Release Notes - Version 5.2.00

Below, an overview is provided of the improvements that have been included in version 5.2.00 of the Alignability® Process Model. Minor changes (e.g. improvements of the layout or spelling corrections) are not listed.

1.

Upgraded the Alignability® configuration to version 9.6 of BMC Service Desk Express.

2.

Configured the SSHD portal for integration with the Alignability® configuration.

3.

Adjusted the size of the large text fields and reduced the font size to ensure that they show more of the text that they contain without the need to scroll.

4.

Renamed the role "Configuration Manager" to "Configuration Administrator" throughout the model to be aligned with ITIL® v3.

5.

Renamed the term "definitive software library (DSL)" to "definitive media library (DML)" throughout the model to be aligned with ITIL® v3.

6.

Renamed the term "Alarm" to "Event" throughout the model to be aligned with ITIL® v3.

7.

Integrated Event Management Procedure 1, Event Handling with the Capacity Management process.

8.

Adjusted the description of Event Management procedure 1 to indicate that the operator also closes an event after he/she resolved or assigned the incident request that he/she registered for it.

9.

Added the Capacity Manager role Beneficiary of the Event Management process.

10.

Renamed the role "Service Desk Agent" to "Service Desk Analyst" throughout the model to be aligned with ITIL® v3.

11.

Renamed the role "Customer" to "User" where applicable throughout the model to be aligned with ITIL® v3.

12.

Added decision diamond 5.5 and action box 5.6 to Incident Management to make the reassignment to another specialist or group more explicit. The arrow from 5.6 goes back to Incident Management procedure 2. Redrew and renumbered the last 3 steps of Incident Management procedure 2 and adjusted what has now become work instruction 2.11.1 to accommodate the change. Also removed "by a service desk analyst" from the group coordinator's requirement on the Incident Management Beneficiaries page.

13.

Extended the final sentence of Incident Management work instruction 1.2.1 for clarification.

14.

Adjusted Incident Management work instruction 1.5.1 to ensure that it also covers the situation where a user contacted the service desk to provide additional information about the incident request he/she submitted earlier.

15.

Added Incident Management work instructions 4.11.2, 5.4.2 and 6.3.2 to ensure that incident escalations get documented in the Information update field of the support request.

16.

Renamed the "Customer" field on the Support Request form to "Requester".

17.

Adjusted the diagram of Problem Management procedure 1 to make its start appear more similar to the start of the Problem Management process diagram.

18.

Renamed the role "Problem Manager" to "Problem Coordinator" throughout the model to be aligned with ITIL® v3.

19.

Adjusted Problem Management work instruction 2.3.3 to ensure that, if it is not possible to provide a practical workaround, this, along with the reason why, is specified in the Workaround field of the problem. This used to be specified in the Information update date field, which made this information harder to find.

20.

Adjusted the description of the Known Error status in the field utilization guideline for the Status field of Problem form to ensure that it also refers to a temporary workaround.

21.

Renamed Problem Management step 1.3 to "Root cause already removed?" to ensure consistency with the names of other steps.

22.

Renamed Problem Management step 1.4 to "Support request significant?" to ensure consistency with the names of other steps.

23.

Renamed Problem Management step 1.5 to "Problem already registered?" to ensure consistency with the names of other steps.

24.

Corrected the work instructions for Problem Management step 1.6 to ensure that they refer to the functionality provided by BMC Service Desk Express.

25.

Ensured that the Coordinator field is automatically set to the current user when a new problem is opened. Updated Problem Management work instruction 1.7.2 accordingly.

26.

Moved decision diamond "1.15 Approval required?" to Change Management procedure 2 to allow for standard changes that require risk & impact analysis, but do not require subsequent approval.

27.

Corrected the mission of the Change Management process by replacing "users" with "customers". This ensures that Change Management considers the overall business impact rather than just the impact on users.

28.

Adjusted the phrasing of the first requirement of the User role on the Change Management's Beneficiaries page to ensure that it is limited to the user's change requests.

29.

Adjusted Change Management work instruction 4.3.1 from "…tasks like ordering new hardware or software licenses, testing new…" to "…tasks to provide training for operators, test new…" This needed to be corrected because tasks for ordering new hardware are handled within the Configuration Management process.

30.

Changed the names of Change Management steps 5.5 and 6.7 to "Add work orders to change plan" to ensure consistency and avoid confusion concerning the moment when people are asked to start the completion of these new work orders.

31.

Ensured that the Coordinator field is automatically set to the current user when a new change is opened. Updated Change Management work instructions 1.12.3, 1.13.3, 8.6.4 and Release Management work instruction 2.9.9 accordingly.

32.

Ensured that the Description field value of a release is visible in the Release field of its related changes.

33.

Ensured that the Description field value of a change is visible in the Change field of its related work orders.

34.

Added the "Microsoft Server Software Service Pack Upgrade" change template. The ITIL® Game and the Change Coordinator Training have been updated to make use of this template.

35.

Added the Assign to Service Owner checkbox to the Work Order Template form.
This allows the Member field of certain types of work orders (e.g. the service owner approval work order) to be automatically set to the owner of the service to which the change is linked.

36.

Added the Assign to Self checkbox to the Work Order Template form.
This allows the Member field of certain types of work orders to be automatically set to the change coordinator who created the change.

37.

Checked the Assign to Self box of the "Inform service owner of implemented emergency change." work order template to simply its registration.
Updated Change Management work instruction 8.6.12 accordingly.

38.

Removed the Coordinator field from the change Template form as it did not provide any benefit.

39.

Renamed the role "Release Manager" to "Release Coordinator" throughout the model to be aligned with ITIL® v3.

40.

Made Release Management work instruction 2.7.5 more specific by changing "the date and time of this meeting" to "the end date and time of this meeting".

41.

Improved the efficiency of registering and linking the release coordination change to a new release by rephrasing Release Management work instructions 2.9.7 and 2.9.12.

42.

Corrected Release Management work instructions 2.10.12 and 4.2.4 by ensuring that the Result field of the work order gets filled out.

43.

Corrected Release Management work instructions 3.10.1 and 3.11.2 by ensuring that it refers to the Result field, rather than the Information update field.

44.

Added the Go to Release field on top of the Release form. A release number can be entered in this field to quickly retrieve a specific release.

45.

Ensured that the Coordinator field is automatically set to the current user when a new release is opened. Updated Release Management work instruction 2.9.2 accordingly.

46.

Checked the Assign to Self box of the following work order templates to simply their registration:
1027 - Split the release into changes.
1028 - Prepare business case to justify the release.
1029 - Prepare the requirement documents for the change coordinator(s).
1030 - Update of the requesters and approvers of the release.
1031 - Conduct post-implementation meeting.
1032 - Prepare and facilitate CAB meeting.

Updated the following work instructions accordingly:

47.

Renamed the role "Service Provider" to "Service Owner" throughout the model to be aligned with ITIL® v3 and to ensure that there is a clearer distinction between the service provider organization and this role. Added the word "organization" after the word provider where this would help to further avoid confusion between the person and the organization.

48.

Renamed the term "Service Level Objective (SLO)" to "Service Level Target (SLT)" throughout the model to be aligned with ITIL® v3.

49.

Extended the Mission statement of the Service Level Management process to include the review of SLAs.

50.

Added Capacity Management Procedure 2, Capacity Warning Handling for the integration with the Event Management process.

51.

Corrected the role name of the first Capacity Management beneficiary from "Capacity Manager" to "Problem Coordinator".

52.

Renamed the term "continuity objective" to "continuity target" throughout the model to be aligned with ITIL® v3.