Release Notes - Version 2.1

Below, an overview is provided of the improvements that have been included in version 2.1 of the Alignability® Process Model. Minor changes (e.g. improvements of the layout or spelling corrections) are not listed.

1.

Split the Support Management process into Alarm Management and Request Management. This was done to reduce the complexity of the Support Management process and to provide more room for the Alarm Management process to expand.

2.

Introduced the split between the "Core" and the "Advanced" processes of the Alignability® Process Model.

The "Core" processes are:

3.

Added the Alarm Review procedure to the Alarm Management process for the continuous improvement of the automated monitoring that is performed by the network and system management applications.

4.

Added step 4.1 to the beginning of Change Management procedure 4, Planned Change Implementation. This ensures that the change implementation is kicked off by the change coordinator.

5.

Added the work order status "Cancelled" and removed the rights to delete work orders from change coordinators to ensure that the Change Management process can be audited.

6.

Added a short utilization guideline for each status level in the field utilization guidelines of all item types.

7.

Added the Finance tab page to the CI form (see the field utilization guidelines for details). This was done to allow service provider organizations to handle the financial aspects related to their infrastructures (often referred to as "Asset Management").

8.

Improved the CI categorization by removing the rarely used CI categories "Front-End Processor" and "CD Jukebox", by adding the CI categories "Web Site" and "Software/Interface Configuration Settings", and by renaming the "Printer" category to "Printer/Multifunction".

9.

Reviewed the CI subcategories and made the following improvements:

10.

Specified in the field utilization guidelines for the Configuration Item item type that "optional information" may be added in the Name field.

11.

Updated the options of the Processor field of the CI form.

12.

Changed the name of the Provider group field to "Group" on the Service form. Also changed the name of the Service provider field to "Manager" on the Service form. This avoids the repetition of the term "service provider", which is the name of the separator located above these fields.

13.

Listed the roles in the Roles & Responsibility pages in alphabetical order.

14.

Added the responsibility for handling complaints to the Request Management Roles & Responsibilities for the help desk manager role.

15.

Listed the roles in the Beneficiaries pages in alphabetical order.

16.

Added the change managers to the Contact Administration Beneficiaries.

17.

Adjusted the second requirement from account managers in the Contact Administration Beneficiaries.

18.

Added a fourth requirement from help desk administrators to the Contact Administration Beneficiaries.

19.

Added the controllers to the Configuration Administration Beneficiaries.

20.

Rephrased the first requirement from help desk administrators in the Service Level Management Beneficiaries.

21.

Rephrased the second requirements from service providers in the Service Level Management Beneficiaries.

22.

Rephrased the requirements from account managers and service providers in the Request Management Beneficiaries.

23.

Added the requirement "Information updates concerning service outages" from account managers, customer representatives, customers, on-duty managers, and service providers in the Request Management Beneficiaries.

24.

Rephrased the first requirement from customers in the Request Management Beneficiaries.

25.

Renamed the Service Level Management KPI "Number of requests for change" to "Change requests" and improved its definition.

26.

Rephrased the definition of the Request Management KPI "Complaints".

27.

Redefined the Request Management KPI "Support performance" and changed its name to "Support fulfillment" to avoid confusion with the "Performance" SLO.

28.

Rephrased the Request Management KPI "Help desk resolutions" to exclude the support requests registered by operators and service level administrators.

29.

Placed the Request Management KPIs in the following order to emphasize their relative importance:

30.

Shortened the name of the Availability Management KPI "Customers affected by availability or reliability objective violations" to "Availability or reliability violations".

31.

Changed the name of the Root Cause Analysis KPI "Normalized number of incidents by service" to "Incidents by service" and changed its definition accordingly because the normalization made this KPI unnecessarily complex.

32.

Removed the Change Management KPI "Caused downtime".

33.

Simplified the name of the Change Management KPI "Percentage of Rolled-back changes" to "Rolled-back changes".

34.

Added the Change Management KPI "Time to plan".

35.

Added the Change Management KPI "Time to approve".

36.

Added the following terms to the Glossary:

37.

Improved the definition of the following terms in the Glossary:

38.

Changed the term "disaster recovery" to "continuity" throughout the model in preparation for the addition of the Continuity Management process.

39.

Recreated all Visio drawings by converting them directly from Microsoft Visio to the graphics interchange format (GIF). This makes the customization of the process model easier for customers.

40.

Added ToolTips to the process model blocks and to the hotspots of the process and procedure diagrams. This makes the process model more accessible to new users.

41.

Added help text for each options button. This text is displayed in the status bar of the browser when the mouse moves over the button. This makes the process model more accessible to new users.

42.

Linked the process logos (the little pictures displayed in the upper left-hand corner of the screen) to their respective process frame pages. This allows users to navigate through the process model more quickly. The Alignability® logo (displayed in the upper left-hand corner of the screen when the process model is opened) was linked to the index frame page in the same fashion.

43.

Rewrote all HTML code to optimize support for the Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla, and Netscape browsers. The rewritten code also makes the customization of the process model easier for customers.