Microsoft System Center 2016 Service Manager Cookbook

Microsoft System Center 2016 Service Manager Cookbook - Second Edition

By : Steve Buchanan, Steve Beaumont, Anders Asp, Dieter Gasser, Andreas Baumgarten

Buy this Book

Microsoft System Center 2016 Service Manager Cookbook - Second Edition

By: Steve Buchanan, Steve Beaumont, Anders Asp, Dieter Gasser, Andreas Baumgarten

Buy this Book

Overview of this book

Keep your organization up to speed with the Microsoft System Center 2016 Service Manager Cookbook. Over 100 practical recipes for SCSM 2016 give you all the tools to master IT service management.

Microsoft System Center 2016 Service Manager Cookbook - Second Edition

Credits

Foreword

About the Authors

About the Reviewers

www.PacktPub.com

Customer Feedback

Preface

Free Chapter

ITSM and ITIL Frameworks and Processes

Introduction

Understanding ITSM frameworks

ITIL© processes

Creating an Asset Management process

Creating a Configuration Management System (CMS) process

Creating a Service Request Fulfilment process

Creating an Incident and Problem Management process

Creating a Change and Release Management process

Creating an IT Service Desk

The Service Level Management process

Dependencies and relationships between ITSM processes

Personalizing SCSM 2016 Administration

Introduction

Configuring how long to keep your SCSM data

Configuring the Incident Management global settings

Configuring the Problem Management global settings

Configuring the Service Requests, Activity, Release, Knowledge, and Change Management global settings

Configuring the behavior of child incidents when resolving, reactivating, and closing the parent incident

Configuring the priority and urgency for your SLA targets

Creating Management Packs to save your SCSM personalization

Creating a configuration item group

Creating a basic queue

Creating SCSM console tasks

Configuring global e-mail notification infrastructure settings

Creating formatted e-mail notification templates

Configuring Service Level Agreements (SLAs)

Introduction

Creating priority queues

Configuring business hours and non-working days

Creating SLA metrics

Creating SLOs

Creating Incident Management SLAs

Creating Service Request SLAs

Viewing SLA warnings and breaches

Setting up SLA notifications for warnings and breaches

Creating repeated notifications before SLA breaches with escalation

Building the Configuration Management Database (CMDB)

Introduction

Adding configuration items manually

Importing Active Directory configuration items

Importing Configuration Manager configuration items

Importing Operations Manager configuration items

Importing Virtual Machine Manager configuration items

Importing Orchestrator runbooks

Using a CSV file to import items into the CMDB

Creating a Business Service

Personalizing and organizing configuration item views

Deploying Service Request Fulfilment

Introduction

Creating Support Groups for Service Requests

Creating Service Request templates

Creating Service Request activities

Creating Service Offering categories

Creating Service Catalog Request Offerings

Creating Service Catalog Service Offerings

Publishing Service Offerings and Request Offerings

Working with Service Requests in the Self-Service Portal

Filling in the Service Request Description with User Input from the Request Offering

Creating Service Request notifications

Deploying and Configuring the HTML5 Self-Service Portal

Introduction

Choosing the right deployment model

Deploying the HTML5 Self-Service Portal

Configuring permissions

Configuring cache settings

Customizing the Self-Service Portal

Customizing the Self-Service Portal further

Working with Incident and Problem Management

Introduction

Configuring incident and problem lists

Creating an incident template

Creating a subscription to notify the affected user upon the creation of an incident

Adding a task to the incident form

Creating a view to display the problem records created in the last 30 days

Configuring the Global Operators Group

Downloading, installing, and configuring the Exchange Connector

Making the description field in the incident form auto-grow

Extending the Incident class with a new property

Using Advanced Search to find very specific incidents

Designing and Configuring Change Management and Release Management

Introduction

Creating and configuring Change Request Templates

Creating and managing Change Management Review Activities

Creating Manual Activities for Change Management

Creating and managing Dependent Activities in Change Management

Creating and personalizing Change Management Parallel Activities

Creating and personalizing Change Management Sequential Activities

Creating and personalizing Change Management Activity notifications

Creating and managing Build and Environment Release Records

Creating and managing Release Record Templates

Working with Change Requests and Release Records

Filling in all related Activity Descriptions with Descriptions from parent Change Requests

