Request Fulfillment and LiveTime
The Service Desk, as the single point of contact for customer issues, often receives requests for new passwords, provisioning and purchases. These types of requests, known as Service Requests, tend to be numerous in nature and result in small changes to customer items which are low risk, low cost and have the potential to occur frequently.
A Service Request is the generic term that describes the numerous and varied demands placed on the service and support organization. Alternatively, they may simply be a customer asking for information. The lifecycle of a Service Request is managed by the Request Fulfilment process, as the scale, frequency and low-risk nature of these Requests make it preferable not to handle them within Incident or Change Management.
Request Fulfillment in LiveTime Service Manager allows the Service Desk to easily manage Service Requests by pre-selecting the Workflow, appropriately skilled support Technicians, service targets and escalation paths.
Managing Service Requests in LiveTime
Within LiveTime Service Manager, Service Requests are logged against Items in the Service Catalog and follow Workflows that ensure that each Request is handled with consistency. The Workflows define the actions required to correctly implement any changes to the Service and define the responsibilities, authorization and timescale expected to manage the changes that may result from a Service Request.
For minor changes, a Workflow is assigned to the Service Request and routed to an appropriate Technician based on Service Request Workflow State. After a Technician completes their assignment, the Request is forwarded to the next User based on the configuration of the next State, or closed if it is a request for information.
To cater for the diverse nature of Service Requests and for reporting purposes, LiveTime suggests a minimum of two Workflows for Request Fulfillment. One to handle requests for information and the other to manage simple changes. The Workflow used to manage simple changes can also have Approval States assigned to it, enabling Managers to approve any changes as required.
When Service Requests are raised for Configuration Item issues, LiveTime allows them to be easily associated with an Incident within the Analysis tab of the Request. Alternatively, if the Service Request results in a change to an Item that is not in the Service Catalog, a Change Request can be generated within the Service Request.
Service Portfolio Management (SPM) and LiveTime
The Service Portfolio details the commitments and investments made by a Service Provider to its customers and within the markets they service. It contains current contractual obligations, services under development and continuing service improvement programs.
The Portfolio represents all engaged resources and resources being released during the different phases of the Service Lifecycle. It includes the Service Pipeline that consists of services under development and the Service Catalog, which includes customer visible active services that have the potential to recover costs or earn profits for the Services provided.
Service Portfolio Management is a dynamic and ongoing process that covers the following stages in work practices:
- Define – list services, confirm business cases and verify portfolio data
- Analyze – maximize portfolio value, set priorities
- Approve – finalize portfolio proposal, authorize services and resources
- Charter – communicate decision and allocate resources.
LiveTime Service Manager 6.0 includes ITIL certified Service Portfolio Management, with Service Pipeline and Service Catalog functionality, as part of its base product. Combining the Service Item Lifecycle stored in the embedded CMDB, with assigned Service Level Agreements and service Teams, LiveTime enables organizations to manage their Service Offerings from strategy to design through to transition, operation and retirement.
Service Portfolio Management in LiveTime allows organizations to create Service Categories that include business-related attributes, such as business processes supported, business owners and business users. This ensures organizations record all relevant information against the Service.
Organizations can further optimize their Service Portfolio Management by tracking and reporting on Service Offering and Service Component usage, Service Level performance and costs. This includes the ability to calculate break-even points (B.E.P.) for a service, which allows support organizations to charge the appropriate cost for offering the service to their internal or external customers. This is achieved by recording of financial attributes against services, including service cost, service charges and service revenue.
LiveTime SPM capability also allows organizations to easily record the technical aspects of services such as applications used, IT Owners, supporting services, dependent services, SLAs and OLAs, Contracts and Agreements by defining Relationship Maps.
For further details regarding this functionality, please refer to the Service Portfolio Management link included in the Configuration Management section of the Service Manager User Guide.