Perfect Service. Testing: Landesk Service Desk 7.6. Dr. Götz Güttich

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1 Testing: Landesk Service Desk 7.6 Perfect Service Dr. Götz Güttich With Service Desk 7.6, LANDesk delivers a powerful IT service management solution for IT service providers and support organizations. The fully process driven product is fairly easy to configure and can be customized in a very flexible way to meet the requirements of the respective client environment. Service Desk 7.6 is available as an on premise solution for installation and as a service via the cloud. In our test, we have taken a closer look at the installable program option. LANDesk Service Desk 7.6 includes several components. First of all, there is the console for executing administrative tasks, such as database maintenance and process design. Web Desk, by contrast, serves as the interface for analysts, i. e. the personnel dealing with support requests. Self Service finally, is the interface used for communicating with end users who submit their inquiries and requests and receive responses. Mobile Self Service is one of the highlights of LANDesk Service Desk 7.6. Its touch optimized interface allows end users to utilize almost all of the functionality of the Self Service interface via a smart phone or tablet PC. LANDesk thus makes anywhere access a reality, giving users access to the service management application, regardless of their current location. That way, they receive information related to the services they used no matter where they are, and they can always report problems, submit requests, view FAQs and notes, etc. The option to access tips and FAQs contributes significantly to users helping themselves: Users can often find the answers to their problems themselves, thus reducing the workload for the IT service department. The Self Service Portal can be accessed via a browser hence there is no need to install additional software on the endpoint device. The support for multilingual ITSM (IT Service Management) is also of interest. It enables a seamless service management across various languages and allows for implementing a global business environment, where analysts may be located anywhere around the world. Multilingual ITSM lets administrators create content in one language and distribute it in many languages, so that all of the personnel always receive their 1 information in their own language. Apart from this, Service Desk 7.6 is ITIL v3 certified and with its verification for 15 processes, it has achieved the highest PinkVERIFY status according to Pink Elephant's ITIL v3 software certification scheme. The System In addition to the above mentioned features, LANDesk Service Desk 7.6, of course, also offers functionality for managing ITIL processes, such as incidents (network events), problems, and changes. Changes refer to changes in the IT environment, e.g. server updates or infrastructure related projects. The product also includes tools

2 for managing knowledge base entries and integrates with desktop and network management tools. The majority of the features are offered for several platforms, like mobile devices and Windows desktops. Since all activities are carried out by an integrated, flexible process engine, the system features a single, unified component Microsoft SQL Server 2005 with Service Pack 2, SQL Server 2008, or SQL Server 2008 R2, or Oracle 11g, 11g R1, and 11g R2. Add to this LANDesk Service Desk Web Server and LANDesk Service Desk Application Services Server. These require Windows Installer 3.1, MDAC 2.8 Service Pack 1, and IIS 6 or 7. Operating systems that can be Users can use the Self Service page to stay up to date on their requests, to solve problems and create incidents, anytime handing all process steps. The process engine also allows for integrating the service desk solution into other products, for example, to visualize service disruption reports via Google Maps, or to view data in Sharepoint or other web based applications, or to create workflows. The Test In this test, we used the Service Desk environment on a computer with a 2.4 gigahertz dual core processor and Windows Server 2008 R2. Memory size was 4 gigabyte, and the hard drive had a capacity of 40 gigabyte. The environment operates with three different services which can be distributed on several servers. Service number one is the database. It can run under used are: Windows Server 2003 with Service Pack 2 up to Windows Server 2008 R2, either the 64 bit version (if available), or the 32 bit version. The Service Desk console can also be used on client systems. For this, administrators need workstations with Windows XP Service Pack 3, Windows Vista, or Windows 7, again the 32 bit or the 64 bit version. Service Desk officially supports the following browsers: Internet Explorer 7 to 9, Firefox 8, Safari 5, Chrome 15, as well as the mobile browsers of Android, Blackberry and ios. To be able to test all of the solution's features, the manufacturer provided us with a demo environment which was 2 already populated with personnel data, incidents, and other information. During the testing, we created new incidents and changes, checked the process flow, added data, and examined the work flow in this environment, both from an end user's perspective and from a help desk analyst's perspective. In addition, we carefully examined all of the product's features, including the system's underlying process management. Since the solution can be freely configured, i.e. it can easily be adapted to the requirements of the individual organization, a LANDesk Service Desk environment does not need to display the same characteristics as those described in this test. The interface, as we used it, corresponded to the manufacturer's default settings, and this will be broadly consistent with what the majority of customers will be using. Service Desk from an end user's perspective When end users log in to the Self Service Portal with their account credentials using a browser, they can immediately access a variety of information via various dashboards and gadgets. The access rights for these components can be set up based on the user accounts, allowing administrators to ensure that all users can only view information that is directly relevant to them. The first item on the Self Service page is called Support Me and offers an overview over currently active incidents, problems, services and news. This is also the page, on which users submit new requests. To do so, they just need to switch to the corresponding topic area under

