Clients that I work with have been using Ivanti Service Manager for many years. As we journey through some of the first items, we address how they get their work, how they process the work and where they feel their current process are lacking. Quite often it comes down to customers building out their systems in a way that Ivanti Service Manager was not designed to function. That does not mean what they built is necessarily wrong, but they may be overlooking some key features that come with Ivanti Service Manager right out the gate. Here are three of the most overlooked functions within the Change workspace.
- The PIR Form – The PIR (Post Implementation Review) form is nearly always overlooked when working with customers that use Change Management within Ivanti Service Manager. The purpose of the form is to document the result of the Change, give a brief synopsis and steps to avoid or remember for future changes. Most try to cram all this information on the Details tab in Change, not knowing that this form even exists. The Child Tab for the Post Implementation Review form appears when the Status of the change is set to “Implemented” out of the box.
- Risk Level – Risk Level assessment is something larger companies use quite frequently, but the smaller shops that use Change tend to pass on because they don’t really see the benefit. They are missing out on crucial information prior to a Change being implemented by making sure that all questions and concerns are documented and accounted. Regardless of the size of your shop, it’s important to always have a clear picture of the impact your change is going to make to the infrastructure. Out of the box you have a few simple questions such as, “What percentage of Users will be impacted?” and “Is this change happening during production hours?”. Simple questions that when calculated give a score to review and figure out if that risk is acceptable. Tip: All questions and the weights of those questions can be customized to your company’s needs.
- Templates – Just as with Incident, Templates within Change lay information on top of a blank Change record. For any field on the Change, we can prepopulate information that is specific type of change being performed. This is very useful for frequent changes, such as server boots or applying Windows updates. Your System Administrator will thank you for not having to enter the same information every month.
These are just a few of the items I see customers underutilizing in Ivanti Service Manager. Reach out to Dataseti and we can quickly get you on the right track and help you harness the power of Ivanti Service Manager, and anything else ITSM related!