Realize and Sustain the Value of Your Micro Focus Implementation

Transcription

1 White Paper Professional Services Realize and Sustain the Value of Your Micro Focus Implementation

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3 Micro Focus Professional Services provides Solution Management Services to help you fully utilize, manage, and maintain your unique, large-scale solution implementations, including custom tailoring and integrations, to realize the greater value of your investment and achieve expected business outcomes. Introduction As a Micro Focus customer, you know the importance of optimizing your software solutions to derive maximum value from your investment. This is especially critical as more mature solutions are typically tailored to your environment and include functional customizations and system integrations in addition to standard Micro Focus products. In some cases, the solution also includes components from different vendors and partners. We recognize the challenge of keeping internal staff continually trained and available to support these enterprise-class solutions. For these reasons, Professional Services offers Micro Focus Solution Management Services to operate, manage, and maintain your solutions in a holistic and highly proactive manner. These services focus not only on the technical health of your solution, but also on how well users are adopting the solution. Approach and Portfolio Overview Solution Management Services are offered in a flexible manner using a custom statement of work (SOW) that describes an outcome-based contract with fixed annual costs. The contract clearly defines the scope of solution components, the services, and service levels over a fixed term. Our consultants use repeatable methodologies to deliver these services, applying a cost-effective onsite/offsite delivery model. Solution Management Services work in conjunction with Micro Focus Support offerings to address and prevent product issues in your solution. At a minimum, Micro Focus Software Enterprise Support is a prerequisite for SMS. Advanced Support offerings, including Enterprise Priority and Premier Support, can additionally be leveraged for more advanced reactive and proactive product support services. SMS is composed of four disciplines (see Figure 1): Reactive Services assist you with incidents and problems, and provide break/fix support for the customtailored or third-party elements of the solution. Advisory Services provide you with guidance when you need it. Micro Focus assesses and helps you plan for regular solution updates, from patches to major new releases. We also evaluate solution adoption by assessing actual usage patterns to identify areas for improvement, including new functional enhancements, process changes, and end-user training. Operational Services help you to maintain, administer, and operate your solution on an ongoing basis. Enhancement Services help you to continually enhance your solution and respond quickly to lower-effort but highly important end-user requests. 1

4 White Paper Realize and Sustain the Value of Your Micro Focus Implementation Solution Management Services Reactive Services Single point of contact for incident and problem management across the entire solution Advisory Services Proactive guidance to prevent issues, prepare for updates, and identify areas for improvement Operational Services Out-task operational request fulfillment and ongoing maintenance to keep the solution healthy Continuously improve the solution through enhancements that increase value and adoption Figure 1. Solution Management Services Portfolio Micro Focus Support Foundation With Solution Management Services, you can retain an expert team that understands your integrated solution environment and is proactive in looking for ways to improve the value of the solution. Solution Management Services also help you realize long-term benefits such as: Value to the Business Drive higher user adoption of your solution investments Reduce resource constraints and free up internal IT staff for other initiatives or higher-value activities Gain predictability in IT spending for ongoing management of the solution via a services contract that defines expected outcomes and costs Achieve business benefits from automation and process efficiencies provided by your solution Enhanced Cost- and Staff-Efficiency Reduce the need for continual training to keep up with evolving software Manage the environment proactively with an expert team to reduce the total cost of ownership Plan changes more effectively by having timely access to knowledge about software changes Improved Service Quality Deliver consistent service levels to your customers through a trusted solution partner with wellestablished service levels Enable higher service quality with a team focused on your implementation of the solution Respond faster to end-user enhancement requests Risk Mitigation Reduce operational risk by leveraging solution experts who apply an IT management best practices approach Mitigate financial risk with predictability in IT spending Gain a single point of accountability to the health of your solution Reduce rework and unexpected downtime from patching 2

5 Reactive Services Reactive assistance for issues and problems with your solution implementation, including custom solution elements such as customer-specific integrations, customizations, and configuration settings. Feature Single point of contact for your incidents Coverage window Response time Description You can submit cases using either the same Micro Focus Support Online (SSO) as support or your service management system. Choose from 9x5 coverage during local business hours and business days, 9x5 coverage with 24x7 Standby response for Severity 1 issues, and 24x7 On-duty for round-the-clock coverage. Standard response time goals are provided as typical initial response times to support requests: Severity 24x7 On-duty 24x7 Standby 9x5 Severity 1 1 hour 2 hours 2 business hours Severity 2 4 hours 6 business hours 6 business hours Severity 3 6 hours 8 business hours 8 business hours Severity 4 1 day 1 business day 1 business day Escalation management Troubleshooting assistance Support of third-party product support Remote access Local business hours and local business days where indicated. Newly received cases will be assessed through discussion with the customer to confirm that they align with the severity levels described below. Micro Focus has established formal escalation procedures to effectively solve your complex software problems. Assistance to help you identify root causes that are difficult to reproduce. This is an optional service that can be considered for third-party products that are part of the solution. Based on the nature of the issue, Micro Focus may request a remote session to work interactively with you to remotely assist with problem diagnosis. Depending on scope, we may also require direct remote access to the supported solution using VPN or a similar alternative. We can work with you to discuss options and determine a suitable approach. Severity Level 1 Level 2 Level 3 Level 4 Definition Critical: Service outage The supported solution is completely unusable or inaccessible. The impact results in the total disruption of work or entirely prevents a business-critical action. No workaround is available. High: Major feature/function failure The supported solution is available but its use is severely restricted. A workaround may be available. Medium: Minor feature/function failure Solution does not operate as designed and is experiencing an issue that impacts system functionality. An acceptable workaround may exist. Low: Minor problem Includes but is not limited to minor issues, documentation, general information, and enhancement requests. 3

