Windows ITIL ® Processes
Richmond SupportDesk provides the ability to “mix and match” Windows ITIL ® processes to meet your specific requirements. For example your organisation might be considering implementing Incident Management or Problem management, but would not require Change management. In this scenario, Change Management would simply be disabled within the Richmond SupportDesk environment at the touch of a button. This type of approach to the ITIL framework also allows organisations to adopt a phased approach to ITIL ® by implementing only one process at a time.
All of the following ITIL ® processes are provided within Richmond SupportDesk.
Configuration Management Summary
The user interface is built around the Richmond SupportDesk Navigator which provides users with a visual representation of their infrastructure. This structure forms the CMDB (Configuration Management Database) for your organisation and this can be automatically populated from a number of existing sources including Microsoft Active Directory™, or any other existing OLE DB compliant data source.
Configuration Items (CI’s) can also be entered into the Navigator manually by means of user-definable style templates. These templates can be defined to represent any item within your infrastructure such a person, building, or computer.
Once populated, the Navigator forms the very foundation of the service desk environment and the introduction of other ITIL ® processes can begin.
Incident Management Summary
Richmond SupportMobile's incident management functionality is designed to facilitate the easy creation, tracking and closure of service desk incidents. Flexible and customisable templates allow service desk staff to create a range of different templates in order to ensure that the information captured at the point of logging an incident is both relevant and accurate for the type of issue being logged.
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Each incident can contain multiple associations (CI’s). This ensures that users can obtain a clear picture of exactly which CI’s are affected by a particular issue. Various alarms and notifications can be set at the point of logging so that all relevant parties are made aware of new incidents as they arise.
New incidents can be logged with the service desk from a variety of different sources including:
- Pocket PC / PDA
- Via the Internet
Once logged, new incidents are passed to the required support desk technician and additional functions like Problem or known Error matching can begin.
Problem Management Summary
The main goal of Problem Management is to identify the underlying cause of one or more incidents. These incidents may each be slightly different in nature; however it is the problem management team’s job to discover the root cause of these incidents in order to find a permanent resolution.
When a new incident is logged with problem management functionality enabled, Richmond SupportMobile will automatically attempt to match the incident to an existing problem.
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If no problems matching the specific requirements are found, users can opt to search for known errors instead. Known errors are basically problems for which there are workarounds available. Once linked to a known error; an incidents associated CI’s will automatically receive details of each available workaround by e-mail until a permanent resolution can be found.
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If no suitable problem or known error exists; users are given the option of flagging the new incident for the attention of the problem management team for review.
If they decide the incident is valid, then a new problem will be raised and the original incident will be automatically linked to the new problem record.
When the problem is finally resolved, or when a workaround becomes available, all associated CI’s will be automatically notified by e-mail; ensuring that all parties concerned are made aware of any developments from the service desk.
The problem management team is given access to the problem management console. This is where problems can be assessed and reviewed throughout their lifecycle.
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Change Management Summary
Change management provides a way to manage and control changes made to assets within your company infrastructure by controlling the way in which these changes are initiated, assessed, planned, scheduled and implemented.
Richmond SupportDesk’s change management functionality is very simple and straight-forward to use and a change record is referred to as an RFC (Request for Change). RFC’s can be raised against a number of different items within Richmond SupportDesk, which include:
- Inventory Items (CI’s)
- Incidents
- Problems
- Known Errors
Raising a new RFC is simply a case of locating the item you wish to raise it against and completing basic information as shown below:
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Once logged, an RFC is listed for approval. More often than not; this responsibility falls to members of the Change Advisory Board (CAB) and these users are required to vote for the RFC and can choose to accept of reject the change as required. The level of vote acceptance is customisable from the Richmond SupportDesk setup console.
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