Come and join Vivit!

First, we would like to ask that you pass this issue of the May Inforum Newsletter along to all of your colleagues and partners. In this issue of the newsletter, we have provided detailed, step-by-step instructions on how to sign up and become a Vivit member. So be sure to pass this along to your peers so they can see how valuable Vivit is and encourage them to become members of the Vivit worldwide community.

Vivit offers many services to help support your educational, community and advocacy needs.  Following are just some examples of the services that we provide: networking with your peers via discussion forums and email reflectors, local chapter meetings, accessing content on the web site, and discounts to HP Software training and conferences. All members receive the monthly newsletter detailing events and happenings pertinent to HP Software products along with hearing directly from HP about product and support issues. To take advantage of these services, you must be a Vivit member.

There are various levels of membership in Vivit - but don’t forget that the Public Membership is still FREE. We encourage you to join and/or renew your membership as a Supporting Member, with special benefits for only US$150 per year. It’s even less if you sign up as a corporate group or for multiple years.

As we move on we will continue to focus on providing services that will help support what you do. One of the important benefits of being a Vivit member is having the chance to network and meet other members of the Vivit community.  So please take a few extra moments out of your day to forward this newsletter to anyone who you think would benefit from the valuable information that Vivit has to offer. Help us continue to expand our membership and increase our knowledge base to share within our growing community.

Join Vivit Process

Step 1.  Go to www.vivit-worldwide.org and click on the “JOIN NOW!” button located on the left hand side of the page.

Step 2:  Sign-up Form 1 will be displayed.  Enter information for Individual Membership and click on “Next”

Step 3: Sign-up Form 2 will be displayed.  Chose a membership level and click on “Submit”

Step 4: Sign-up Form 3 will be displayed.  Fill out required profile information and click on “Next”.

Step 5: Sign-up Form 4 will be displayed.  Select Business Information and click on “Next”

Step 6: Sign-up Form 5 will be displayed.  Account Confirmation.

Step 7:  Welcome to Vivit page is displayed.  Member is now registered in the Vivit membership database.

EVENT INFORMATION

If you haven’t already done so, be sure to register today for this year’s HP Software Universe and join other Vivit members and your peers in Las Vegas, June 17 - 19. There will be more than 150 track planned sessions spanning IT concerns from business and IT alignment to application quality management to data center transformation. If you are interested in knowing what you’ll learn onsite at HP Software Universe just click here to see the session catalog for a complete listing of the featured sessions.

During this event, Vivit will be hosting three Vivit-developed training sessions on Tuesday, June 17. The three sessions include: 1. an Architects Forum 2. Service Manager – Making it Work in Your Organization, and 3. Integrating Quality Center into Your Application Testing Framework. These expert-led sessions will be conducted by experienced, real-world knowledgeable practitioners. To register for these sessions or for more information on HP Software Universe, please visit www.hpsoftwareuniverse.net.  Keep in mind all Vivit Supporting Members are entitled to a discount when registering for the Vivit Training Sessions and/or HP Software Universe.

Be sure to set aside some time during the conference to stop by the Vivit booth on the exhibit floor at HP Software Universe to introduce yourself. The booth will be staffed with our directors, chapter leaders and volunteers. We would love to have the opportunity to meet you in person. This is another great way for you to meet new people in the industry and to have the chance to network with your colleagues and peers.

For more information about the Vivit Training Sessions or HP Software Universe, be sure to visit www.hpsoftwareuniverse.net. You can register for any one of the training sessions during the HP Software Universe registration process.  If you upgrade your membership level to from Public to Supporting Member ($150) when registering for any of the Vivit Training Sessions or HP Software Universe, you’ll be automatically eligible to take advantage of the Vivit Supporting Member discounts. 

It is a great time to be involved with implementing HP Software.  For those of us who have worked diligently over the years to put all the pieces into place, we are challenged by the opportunity to integrate new software components together and leveraging them to automate the IT process lifecycle more completely.  For others, it may appear to be a jumble of incompatible software components parts sitting about.  The challenge is to bring all those parts together into the machine that makes running and managing Information Technology more efficient, and cost effective.   To help you accomplish this goal, Vivit is offering The Architects Forum at the Vivit portion of the HP Software Universe in June.

The justification for creating a single machine to run Information Technology departments is simple.  If all the departments within IT could work together, then they could provide better service at a lower cost.  Not to mention the benefits of having so much software available, and only one set of legal documents and support contracts to deal with.  Hewlett Packard has definitely started to sell this vision, and offered opportunities to purchase multiple software components at an attractive price.  Hewlett Packard is also working in earnest to integrate all the components.  Federating databases, leveraging software from its acquisitions, and creating new integrations will displace older software components.   

