
This document contains an overview of the current deployment of Assure Service Desk. The system will be subject
to a continuous review and improvement / enhancement programme of works.
If you wish to request any changes or enhancements to the system please log these as a Standard Change
Request within Assure Service Desk, setting Hitachi Consulting as the Company, and Assure Service Desk as the
Business Service.
Full CMS functionality – the ability to create Configuration Items and associated structures which underpin the
current high-level Business Services. These will be accessible by Support Consultant‟s only and will further
enhance the level of knowledge and audit-ability within the system.
Automated Inbound email parsing – the ability to raise and respond to Tasks via email.
Knowledge Management – a document and knowledge management solution which may eventually superseded
the Client Gateways.
Integration into HEMS – bi-directional integration between Assure Service Desk and Hitachi Event Management
System.
Service Catalogue – the ability to request additional services (for example new Virtual Machines) through
Assure service desk using an Amazon-style ordering system.
Project Portfolio Management – the ability to manage Project activities (for example, major Change Requests,
service Transitions, etc.) through Assure Service Desk‟s project management sub-system.
11 Requesting Support
If you require support in your use of Assure Service Desk, the first port of call should e the supplied documentation
– including this guide.
Should you still require support please log an Incident within Assure Service Desk describing the issue which you
are facing. The Incident should be logged against the Hitachi Consulting Company, and the Assure Service Desk
Business Service.
Should you be unable to access the Assure Service Desk, please contact your local Service desk team who will be
able to assist you in either resolving the issue or logging an incident on your behalf.
Hitachi Consulting
2 More London Riverside
London
SE1 2AP
Hitachi Consulting
3rd Floor
Wing 2, Cluster C
MIDC Knowledge Park
Kharadi, Pune-411 014
India
Email: bmccabe@hitachiconsulting.com
Mobile: +44 (0) 7825 054211
Office: +44 (0) 161 240 0363
Fax: +44 (0) 161 240 0310
Change History
Distribution