3 Help Me ( General Support, Issue, Printer out of Toner, Password Reset, or Ask a Question ) and describe the problem there. An entry consists of a summary providing an overview, the details, the category in which it should be entered (Desktop, Software, Hardware, Infrastructure, etc.), the urgency (High, Medium, Low), as well as information like the date, the owner, or similar. You can add notes and attachments to each entry. When the user has entered all of the required information, he can submit the request. In return, the system will send back a number under which the request will be processed. The number will also be displayed on the overview page under My Support. IT managers can make software programs, hardware, data and services (e.g. VPN access, etc.) available via Service Catalogue. There is also the option to request new user accounts though this channel, for example, in Active Directory. All of the components listed in the catalog can be placed into a virtual shopping cart (just like in an online shop) and ordered. The transaction is then assigned to a manager for approval before fulfillment. Besides the object itself, an order also includes the interested party with contact information, the person who requested the particular component, the date, and, as needed, a reason or description of the request, as well as an indication of its importance and urgency. Requests or orders submitted via Service Catalogue are handled as processes in the same way as any other request in the Service Desk environment. Another important area of the Self Service Portal is its FAQ collection. Here, administrators can post instructions for solving regularly occurring IT problems, thus enabling the users to address their everyday issues and known problems on their own. Links can be added to the FAQs to guide users to additional information. The How We're Doing tab offers users information on the IT support itself. This includes notifications about active incidents (e.g. a mail server is down), the number of incidents reported by category, the customer satisfaction (according to the latest surveys in the organization), and the service level performance. The later is very important in environments, where Service Level Agreement (SLAs) are tracked using the Service Desk software. LANDesk offers three types of agreements to monitor defined support levels. In addition to the traditional SLAs, the solution also offers support for Operational Level Agreements (OLAs) and Underpinning Contracts (UCs). SLAs are the agreements between end users and the service desk, and Operational Level Agreements (OLAs) are agreements between the service desk and other internal groups involved in providing support. UCs are agreements between the IT department and any external suppliers. The LANDesk product hence provides full support for the use of service levels. The last area of the Self Service Portal is called Question Forum. This is a discussion forum, where users can ask questions and answer questions or exchange information. All 3 questions and statements submitted here will also be treated as processes by the system, and besides dates and statuses (Not Answered, Answered) also include a discussion history A search feature covering all of the portal contents completes the range of features of the user interface. Web Desk After we used the Service Catalogue in the first step to create a few requests and orders via the Self Service Portal, we turned to Web Desk, the analyst's tool, to check how the system can be used from an IT staff perspective. Once the analyst has logged in, an overview page with information on currently active incidents and similar information is displayed. This portal can also be customized to fulfill the requirements of the corresponding organization. Therefore, we would like to point out once more, that the interface that we present here is the default as defined by LANDesk. The left side of the Web Desk window offers several tabs which allow the user to switch between different topic areas. Besides the Service Desk Overview, there are also entries for Problem Management, Change Management, Request Management, Knowledge Management, HR Management (i.e. management of human resources), and for Administration. Depending on the active tab, those responsible for IT are always only presented with the information pertaining to the corresponding topic area which greatly improves the user friendliness.