Implementing Security Roles

Introduction

Viewing basic settings for Security roles

Adding users to the End Users role

Creating and managing Service Request roles

Creating and managing Incident Management roles

Creating and managing Problem Management roles

Creating and managing Change and Release Management roles

Creating hybrid roles

Configuring the Self-Service Catalog security role

Listing SCSM security role details with PowerShell

Getting SCSM security roles of a specific user with PowerShell

Working with the Data Warehouse and Reporting

Introduction

Viewing SCSM reports

Creating favorite and linked reports

Understanding the Service Manager Data Warehouse data mart

Creating reports with Report Builder

Configuring report permissions

Delivering reports automatically using report subscriptions

Analyzing data with Microsoft Excel

Using the Analysis Library to publish Excel reports

Extending SCSM with Advanced Personalization

Introduction

Using the SCSM Authoring Tool

Sealing management packs

Extending Service Manager classes

Creating new classes

Customizing default forms

Creating your own forms

Using an XML editor to modify management packs

Editing the XML of a view to alter the criteria to include AND instead of OR

Automating Service Manager 2016

Introduction

Routing incidents automatically using workflows

Downloading and installing SMLets

Using SMLets to delete a work item

Exporting your unsealed management packs using SMLets

Creating a custom workflow in the Authoring Tool - exporting your unsealed management packs

Autoclosing resolved incidents with SMLets and a custom workflow

Automating your request offerings with Orchestrator

Creating new work items with SMLets

Whats New in SCSM 2016 and Upgrading from SCSM 2012 R2

Introduction

What's new in Service Manager 2016?

Preparing for Service Manager 2016

Upgrading to Service Manager 2016

Community Extensions and Third-Party Commercial SCSM Solutions

Introduction

Cireson solutions for Microsoft Service Manager

itnetX

Provance

Derdack

Gridpro

SCUtils

Axians

Useful Websites and Community Resources

Introduction

Useful community blogs

Frameworks and processes

Valuable community forums and user groups

Websites for SCSM solutions and extensions

Online wikis

Social network resources

Customer Reviews

5 star

4 star

3 star

2 star

1 star

Creating an IT Service Desk

This section provides an example of what is typically required to create an IT Service Desk.

Getting ready

Service Desks are organization-specific but share a common goal. The goal of most Service Desks is to be the central point of contact for customers in the following areas:

Request for services
Unplanned outages or interruptions to services
Feedback channels for improvement to existing services
Coordination and tracking of active requests and incidents

A prerequisite for creating a Service Desk process is to define what role it would play in the overall ITSM strategy.

Service Desks principles are defined in the ITIL© Service Operations books. Plan to review the industry best practices before creating an organization-specific version.

How to do it...

There are three main types of Service Desk:

Local Service Desk: A Service desk in each customer's geographic location, independently managing support services
Central Service Desk: One service desk that supports all geographic locations and offers a consolidated picture of issues and requests across the organization
Virtual Service Desk: Use technology to manage either of the first two types from any location

The successful Service Desk process is based on communication and coordination. Here are some categories of tools you must plan to implement to support the process:

Integrated Service Management and Operations Management systems (for example, the Microsoft System Center Management product)
Advanced telephony systems (for example, auto-routing, hunt groups, Computer Telephony Integration (CTI), Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP))
Interactive Voice Response (IVR) systems
Electronic communication (voice, video, mobile, intranet, Internet, and e-mail systems)
Knowledge, search, and diagnostic tools
Automated operations and Network Management tools

Here are the common functions the Service Desk should aim to perform:

Receive calls and act as the first-line customer liaison
Record and track incidents and complaints
Keep customers informed about request status and progress
Make an initial assessment of requests, attempt to resolve them, or escalate as appropriate
Manage the request and issues life cycle, including closure and verification
Communicate planned changes and disruption to services
Coordinate hierarchical and functional escalations
Highlight customer and service desk personnel training opportunities
Monitor and track Service Level Agreements (SLAs) and Operational Level Agreements (OLAs)
Report on customer trends and service desk performance

How it works...

The service desk process, once established, should deliver the following:

Act to lower the total cost of IT ownership
Support the integration and management of the service portfolio and catalogue
Make efficient use of resources and technology
Optimize investments and the management of business support services

A service desk should aim to provide a unified and simplified experience to the customers it serves.

Microsoft System Center 2016 Service Manager Cookbook - Second Edition

By : Steve Buchanan, Steve Beaumont, Anders Asp, Dieter Gasser, Andreas Baumgarten

Microsoft System Center 2016 Service Manager Cookbook - Second Edition

By: Steve Buchanan, Steve Beaumont, Anders Asp, Dieter Gasser, Andreas Baumgarten

Overview of this book

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Creating an IT Service Desk

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...