Monthly Archives: March 2013

Colours

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We’ve had Steve, our third consultant from LANDesk, with us for a week and a half now and in that time we’ve made really good progress with configuring the system.

So far, Steve has been doing the bulk of the work whilst Lisa, Dawn and I have been helping out and trying to learn from him (whenever we get time away from MIRs and software licensing issues). This dynamic will change over the next few weeks; we will be completing the config work ourselves.

We’ve been well supported by ISG, who have helped out with server access and database backups. Thanks for all your help (so far).

We had a significant moment in the project this morning when we moved from the OOB colour scheme to using the ISS palette, kindly provided by Jo. As everyone knows, with any new IT system, the colours are the most important thing.

Dates for the diary

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Some planned dates that may be of interest:

  1. Phase 1 – Incident and Service Request management (for existing users of Service Center only)
    • Build completion – 19th April
    • UAT – 22nd April – 10th May
    • Live – 14th May
  2. Phase 2 – Self-service and Knowledgebase
    • Build completion – 12th July
    • UAT – 15th July – 9th August
    • Live – 12th August

Note: In phase 2 we will also be configuring the Change Management module for ISS to be released later in 2013

 

Why are we replacing Service Center?

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I realised when I was reviewing this blog that we’d made an assumption that everyone coming to the site would know what the project was all about.  This piece is intended to give an idea of what the project is, and how it came about.

When Service Center was first implemented the requirements for system funtionality were quite different to what we need today.  The system was configured and then subsequently heavily customised to meet the needs as they were interpreted at the time.  Over the past 2 years, the system has been quite limiting in it’s ability to support our move towards a more controlled but transparent way of working.

The real deciding factor came about when HP announced that our version of Service Center was out of support.  We’d need to upgrade to remain with HP, and this meant re-working the customisations in a newer version of the product – a costly exercise.  We decided that if we were to do that, we may as well seek to replace the system with one that would support our emerging processes and give us a platform on which to build for the future.

We decided to plan to configure, not customise.  That meant that we would need to be flexible about our processes, and bend the process to fit the solution wherever possible, not the other way around. 

We went out to tender in August 2012, and with support from our group of stakeholders, procured the system we thought would represent best value for money as well as having the flexibility we need to allow us to move forward.

First steps of the system build

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This week we’re working on the design of the main Incident logging process and associated screens.  This involved a one-day workshop with Pete, our LANDesk design consultant, to work out what we need, then Pete built a prototype for us to review – this was our first look at our new system – a milestone moment!

We now need to review the design document and then next week the full build of the process will be done.

 

Bootcamp Training

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Last week, Dawn, Lisa, Sharon and I attended a week-long system administrator’s ‘bootcamp’ training course. Colin, our trainer from LANDesk, was a very pleasant chap which helped make the week enjoyable as well as informative (especially with his creative use of the English language, although he was not alone in this).

From my perspective, it was really good to have this dedicated time away from the office where we could start to become familiar with the system without interruptions. Having Colin on-site with us to be able to answer our myriad questions was extremely beneficial (and I’m very grateful for his patience!).

I think it’s fair to say that different parts of the course held more interest for some people than others but, overall, I think we’ve got a good balance within the team and we’ve just about got all the bases covered.

By the end of the week we were exhausted and a little awestruck by the potential now offered to us (we’re going to have to be very careful to control the scope of the project) but, for me, the overwhelming feeling was eagerness.

Roll on next week when we can start to get stuck in!