Carolinas Spring Chapter Meeting

The spring meeting of the Vivit Carolinas Chapter will be held on Wednesday, May 14, 2008 at the Duke Energy headquarters building in Charlotte, NC.  We are planning a very informative agenda for this meeting that will cover HP Software with sessions on HP Support, Service Manager 7, NNM i8, OVO 8, and Application and Strategy Center Solutions.  HP Software solution architects will offer insights into software portfolio updates, roadmaps, and other useful information.  In addition to the presentations attendees will share insights, ideas, and lessons learned from their experiences in "Birds of a Feather" sessions.  There will also be a discussion on changes and new services that Vivit has implemented to help this organization meet your needs. 

News Update: HP Software Support SSO Update

In HP’s recent announcement on “HP software’s multi-million dollar support investment program” they have communicated their high level plans around 4 key initiatives: access to Support, first contact experience, time-to-resolution and web experience.
HP is now pleased to share with you some enhancements that have been made to your web experience.

1. Software Support Online
   Find out about new features released in April
   Improving availability for you
2. Future Enhancements
   Providing better visibility of closed Mercury cases
3. SAID (Support Agreement ID)
   Do you need help with SAID?
4. Duty Manager Process
   Understand the Duty Manager process

1. Self Solve, Patches and Manuals to include a Natural Language Search.
2. Support case look-up capabilities that allow customers to review “Cases submitted by ME” and all cases created for “All Cases for my SAID’s”. *see comment at end
3. Email Subscription Service now allows you to subscribe to HP Patch Release Notifications.
4. Automatic email notification whenever a support case status changes to “Pending Customer” or “Resolved”.
5. Email templates for Case Submission confirmations, including more pertinent case information and direct links to the support ticket.

Software Support Online Availability:
HP is continuing to improve SSO availability and in the last few weeks have implemented portal upgrades. These upgrades were applied during low-demand hours, so as to minimize any inconvenience. If you experience any system unavailability, please try again later or use the duty manager process described below.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Future Enhancements

Improved visibility of closed Mercury cases.
HP is continuing to map 500,000 legacy Mercury and legacy Peregrine closed case records to new Support Agreement IDs. Upon completion all legacy cases will be visible on HP SSO.

In addition, HP is aggressively working toward adding more features and enhancing functionality. They are committed to making HP SSO your ‘one-stop shop’ for online support at HP Software.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

SAID (Support Agreement ID) (12 digit number that identifies your maintenance contract & used when logging support cases).

If you are experiencing problems with your SAID, log a ‘Trust-based’ support case either online via the phone until the contract issue is resolved. These issues will NOT be viewable online as there is no account number associated with them.

If you are experiencing difficulty using your SAID number, please follow the online steps to allow HP to research your contract at:
www.hp.com/go/hpsoftware/entitlement/investigation

Please note: You will only need a HP Passport login to submit this form.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Duty Manager Process

The HP Duty Manager Process is designed to assist you when you need it most. If you feel your case is not progressing to your satisfaction, call your local Software Support center and ask to speak with a duty manager. More information on this process will be posted to the Software Support Online Portal shortly.

Local Software Support center phone numbers can be found at: www.hp.com/go/hpsoftwaresupport/contact_list

SPOTLIGHT ON VOLUNTEERS

Steven Kiss Director of Sales Achievo Canada (formerly Netstar Solutions)

Steven Kiss is the Director of Sales for Achievo Canada (formerly Netstar Solutions) and is the co-chair for the Greater Toronto Area Chapter of Vivit. He works closely with Achievo’s IT Service Management practice which is primarily focused on providing services that support HP Software solutions with a particular niche in ITIL process automation tools (i.e.: ServiceCenter).

In his current capacity, Steven is involved in all aspects of the business as it relates to driving awareness and demand for specialized IT services that support the use of HP Software. An example of these specialized services is the migration to Service Manger 7 for both Openview Service Desk and Peregrine Service Center clients.  Activities include developing marketing programs, establishing strong channel relationships across North America, coordinating speaking engagements with HP and other Vivit Chapters, and working with Achievo’s senior professional services practice leaders to leverage their large enterprise experience and global delivery capability to proactively add value to their clients for all areas of HP Software. 

In addition to participating at the itSMF and HP Software Universe, most recently Steven has taken on the initiative for a membership drive for the Toronto Vivit Chapter where he is looking to expand the membership base to align with the full software offerings from HP. 

Steven lives in Oakville, Ontario with his wife and 2 girls and enjoys golf, cooking and filmmaking.

Want to join the active ranks of Vivit volunteers? Click here for some ideas on how you can contribute your time and services or email volunteer@vivit-worldwide.org

ACCELERATING EXPERTISE

The objective of this presentation is to exemplify how to staff a Configuration Management team. Often times the failure of implementation is not having the right staff and process to run the tool. What are the roles, typical workflow, and skills required to make the most of the tools? How do those roles align with ITIL practices? How are those roles filled in real world environments? These questions, and more, are addressed in this presentation. If you have any questions regarding this presentation, please contact Jason Whitesides by email at jwhitesides@ndwcorp.com.

Vivit News

Thank you to all those who have sent in nominations! As of April 30th, the non HP members of Vivit are able to cast their votes and will close every thirty days until we reach the minimum participation limit outlined in the bylaws.  Cast your ballot  by logging into the Vivit web site with your password and ID and selecting the candidate of your choice on our online voting ballot.

