The take up of SM7 in the UK has been slow. Why?

[Micky]

A friend of mine suggested the following explanation and 5 reasons.

Service Manager 7 - as you probably know - is a merging of the Peregrine Service Centre product and HP's Service Desk product. Service Desk in turn was an evolution of the old ITSM product which HP acquired from Prolin many many years ago.

There are quite a number of Service Centre users - probably running version 6.x - as well as Service Desk users in the UK. The Service Centre users will probably consider moving to Service Manager in a shorter time frame than Service Desk users due to a number of factors :-

1. The look and feel of Service Manager is significantly different to Service Desk. The user perception being that it is more "complex" to navigate than Service Desk. In planning a migration this becomes a significant factor, as due to these differences there will inevitably be a short term loss of productivity for any regular user of the product. Having said that, whereas Service Desk 4.5 (and 5.x) is more limited than SM7 in its screen design capabilities, SM7 has infinite flexibility with screen design. An SM7 screen should be more efficient to fill in - so that initial loss of efficiency is rapidly regained. As I said, it is a perception. And it contributes to the reluctance to migrate - its a visual form of "better the devil you know".

2. Service Manager 7 is "behind the scenes" infintely configurable. In theory it can be used to implement almost any forms based appliation you care to mention. Database fields and tables can be added, integrations via SOAP / XML etc are available. The downside of this is that compared to Service Desk, a degree of coding knowledge is definitely a benefit. This gives the perception that it is difficult to implement and manage. For instance, the SD concept of UI rules and DB Rules all driven by wizards is not there in SM7. The functionality is there in SM7 but it needs a more technical knowledge.

3. And probably most important is that SD is still supported and will be for a few years yet. Any migration program from a highly customised SD solution to a Service Manager solution is not a quck task. There are no "real" migration tools. Let me be clear on this, there is no software that we can use that allows us to run a bit of code against a SD implementation that will give us a bunch of unload files to load into SM7. Simply put the migration process for highly customised SD implementations is to run a series of audit reports, create a backup of the database burn the whole lot onto DVD (??) and send it HP for conversion. HP will then send you back an SM7 system that you can load. There are also things that cannot be migrated anyway. This is seen as an inhibitor to migration, the lack of customer control.

4. There are very few people in the UK with both Service Desk expertise and Service Manager expertise. There's some good Service Desk people and some good Service Centre / Service Manager people, but finding a person who is an expert in both is not easy.

5. HP have now launched the Service Manager 7 "ITSM Implementation Accelerator" or, IIA as it is known. This is a free download from HP that aims to significantly reduce the implementation time of SM7. The IIA consists of process, procedure and work instruction documentation for the core ITIL processes and a series of worksheets that are (ultimately) used to configure SM7. I admit I've not "played with it" yet, but it does seem potentially useful - I'll reserve judement for now.
The IIA won't accelerate the number of SD-> SM7 migrations but what it should do is allow those customers who feel that SD no longer meets their process needs to implement SM7 in a shorter time frame.

On the whole he felt that all of the above are factors. Having said that, he believes that we will see an increased number of migrations - but probably not until Q2 next year.

What do you think?

Micky Mollallegn
www.OpenViewPeople.com

[RFedoruk]

I would say #2 and #4 are the top reasons you don't see people flocking to SM7... at least for us Service Desk folks. We're talking about a complete obsolescence of the resources currently administering toolsets. Many companies will require an expensive retraining / replacement of good people above and beyond the staggering time and monetary costs to switch over to a V1 release. The pseudo-language used to customize SM7 isn't even documented, which just adds insult to injury.

I'd like to propose two more items to your list...

6. Just how customizable is it?
Our in depth review of SM7 / SC 6.2 revealed that supportability is very quickly sacrificed during customization. Deviate very far from out-of-box (especially in regards to added fields / tables) and you risk exclusion from upgrades. So they don't REALLY want you to customize it. They want you to adhere to the narrow IT world view of HP.

7. Does the data structure favor reporting?
The answer to that is a big fat no. That isn't personal opinion either, as I got it straight from the horse's mouth: "the data structure in SM7 will probably be more challenging to report on than that of OVSD5.1" says the Service Center SME we talked to. What's the value of finely tuned, well implemented process if the data is held hostage in a labrynthine and bewildering data structure? I've had infuriating experiences with HP in my attempts to report off of OVSD 5.1, so I wouldn't bet on them helping us out in SM7 either.

and I guess one more ... if I can be so bold.

8. There are better options.
There I said it.

[RFedoruk]

Micky,

You seeing any more movement on this across the big pond? Here in North America there's still practically no fanfare or movement.

[Micky]

RFedoruk,


I supply the biggest and most successful HP Service Management implementation consultancy in the UK, and they say exactly what you say.

However (thankfully - else I would be out of business), there is a demand for ServiceCentre implementation consultants (I have current requirements, and many more on the way) so it's not like CA, BMC and IBM are running the show.

By the way, I thought your earlier response was very helpful, thank you.

Micky Mollallegn
OpenViewPeople.com

[Blackdog]

I'm new to this forum and have been looking at a few posts. Its been a while since this topic was posted and I was wondering if the position has changed any, regarding the uptake of SM7 I mean?