6 White Paper Realize and Sustain the Value of Your Micro Focus Implementation Advisory Services Advisory Services offer long-term stability and value of the entire solution by focusing on technical health, user adoption, and planning for continuous solution improvement. Feature Technical account management Periodic solution review Solution patch management Annual solution planning Description Provide leadership to the Solution Management Services team, focusing on the quality of service and proactive activities. Understand your business priorities and organization, and build working relationships with your team Assist the extended Solution Management Services team with work prioritization and problem analysis Facilitate solution reviews and collaborate with you to develop proactive plans to continuously improve and maintain the solution Manage and report on performance against service level objectives Serve as customer advocate within Micro Focus to drive the resolution of issues or escalations Periodic onsite solution reviews to: Identify operational risks as well as improvement and tuning opportunities Review solution usage patterns and opportunities to improve user adoption Provide advice and make recommendations for updates of solution components, configuration changes, process changes, training requirements, and so on Provide information on relevant product releases Analyze patches and provide installation recommendations Provide schedule guidance for consolidating patch installations to help minimize impact and outage Assist to analyze impacts as patches are validated in development and test environments Analysis and high-level planning for major changes to the solution. The following are examples of potential assessment areas: Assess impact of relevant new releases or target upgrades on custom solution elements such as custom-built integrations Identify infrastructure dependencies Assess organizational and functional changes such as training requirements and/or process changes Provide input into a rough order of magnitude and schedule as guidance for planning major changes across one or more recommended project phases The following items can be offered separately on a project basis and are not part of Solution Management Services: Requirements, design, testing, and deployment of significant solution changes (work effort typically greater than 40 hours) Detailed implementation planning, producing detailed task-level project plans Training of customer personnel on new solution 4

7 Operational Services Micro Focus provides you with qualified and experienced personnel to out-task activities required to maintain and operate the solution. The level of operational assistance can vary, from specific operational tasks performed by a small team working alongside your staff, to a more comprehensive set of activities involving a larger, more autonomous team. Representative operational tasks ranging from partial to complete responsibility include: System administration User management/user security administration Regular checks to verify system availability Report generation Routine tasks to operate the solution (for example, manual steps required in IT management automation) 5

8 White Paper Realize and Sustain the Value of Your Micro Focus Implementation Implementation of approved changes such as defect fixes, patches, or enhancements Maintenance of solution documentation Coaching of your operations staff Acting as the onsite interface to Micro Focus and/or third-party support Enhancement Services Get the most from your software investment. We know that your support challenges may vary according to the size and business-critical needs of your organization. Our experienced consultants work with you to provide services to enhance your solution. These include requirements, design, and testing of low-complexity enhancements, and documentation changes. Representative enhancements include: Process and workflow adjustments Report modifications Screen modifications adding fields/validations Low-complexity dashboard changes Additional data validation in custom interface Extending the monitoring environment or enhancing existing monitors Enhancement services allow you to more quickly respond to the stream of anticipated enhancement requests which in turn improve end-user satisfaction. Low-complexity enhancements are defined as those that take less than or are equal to 40 hours of effort to implement. Large-scale enhancements will require a change order or must be handled with a separate project. 6

9 Micro Focus Professional Services Get the most from your software investment. We know that your support challenges may vary according to the size and business-critical needs of your organization. Micro Focus Professional Services has more than 4,000 experts with knowledge spanning the entire Micro Focus IT Performance Suite. We deliver comprehensive services, from strategy and transformation consulting to implementation, education, support and Micro Focus Software-as-a-Service. Consulting Services Broad and deep consulting from high-end advice to solution implementation to help you deploy, measure and sustain an effective IT strategy or IT performance system. Software as a Service (SaaS) More than a decade leveraging Best Practices to lower costs, speed implementation and increase user adoption through the proven through successful delivery of award-winning Micro Focus software via the Cloud. 7

10 White Paper Realize and Sustain the Value of Your Micro Focus Implementation Education Services Flexible training delivery options tailored to your needs to maximize investments, accelerate adoption and increase user productivity. Support Direct access to Micro Focus experts, trustworthy advice, problem diagnosis and resolution, and defect identification delivered online, with 9x5 or 24x7 support or our Business Support services. Conclusion Five reasons to order Solution Management Services today: Simplify your overall solution management experience with a single point of accountability. Increase cost predictability with defined service level objectives. Reduce the risk of service disruption through personalized and proactive support and planning. Enhance your staff productivity, shifting focus from day-to-day maintenance to innovation. Overcome internal resource constraints. Learn More At 8

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12 Additional contact information and office locations: AA H 05/ Micro Focus. All rights reserved. Micro Focus and the Micro Focus logo, among others, are trademarks or registered trademarks of Micro Focus or its subsidiaries or affiliated companies in the United Kingdom, United States and other countries. All other marks are the property of their respective owners.