News in SCSM12 (Beta) #7 – Connectors

Posted on 01/11/2011 by Marcel Zehner

To use Service Manager you first have to generate objects in the CMDB. To quickly fill the Configuration Database with lots of objects from good quality, SM12 offers different connectors. This concept is not new to SM12, but there are new functionalities and even two new connectors. This blog post will demonstrate how to configure and use connectors.

Continue reading →

Posted in SCSM | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 12 Comments

News in SCSM12 (Beta) #6 – Release Management

Posted on 31/10/2011 by Marcel Zehner

To support your company and your processes even better, SM12 now offers Release Management. Often to release a new build of a Software you have a corresponding Change Request. Therefore SM12 also offers a new activity called “Dependent Activity” that allows you to connect Change Requests with Release Records. Let’s see how this works.

Continue reading →

Posted in SCSM | 7 Comments

News in SCSM12 (Beta) #5 – Parent/Child Incidents

Posted on 30/10/2011 by Marcel Zehner

With SM12 it’s now possible to link multiple Incidents together. For that, a Parent Incident (or Master Incident) is created that then has relations to one or multiple Child Incidents. With SM10 this was only possible by linking multiple Incidents to Problem Records – which was not always a good way to go because the idea behind Problem Records is to find the root cause and to make sure you get less Incidents from this kind in the future.

Continue reading →

Posted in SCSM | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 12 Comments

News in SCSM12 (Beta) #4 – Enable Self Service for Service Requests

Posted on 29/10/2011 by Marcel Zehner

In my last blog post I talked about automating Service Requests with Service Manager 2012, and I also promised to show how to allow end users and other consumers to directly create new Service Requests from a Web Portal. This in indeed a huge step forward to unburden your Service Desk staff. Keep in mind that this procedure can be very complex and needs detailed planning. For a first look I will use a simple example how this can be done. More complex scenarios are planned for later.

Continue reading →

Posted in SCSM | Tagged , , , , , , , | 9 Comments

News in SCSM12 (Beta) #3 – Automation of Service Requests

Posted on 28/10/2011 by Marcel Zehner

In my last blog post I talked about the new Service Request Work Item type and how to use them. Service Requests are great, but it would be even cooler to automate the IT processes behind it. This is possible when you are using Service Manager 2012 together with System Center Orchestrator 2012. This product allows you to design runbooks to completely automate things. Those runbooks can be imported into Service Manager and then be used as “”Runbook Automation Activities” in Service Request Templates. This brings the automation of your infrastructure to the next level.

Continue reading →

Posted in SCSM, System Center (without SCSM) | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 11 Comments

News in SCSM12 (Beta) #2 – Service Requests

Posted on 28/10/2011 by Marcel Zehner

One cool new process that Service Manager now supports is Service Request Management/Fulfillment. In Service Manager 2010 you had to use Incidents or Change Requests to address Service Requests – or you built a complete new Work Item type from scratch. It’s much easier now as Service Request is a Work Item than comes out of the box and allows you to separate Requests for Service from Incidents and Changes.

Continue reading →

Posted in SCSM | Tagged , , , , , , | 15 Comments

News in SCSM12 (Beta) #1 – Service Level Objectives (SLO)

Posted on 27/10/2011 by Marcel Zehner

I’m very excited to present the first of many blog posts for the new version of Service Manager 2012!  The Beta is now public and I am now allowed to blog about all the great features that we all were waiting for! Let’s go …

With Service Manager 2012 it is possible to measure the efficiency of your Service Desk. Many companies want to know if Incidents or Service Requests are processed within the defined time frames (Service Levels). The new Service Level Management feature allows us to do that in very detail.

Continue reading →

Posted in SCSM | Tagged , , , , , | 33 Comments

Service Manager 2012 Beta is available!

Posted on 27/10/2011 by Marcel Zehner

We had to wait for a long time, but now the public Beta of Service Manager 2012 is finally available. Time to download and test all the great new features!

Download –> http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=27844

I will publish a bunch of SCSM12 blog posts during the next days/weeks. So stay tuned!

regards
Marcel

Posted in SCSM | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Speaker@Microsoft TechDays 2011

Posted on 04/10/2011 by Marcel Zehner

I was again hired to speak at Microsoft Switzerland largest Tech Event called “TechDays” – this time in my home town Bern/Switzerland. I’m proud to present four different Session in the Private Cloud Track together with my fellow colleagues from itnetx and Microsoft Switzerland.

  • Service Management with System Center Service Manager 2012
  • End-to-End Service Monitoring with System Center Operations Manager 2012
  • Runbook Automation with System Center Orchestrator 2012
  • Migration to System Center 2012

Check out the official website for more details –> http://www.techdays.ch. Feel free to drop me a mail at zehner at itnetx dot ch to meet for some live chatting on October 20th. Hope to see you there!

regards
Marcel

Posted in Events/Speaking | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

geekmania 2011 – the famous IT Pro Event in Switzerland

Posted on 06/09/2011 by Marcel Zehner

Finally we are back with our famous IT Pro Event geekmania that focusses on Microsoft Products and Technologies. So make sure you block November 25th 2011 and book trains, plains, cars etc. to travel to Zurich/Switzerland. But be warned: conference language is german!

Together with partners we present the latest technologies on the market, best practices to manage infrastructures and a lot of other interesting things. In our track called “Tales from the Cloud” we will present (together with Microsoft Switzerland) the complete System Center 2012 product wave as well as private and public cloud scenarios. Myself, I will talk about Service Manager 2012, Orchestrator 2012 and Operations Manager 2012 and how the integration of those products allows for self-service, automation and orchestration.

For more information visit the conference website.

Hope to meet you there
Marcel

Posted in Events/Speaking | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment