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ServiceNow - Dependent Variables on Record Producer in Service Catalog

A helpful guide on creating dependent variables in the Service Catalog with a Record Producer.

by Scott Poling Sep 9, 2019

Updating the anonymous chat record producer in ServiceNow

Anonymous chat is a useful feature especially in Customer Service Management scenarios. When an anonymous chat is requested by a user they are presented with a custom record producer to gather initial information. This post will review how to update that record producer and things to consider if you wish to do so.

by John Hennen Feb 18, 2019

Fix Transport Service Errors on a Fresh Installation of Exchange 2016

Recently, I was building out an Exchange 2016 environment for a customer to replace their Exchange 2010 installation. The new environment consisted of four Exchange 2016 Mailbox servers and two Edge Transport servers. I came across an interesting error on all of the new servers upon testing the server configuration.

by Tyler Plesetz Nov 27, 2017

What is a Service?

Let's talk about Services from the perspective of ITIL!

by Nick Adams Dec 15, 2016

Dynamics CRM Project vs Field Service: What's right for me?

The Project Service Automation and Field Service solutions available in Dynamics CRM provide a whole host of new features, but how do you decide which one is best for your business?

by Dan Fink Jun 22, 2016

Dynamics CRM Field Service Mobile App: Resco No More

Microsoft has published a Field Service Mobile app, allowing customers using Field Service to move away from the previously required 3rd-party Resco mobile client and the managed solutions required for Resco and FieldOne.

by Dan Fink Jun 17, 2016

Dynamics CRM Project Service Automation: Completing the CRM Story

Microsoft's Project Service Automation capabilities are completing the Dynamics CRM story by bridging the gap from Sales to Service by showing great solutions don't just come from ISVs.

by Dan Fink Jun 10, 2016

Modern IT Management Event

You're invited to the Modern IT Management Event — a business strategy event where our experts will provide real world examples and guidance on how to best enable your IT department to drive your business strategies.

by Kim Claditis Mar 22, 2016

Dynamics CRM and ITSM Joining Forces

Dynamics CRM and ITSM joining forces thanks to Provance and AlfaPeople

by Dan Fink Feb 1, 2016

Overview of Azure App Services

Before I can tell you about Azure’s new App Services, first let’s take a step back and look at the history of Platform as a Service (PaaS) on Azure, which is Cloud Services.

by Tim Gabrhel Nov 7, 2015

Predicting Future Incident Counts - Use Regression Analysis!

Predict incident counts before they happen! This describes a powerful approach for forecasting what incident volumes may look like in the future. The approach is very effective at showing a business case that gets executives and management on board to fund improvement initiatives for better service. Presented here is a step by step Regression Analysis approach that uses past incident volumes to model future incident volumes using an actual scenario from a very large IT organization.

by Randy Steinberg May 12, 2021

Service Management In The Executive Suite – Part 1

Many IT organizations have yet to recognize that the traditional IT operating model of delivering IT to the business in the form of bundled capabilities and assets is now wearing thin in an age of cloud computing, on-demand services, virtualization, outsourcing and rapidly changing business delivery strategies. While there is great value in establishing processes, tools and organization responsibilities for Service Management, there is tremendous opportunity for providing much more value at the senior leadership level. This is Part 1 of a series that describes a practical 5-step approach that IT organizations can use to quickly align themselves with the business by grasping their IT services, creating business cost transparency and establishing service strategies.

by Randy Steinberg May 17, 2021

Service Management In The Executive Suite – Part 3

This is part 3 of a running series on how to pull together key service management activities to support executive business decision making. Part 1 provided an overview of a 5-Step approach for pulling together actions and data for executive decisions. Part 2 addressed how to identify company services. Part 3 now takes a look at a very critical piece to identify the underlying assets, or “bill of materials” that support each of those services. This discusses the concepts of service discovery and mapping.

by Randy Steinberg May 21, 2021

Re-Thinking the Service Desk – From Call Taking To Strategic Service Delivery Center

The Service Desk has been traditionally viewed as the IT organization that helps employees of a company with the computer related problems. It has generally been accepted as the primary customer interface and touchpoint where people can get help with IT issues, problems and requests. This is a very limited view of what the Service Desk can be. In fact, the Service Desk is the only organization within IT positioned to be the strategic service management nerve center across the entire IT enterprise.

by Randy Steinberg May 7, 2021

Metrics That Matter – A Model For IT Decision Making

Many IT organizations mistakenly start their IT metrics efforts by looking at their monitoring and reporting tools and then backing into the metrics that those tools provide. Improvement focus then becomes limited to the tool sets available versus what is really critical to success. We’ve also seen the monthly IT service reports or web portal that few look at. They are frequently ignored because the metrics in them have little meaning or significance for the audience viewing them. There is opportunity to provide value to IT leadership by giving them the visibility to make timely accurate decisions using a metrics model that supports decision making.

by Randy Steinberg May 6, 2021

Service Management In The Executive Suite – Part 4

This is part 4 of a running series on how to pull together key service management activities to support executive business decision making. Part 1 provided an overview of a 5-Step approach for pulling together actions and data for executive decisions. Part 2 addressed how to identify company services. Part 3 looked at how to apply service discovery and mapping, or “bill of materials” that support each of those services. Here in Part 4, we will look at how to translate all this into service costs and unit costs. The outcomes of this effort are where executive leadership can see transparency in how their IT investments are being applied to support decision making and IT strategy.

by Randy Steinberg May 24, 2021

High Velocity Service Management – Getting Lean With A Framework For Finding Waste

IT operates with a lot of inefficiencies. Presented here is a Lean framework to find out where these may exist in your organization. Use this framework to identify your efficiency opportunities and projects to address them. By tackling them in sprints or chunks of time you can greatly improve the efficiency of your operations and proactively move the ball towards high velocity ITSM.

by Randy Steinberg May 5, 2021

Service Management In The Executive Suite – Part 5

This is part 5 of a running series on how to pull together key service management activities to support executive business decision making. Part 1 provided an overview of a 5-Step approach for pulling together actions and data for executive decisions. Part 2 addressed how to identify company services. Part 3 looked at how to apply service discovery and mapping, or “bill of materials” that support each of those services. In Part 4, we saw how to translate all this into service costs and unit costs. Here in Part 5 we’ll take a look at what to do with the information gleaned in the first 4 parts to develop a target IT strategy.

by Randy Steinberg May 26, 2021

Service Management In The Executive Suite – Part 2

As the 2nd Part in this series, we continue with the 5-Step approach first outlined in Part 1. This approach leverages Services Thinking. It allows for sound business concepts that can be leveraged to change the dynamic for how IT manages itself and works with the business. In Part 2, we will examine how to build a portfolio of all current IT services used to support the business. This is not as simple as it sounds. Business people understand services from a business perspective, but not an IT perspective. IT people will understand technologies and platforms, but not necessarily understand how these support the business.

by Randy Steinberg May 19, 2021