Either here in the UK or in the States / Canada? Has the demand grown yet?

I've recently attended the SM7 Essentials course because my employer has decided that we need to move to SM7, I agree with that decission but, its going to mean a lot of work. For the reasons so eliquently stated above, in the previous posts.

As a long term user of Service Desk 4.5, now moving towards SM7, I can tell you its quite a learning curve.

Having come from a programming background, hopefully I will be able to get to grips with the workings of SM7. It is VERY different from SD 4.5 and as was previously stated, it requires a 'lower level' of management and understanding.

Gone are the wizards to help create rules etc. Its back to the old hand coded solutions. It offers much greater flexability but requires careful handling. The chance to design eligant solutions go hand in hand with the chance to screw it up big time.

Personally, I'm looking forward to the challenge but I need to learn to walk before running.

Which brings me to my other post on this forum..... I'd like to know if there's documentation available to help with the expression coding in SM7?

Please look out for the other post and reply if you can offer advice.

Thanks.

[Micky]

I picked a friend's brain who said there is use of several expressions forms within ServiceCenter/manager. Most of this is well covered in the helpserver, which is charged as an extra from HP but typically bought by most clients. It is also quite comprehensive. So that is the most typical place to look and should cover basic customization needs.



Micky
micky@openviewpeople.com

[bsmith8]

I would also be interested to know who is moving or planning on moving to the new Service Manager 7.10 platform and also if anyone has migrated to the new version of Asset Manager.

We are in the process of moving to both and have decided to implement them greenfield rather than upgrade. We just completed phase I of Asset Manager with DDMI and was interested to see if anyone has implemented the software license functionality or the chargebacks module.

thanks
betty

[Blackdog]

Betty, when you say "Implement them green field rather than upgrade", what would you be upgrading from?

As far as I am aware there is no real "Upgrade" as such from Service Centre or Service Desk. At best its a export of data from your old system and a mapping / import exercise into the new SM system.

We are planning to move from SD 4.5 to SM, but we are very much in the early stages of this process and have not yet defined the implementation. Although we have attended the SM7 Essentials course this was to enable us to get handle on the functionality available in the new application to help decide the implementation process. I have to say it has helped and given us direction. The next step as I said, is to create a plan of implementation.

I have to admit that I don't understand the difference between the version of SM 7 and SM 7.10. Obviously I would expect that the newer version has bug fixes and additional functionality that one would normally associate with a new version but, I get the impression that there is more to it than that?

Can someone enlighten me?

Peter

[chuck_darst]

In addition to the SM 7.10 webinar next week (being promoted on the Vivit main page),
Evolve your IT Service Desk with HP Service Manager 7.10 (02/09/2009 01:50:53 PM)
Join HP and Vivit for an exclusive one hour "HP Service Manager 7.10" webinar on Feb 24 in the US and Feb 25 in Asia. Click here to register for this webinar today!

There is a 7.10 migration brief brochure posted on the external HP Software web site - https://h10078.www1.hp.com/cda/hpdc/navigation.do?action=downloadPDF&caid=29001&cp=54_4000_100&zn=bto&filename=4AA1-7148ENW.pdf

As a lot of you know, there is (a lot) more to the SD to SM story. In a quick customer call about this exact topic, they flagged the following as key benefits of moving to SM from SD:
- SLA capabilities: ease of setting up, alerting, publishing
- Web client improvements: basically having one common model between a windows GUI and the web client
- Catalog: pretty much didn't exist on the SD side, but significant time savings on both the end user and IT ops side of the house now enabling the movement to a more global IT procurement model
- Dashboarding
- SM as a consolidation platform for multiple branch offices including things like multi-tentant capabilities, scale, ...
_________________
Chuck Darst
ITSM Product Marketing
HP Software & Solutions
chuck.darst@hp.com
Tel: +1 970 898 2064

[Blackdog]

Chuck,

As a HP customer and one who is about to experience the (thrill / heartache / fear / trepidation, <delete as appropriate>), of moving from Service Desk to Service Manager, I feel I can explain one of the reasons for the slow take up of Service Manager.

There are a lot of reasons and this is only one of them……

LACK OF DOCUMENTATION

Companies have invested a lot of time and effort in their current application and if they are worth their salt, they will have created some sort of system documentation. This could extend as far as creating documents that explain the workings of the app as well as a “How to do….” Library.

Saying its all in the Help File is all well and good but, you have to buy and implement the product before you can get access to the Help File.

An analogy to this could be…. Going to buy a new car…..

You don’t get to see it, you don’t know what colour it is, you don’t know how many people can fit inside, you don’t know what the engine size is or the fuel consumption. BUT, the salesman says don’t worry it will be alright when its delivered, I assure you, now if you just sign the cheque right here…………

Would you sign the cheque???

From my point of view, being the application administrator, its hard to comprehend that I am expected to write expressions to control the screen validation, calculations and many many other things, in this proprietary language, AND THE SYNTAX IS NOT EVEN DOCUMENTED!

Only Hewlett Packard would consider that a marketable product.

And yet, here we are buying it, why is that?

Its because to those that hold the purse strings, HP is seen as this friendly all encompassing well placed provider. If only they knew the truth.