Vivit's New Board members will be notified prior to the June face to face board meeting (June 16th & 17th in Las Vegas) so that they may plan to attend.

Vivit is working with HP Support to provide a series of monthly calls to discuss HP Support and other topics relevant to the Vivit Community.  Presentations are given and facilitated by senior members of HP staff with an opportunity for those present to ask questions within the one-hour call.

To date, topics addressed have included:

• HP Software Services Customer Contact Centre
• HP Software Support Knowledge Creations & Knowledge Centric Support

Future topics may include:

• HP Software Support Escalation & Duty Management (scheduled for May 30, 2008)
• Web 2.0

These calls take place on the last Friday of the month (at 10AM Eastern Time) and are open to all Chapter Leaders and Supporting Members only.  If you are a chapter leader or a supporting member and would like to attend an upcoming call, please send a message to hp-conf-calls@vivit-worldwide.org.

Additionally, Vivit will be posting the slide presentations for each of the calls for review by all Vivit members   Links to the slide presentations can be found below for each of the calls.  Finally, all members are invited to participate in a survey on each of the topics by following the survey link for the specific topic.

March 08 Call:  HP Software Services Customer Contact Centre
           Slide Presentation
           Survey Link: http://www.zoomerang.com/Survey/?p=WEB227R75ZKFV6

April 08 Call: HP Support Knowledge Creation and Knowledge Centric Support
           Slide Presentation
           Survey Link: To be provided

If you are a chapter leader or a supporting member and would like to participate in the next call, you must request the call details by sending a message to hp-conf-calls@vivit-worldwide.org.

LEADERSHIP INSIGHTS

Having the confidence to tackle large projects even when the outcome may be uncertain is at the heart of my letter today. The courage to believe that you will succeed on personal and professional projects even when the odds seem insurmountable is the first step in actually achieving goals. Certainly we have all at one time or another felt that a project is too to immense to tackle alone. It is at those moments that such confidence becomes vital. There is no need to know all the answers; only that you have the will to see the task to completion. I have heard from a number of you who’re experiencing extensive change in your working lives. Before taking this role with Vivit, I worked for a time in consulting and executive recruiting. To that end, I can assure you that the backgrounds and experiences many of you have shared with me are among the finest in the industry. Changes in product suites, growth in supplier offerings, and dramatic increases in portfolio tools can be like a blizzard. At Vivit, we recognize that we are all in this together.

We’re ready to help in any way we can.  HP has grown to its current size and strength thanks to your tireless efforts and profound ingenuity.  This passion, coupled with faith in ones’ fellow user group colleagues is a powerful voice in the industry.  You have made positive changes happen already and we will all continue to work together to see that this momentum continues.  I encourage each of you to join me and others from Vivit on Linked-in and on our own Vivit Connect.  We also have the Career Central and discussion lists where you can discuss issues and post openings.  This year is promising to be among the best in Vivit’s history.  Our voice is being heard by many different areas within HP.  That is a result of everyone’s hard work.

One area where this confidence and ingenuity has paid off is in the interaction Vivit now enjoys with senior executives in HP Support.  As some of you know, we have been working with HP to set up a series of calls to enable interaction with key HP decision-maker and Vivit chapter leaders on a range of important topics.  I look forward to hearing from you about new areas that you would like to see addressed in this series.  These calls now occur every month with the first two in the series is HP SOFTWARE SUPPORT KNOWLEDGE CREATION & KNOWLEDGE CENTRIC SUPPORT (KCS) that was held on April 25, 2008 and HP SOFTWARE SUPPORT ESCALATION & DUTY MANAGEMENT to be held on May 20, 2008. If you would like to participate in future calls, please let your chapter leaders know.  Each chapter leader can bring a guest and we would value your input.

In addition to these monthly calls, we are discussing a number of other areas where HP technical staff as well as senior management can work with Vivit members on a regular basis.  We have invited them to participate more fully in our discussion lists and we will also be giving them the opportunity to interact with our members in a number of upcoming events.  Please keep your suggestions coming!

We’re gearing up for the three educational offerings that Vivit is providing in Las Vegas on June 17th in advance of the HP software universe event.  Remember that Vivit supporting members get $100 off of the conference admission to the full conference as well as a 10% discount on HP Software training throughout the full year.  Please help us to get all of your colleagues who work with HP Software to join Vivit at either the free Public Access level or at the Supporting level for $150.  Please forward this newsletter to everyone you know who may be interested in joining the user group.  We would like to have the chance to welcome all the new members at our booth in June at the Las Vegas event!

I appreciate learning about all your professional experiences—particularly those that you believe the user group could benefit from.   These can be shared with the full community (as you think best) or your recommendations can be brought to the attention of the appropriate councils.  I look forward to continuing to hear from you.

Regards,
Donna
dfarmer@torllc.com
Cell: 1-646-414-9895