November Tips and Tricks:

LANDesk® Tip of the Month: LANDesk 8.7, where did the Inventory Server Service Settings Go? For those of you who have had the pleasure of diving into LANDesk 8.7, you have noticed many changes, even more so if you have applied service pack1. One of the first things I noticed was when I tried to turn on 'Store Scans' for the inventory service on my 8.7 Core. Where previously, I could simply navigate the registry to 'HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\INTEL\LANDesk\LDWM\Server\Inventory Server', modify the values as I wanted, restart the inventory Service, and I was done. Well, this is no longer the case. LANDesk has moved all of the settings for the inventory service to the CMDB. Some settings are actually accessible from the Console now, which were not prior to 8.7, which is nice, and avoids having to navigate the registry in some circumstances. To access these settings, launch you're LANDesk Console, got to Configure Services, then select the 'Inventory' Tab, and select the 'Advanced Settings' button. Here you will be able to modify many of the inventory Service Settings. Still, we are not provided here the full array of features previously found in the registry. We must now, look to the database. You will find all Inventory settings in the LANDesk database in the 'KeyValue' Table. As seen below, all settings are still available, however, we must modify the database rather than the registry. Using Microsofts' Enterprise Manager for SQL server , we are able to view and update the KeyValue table in the LANDesk database. As always, the LANDesk® Inventory Server Service needs to be restarted after any settings change in order to take effect.

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HEAT® Tip of the Month:

Integration with another Help-Desk Tool

Do you have vendors who support you and they don’t happen to be using HEAT? No problem, integrate both tools thanks to HEAT’s ease of customization.

Thanks to the email integration in HEAT, you could easily fire emails to any address your vendor might provide. But are emails reliable? Can they guarantee you the SLA is followed and not breached? Why not use FTP for ticket escalations, since it can be easily monitored?

How to do this:

1. Create an external call number field on Call Log table
2. Transmit your ticket to vendor
• Create a button on the Assignment screen linked to a new auto task : "Vendor escalation"
• Create this auto task in Heat to generate a flat file (.txt for example) with all the fields needed by the external Help-Desk application (including Heat CallID, Call Description, CallType.)
• This file is then generated on the production server (a network shared folder for instance) to automate file transfers via FTP thanks to this script : ThisScript.txt
  

  Open Server IP adress
  ital
  heat
  lcd e:\interface\output
  bin
  hash
  prompt
  mput *.txt
  y
  y
  y
  y
  y
  y
  y
  y
  y
  y
  y
  y
  y
  y
  y
  quit

• and a .bat file to archive the files after having sent them : scriptftp.bat
  

  ftp -s:ThisScript.txt
  move e:\interface\output\*.txt e:\interface\output\archive\
  move e:\interface\input\*.did e:\interface\input\archive\

• Customize your ATG with an UPDATE ON CONDITION based on the external call number to match the tickets in HEAT
• Your bridge is done, just test and enjoy
3. Update your calls with vendor info
• Ask your vendor to send you flat files like .txt through FTP
• These files must be organized like: Field1/ Field2/ Field3/. up to Field100
• Go to Auto Ticket Generator and indicate the folder that will be scanned to find the incoming text fields
  
• Customize your ATG with an UPDATE ON CONDITION based on the external call number to match the tickets in HEAT
• Your bridge is done, just test and enjoy

 

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Just What is a Service Catalog?

Many organizations adopting best practices for IT Service Management are working hard to figure out the concept and implementation of an IT Service Catalog. So exactly what is a service catalog… is it like the Sears Christmas Wish Book of IT services?

The main purpose of a service catalog is to document IT services and establish the basis for other service management components. In essence, it clearly defines what services are available from the IT organization and aligns those services with the business goals and needs. It can be a baseline for a Service Level Agreement, or even replace it in some cases. It also becomes the basis for documenting procedures and processes in your IT organization.

What are the steps that make up defining an IT Service Catalog?

First and foremost, think about the business services provided. Examples include email services; human resource services, manufacturing services; financial services, etc.

After looking at services from the business perspective, start to define each service with the following information:

• Service Name – Provide a simple description, preferably the same name the customer would use.
• Service Description – This is a high-level description of the service written in language customers can understand. Avoid jargon.
• Support Contact Point – Where should the customer begin an inquiry or report problems regarding the service?
• Responsible Manager – List the contact person responsible for the service.
• Customers/Users – What set of customers (specific or general) utilizes this service?
• Detailed Specifications – Some items may not require all of these elements, but possible elements to include in specifications are:
• Inputs – hardware, software, infrastructure, customer inputs, etc.
• Outputs – final products viewed from a customer perspective
• Default items always included
• Optional items the customer may request or pay extra for
• Excluded items which are never included
• Service hours of availability
• Up-time and service availability goals
• Support provided
• Performance standards for the service
• Customer procedures for starting, changing or ending the service
• Charges (if appropriate)
  

By having this definition, you can begin to identify the components of the service via configuration items and their defined relationships to assist in identifying the end to end components that make up a particular service from the business perspective rather than the IT perspective.

If you have further questions….

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