4 Once the analyst switches to the Problem Management tab, he can view a list of the existing requests. This list includes the ID, the name of the person filing the original request, the date and category, plus, among other information, the current status, for example In Progress, With Customer, or Closed. Each individual entry can be opened with a single mouse click and edited. The dialog for IT staff is significantly larger than the one for users, and there are a lot of additional options available for the help desk staff to process an entry. For example, they can flag an incident as Security Incident, or also assign a response level to it. Furthermore, they can search the internal knowledge base and Wikipedia for answers to the questions asked in the entry, start a remote desktop session and open a command prompt. They can also view or edit the attachments, notes, etc. linked to the corresponding entry. A history log of all changes made to an entry during its lifecycle (for example, the addition of an attachment), as well as various actions, are part of the features Web Desk offers. The actions include Close, Place On Hold, Resolve, or also Add Attachment, Add Problem, Add Task, Take Ownership, and much more. The entries included in the Action pane are separated by a line. Above the line, there are actions that will change the status of an entry. The actions below the line can be used to add additional information to the entry. All of the actions interact directly with the Service Desk processes. Orders placed via Service Catalogue are processed in a similar way. If analysts use the above mentioned tabs to switch to Request Management, they will find a list of all current requests. Here, they can again view attachments and notes, if there are any, and check out the request history. Actions are set up just the same way as incidents. Again, there is a dividing line between actions that will change the status of a request ( Authorize, Reject ) and actions that will add information to the request ( Add Note, Add Attachment ). versions of the Self Service and Web Desk interfaces. We used smart phones and tablets with Android and ios for this purpose, and there were no problems. A notably positive aspect in this context is the fact that mobile Web Desk offers the exact same range of features as the regular browser interface. Analysts can thus access all of the features provided by the systems even when on the move. Likewise with Self Service, however, the mobile version is missing some functionality, for example Service Catalogue. In our test, we only approved one of the orders (in our example, Back to the practical aspects. Incidents can be upgraded to Major Incidents. Not only are these then highlighted in the Self Service Overview, but analysts can also add additional users affected. This makes sense, since the analysts assigned can thus easily see who is affected by the incident. Besides, major incidents are not exclusively shown in the Self Service Overview of affected user, but rather for each and every user. This makes sense, too, since it is possible that a user who was not classified as an Affected User by those responsible for IT, might actually be affected by the problem. Since he can view the incident entry as well, the LANDesk solution helps to avoid the creation of a superfluous duplicate incident for the same topic. In this case, all he needs to do is to indicate that he is affected as well. The Mobile Self Service page this was a Windows Phone), and we used Problem Management to send a solution to a reported incident. When we then logged in again to the Self Service Portal, we noticed that the changes immediately appeared in the end user overview, as expected. So, the process engine ensures immediate updates. At this point, we also checked out the mobile 4 The Service Desk Console As already mentioned, working with entries is process driven. All of the processes needed are created, edited, and managed using the Service Desk Console. The Service Desk Console is a

5 Windows application. It includes a large number of pre built default processes which can be used as the basis for new processes and extended, as needed. Processes not only describe how an incident, problem, or contribution to a comprising individual steps, but they rather also include branches (to map alternate problem solution options or root causes) and functions which will revert the direction of work, for example, if a solved problem is re opened. Web Desk provides a huge variety of information to help desk staff discussion is handled, they can also automatically advance processing in the business operation, for example, by assigning an incident to a specific person. Consequently, a process comprises statuses, user entries, and automatic actions. For example, if an incident has a status Open, the persons responsible can perform various user actions. These include closing the process, adding information, or assigning the entry to another analyst. If an administrator wants to add a new action to a process (e.g. to add notes) he can use the Process Designer within the Service Desk console. Processes are displayed as charts in Process Designer to visualize how the individual steps of the processes are to be handled. Since processes may take on any degree of complexity, most of them are not just a linear line To add a step, you just need to drag and drop the corresponding element from the toolbox onto the workspace. As soon as the new entry is placed in the right location of the process diagram, a dialog opens where the analyst can enter the parameters needed by the system to properly use the component. For example, if the relevant person wants to assign the incident to a specific user group for further processing and the assignment tool is placed accordingly, he needs to indicate the user group which will be the recipient of the assignment, whether the parties involved should receive an notification, and so on. To finish up the addition of the step, all that remains to be done is to rearrange the process flow by clicking the individual elements that link the tools and then save the changes. After that, the element is processed each time the process runs. Thus, there are 5 no programming steps required, and the functionality for editing and modifying the processes in an integral part of the Service Desk range of features supported by LANDesk. Action chains can be created in similar manner. For example, if a request is Open and the analyst responsible adds data to it, then the process can be designed to display additional actions (not available until then) after the information was added. For example, if analysts start with the problem diagnosis and enter a potential cause for the problem, they can indicate in the next step, whether this is a known or unknown error. Know errors will then be entered into the knowledge base and can be referenced as information for other problems. The fault handling shown here will only become evident in the form of possible actions, when process execution has reached the corresponding process step. Therefore, there is a direct connection between the setup of a process and the appearance of the corresponding user interfaces. Not only can processes be used to define the structure of the management steps, they can also be used to define the rights of the individual users to carry out or view certain process steps. Within the processes, those responsible for support are thus able to combine a multitude of different steps, to add changes to the processing of an entry, and, as needed, to design the individual steps so that they require approval by individual employees. There are therefore no limitations when it comes to

6 mapping the steps needed within the software. they can be abstract items, such as problems or settings. A few additional words on the known errors mentioned before: If an administrator adds such an error to the knowledge base, he can not only define a type, add a description and a resolution, but he can also define an expiration date. Once the knowledge base article reaches this date, it will automatically be deleted from the knowledge base and resubmitted to the analysts for review. This is very effective, since LANDesk is thus avoiding inactive records from remaining in the knowledge base. The knowledge base is, by the way, KCS (Knowledge Centered Support) certified and all of the articles included can be rated by the readers at any time. The Object Designer is used to expand and add to the Service Desk database, or to edit it. LANDesk offers a large number of predefined objects that are categorized in groups for the sake of clarity, e.g. Asset Management, Human Resources, Incident Management, Knowledge Management, Lifecycle, and System. All of the objects themselves contain attributes for a workstation object, these might be entries for the computer ID, Change Management is also based upon processes. In contrast to Problem Management, it was originally not intended to be used for handling user problems, as we already mentioned, but rather for managing administrative IT tasks, such as upgrades, modifications and repairs. It can be used, for example, to define scheduled downtimes beforehand. With changes, there is also the option to add problems and edit them, just as with user requests. The console is also used to modify objects or create new objects. These objects are the building blocks of Service Desk. They represent components of the IT environment, and the responsible analysts can model and depict them within the LANDesk environment and thus work with them. Service Desk objects can be physical items, such as users or computers, or provide support for working with objects and attributes and simplify everyday use of Service Desk significantly. They assist the user with steps like adding attributes to objects, defining access privileges, and specifying the data type. Objects are populated with data using actions, and object linking is achieved though drag and drop. An interesting way to use the objects is impact analysis. It allows analysts to define dependencies between objects. They have the option to visualize the impact of a component failure The Service Desk console's dashboard model, operating system, disk size, and similar. The individual attributes contain the so called properties, like description, data type, and so on. The attributes associated with the object can also be combined and linked several times. This makes it possible, for example, to link several documents to one incident. Powerful wizards 6 (e.g. a server down) on the rest of the network and the associated services. Apart from Process Designer, Object Designer and Knowledge Management, the console offers several other features for administration. These include an extensive dashboard which provides the relevant persons with information on the status of

7 their environment, at any time. Also worth mentioning: Query and Report Designer which is used to create queries and reports. Reports can be created with drag and drop as well. designed accordingly. The same is true for resolving a problem. The relevant end user is immediately notified, when the analyst tags his message as Resolved. Using the Service Process Designer helps the relevant person with editing and modifying existing processes To increase the security level of the solution, each element of the console can be hidden or shown, or only be made available for specific users and groups. That way, you can make only those features accessible to the relevant persons that they will need to complete their specific tasks. alerts LANDesk Service Desk offers a powerful notification feature to ensure that users and those responsible for IT are always informed whenever the status of their requests changes, without having to log in to the service portal. If an incident is assigned to a specific help desk staff member, then he receives an with a corresponding notification, if the process was Desk solution, unnecessary delays can most likely be excluded. Conclusion LANDesk Service Desk 7.6 made a very good impression when tested. The solution does not only offer a very attractive range of features, it can also be customized in a very flexible way to meet the requirements of the respective organization. In this respect, we want to particularly highlight the fact that this customization is virtually always possible without additional programming effort. Processes can be modified by simple drag and drop operations with icons, and the workspaces are dynamically adapted to the 7 structure of the process. Working with the objects is also a very flexible process. Due to this flexibility, those responsible for IT can quickly integrate the solution into their environment. The product does not only offer help desk functionality, but also a seamlessly integrated knowledge base and a service catalog for customer requests which left a particularly favorable impression. These functionalities were not bought from third party vendors and subsequently integrated into the system, but they were integral parts of the solution's range of features from the very beginning a seamless integration which is well noticeable during operation. Also positive: The processes standardized by using Process Designer ensure that compliance requirements are met, updates are completed quickly, and workflows stay efficient. The ability to partially automate the workflow and use templates makes working with the system really easy. Furthermore, it is worth mentioning that all information can be categorized and prioritized according to the importance and urgency. LANDesk Service Desk also allows for an easy implementation of Service Level Management, and the mobile interfaces made an excellent impression during testing. Thus, the product is very well suited for environments where a wide range of features is as important as meeting compliance requirements, and the possibility to manage a high number of users. Providers as well as IT experts from organizations should definitely take a look at this solution.