INSPIRIT e ManageEngine – MAIS UM CASE DE SUCESSO!

DENSO do Brasil elimina interrupção de aplicações e atraso no suporte ao usuário com solução ManageEngine OpManager.

Antes da instalação da solução de monitoramento de infraestrutra, a equipe de TI da DENSO do Brasil, enfrentava problemas de visualização da paralisação do monitoramento além da velocidade de resolução do problema, já que só notavam essa paralisação após a abertura de um chamado técnico. Este delay provocava a interrupção de diversas atividades corporativas causando prejuízos à empresa.

Dessa forma, a equipe técnica pesquisou no mercado uma solução para atender essa demanda da empresa que pudesse realizar o monitoramento de todos os equipamentos instalados na rede e, assim, garantir que o suporte ao usuário pudesse acontecer proativamente.

A ferramenta encontrada foi o ManageEngine OpManager, distribuído no Brasil com exclusividade pela Inspirit e que foi projetado para permitir que os gestores de TI realizem o gerenciamento remoto de todos os dispositivos de hardware, incluindo servidores, firewall, Lotus Domino servers, active directory servers, routers, switches, impressoras, desktops, nobreaks etc. O OpManager oferece gráficos de utilização em tempo real de CPUs, memórias, discos, e possui suporte a SNMP, WMI, Telnet, SSH, além de monitorar vários ambientes de rede ao mesmo tempo. A solução também emite alertas em caso de falhas em quaisquer dispositivos, facilitando o trabalho do administrador, que terá acesso imediato à relatórios e gráficos completos sobre o status da rede.

“Antes do ManageEngine OpManager, o atendimento acontecia sempre com atraso e um pouco ‘às cegas’. O pessoal de suporte não tinha uma visão muito clara e completa do que estava acontecendo e isso acabava por retardar o atendimento e resultado era um tempo maior para a resolução das ocorrências e mais eventos sem a devida prevenção”, conta Ezauri Coraiola, supervisor de TI da DENSO. “A empresa não possuía qualquer aplicação de monitoramento, o que tornava as ações do departamento de TI em atividades reativas, pois, na maioria das vezes quando um problema ocorria, o suporte era informado pelo usuário final depois do estrago feito”, conta Ezauri. “O monitoramento era manual, em cima das principais aplicações, e era uma tarefa difícil. Vários sistemas críticos precisavam ser controlados e o resultado não era satisfatório”.

“Uma ocorrência que costumava a dar dor de cabeça era relacionada à comunicação do software de gestão (ERP), que possui comunicação com um sistema chamado CIGMA em AS400 via MQ. Esta comunicação envolve vários aplicativos e quando um deles parava ou aumentava o número de mensagens de erro, era uma correria para descobrir onde estava o problema. Quando um aplicativo parava, outras áreas da empresa também deixavam de trabalhar. Agora, com o OpManager, podemos monitorar este o processo e receber alertas antes do aumento da fila ou até mesmo da finalização/queda do processo”, conta Daniel Köhler, analista de suporte da DENSO do Brasil.

De acordo com Köhler, outra grande vantagem do OpManager que agregou valor para a escolha do produto foi a disponibilidade de relatórios agrupados com os TOP 10. “Assim, ela nos oferece um dashboard para que possamos ter uma visão ampla da disponibilidade de todos os dispositivos na rede que estão em pleno funcionamento ou que estão apresentando algum tipo de variação que necessita ser devidamente apurada”, explica. “Com estes recursos foi possível acabar com a fase anterior, quando, na maioria das vezes, um problema nos era informado pelo usuário final, a correção de problema acontecia somente quando já era tarde demais. Com a ferramenta agora é possível acompanhar e monitorar a utilização dos ativos e receber alertas quando um ativo está com utilização sobrecarregada. Com este acompanhamento é possível ter uma intervenção antecipada e coordenada das atividades relacionadas a toda a nossa rede”, acrescenta Köhler.

A infraestrutura de TI da DENSO do Brasil abrange três unidades operacionais, em Curitiba – onde fica a matriz da empresa, São Paulo e Pindamonhangaba , totalizando 35 servidores, 1 mil desktops. No total são aproximadamente 2000 usuários finais que demandam atendimento em tempo real.

ServiceDesk Plus 7.6 – Atualização

ServiceDesk Plus 7.6 – Atualização

Essa atualização do SDP esta sendo uma das mais esperadas (pelo menos por mim). Muita coisa nova e muitas correções também.

O principal é a parte de permissão, agora você consegue granular o que o técnico consegue editar na solicitação. Muitos cliente estavam querendo esse tipo de configuração. Tendo assim um nível controle maior sobre os itens das solicitações e de segurança.

Arquivamento de dados (Data Archiving) – essa funcionalidade vai ajudar a aumentar o desempenho do SDP. A pergunta é: “Como ele vai fazer isso?” – Simples, arquivando as solicitações antigas. Você define o tempo que as informações ficaram retidas na base de dados e o arquivamento vai ser automático conforme o tempo definido. Com isso você alivia o bando de dados e o acesso as informações ficam mais rápido. Com alguns cliques você consegue acessar as informações arquivadas, é possível também criar filtros de exceção.  

Compatibilidade com celulares. È possível acessar o SDP através do celular com características especificas.

Analisador de E-mail (E-mail Command) – com essa feature você consegue abrir a solicitação por e-mail e categorizá-la. Antigamente isso não era possível e tínhamos que criar complexas regras de negocio para fazer essa classificação.  

Temos agora templates para resposta de solicitações e base de conhecimento, esta show de bola. Entre muitas outras melhorias e correções.

ServiceDesk Plus 7.6 – ReadMe 

Fine Grained Authorization

Configure Roles such that a technician is allowed to perform specific tasks in requests and purchase modules. Some of the operations available in the initial cut are,

Data Archiving

With Data Archiving one can archive old requests based on certain criteria like created date, completed date and so on.

• Option to schedule data archiving.
• Provision to specify exceptions while archiving.
• Support to view archived data

Mobile Client

Mobile Client support for technicians who need to access SDP via iphone and other PDA’s. The client will have support for the following actions

• View ‘My Pending’, ‘All Pending’ and ‘All Requests’.
• Support for adding a resolution and closing the request.
• Support for adding WorkLog.
• Support for assigning requests to technicians.

Other Enhancements

• Request Module
  • First Response based SLA – Option to specify a first response time for a given SLA along with support for 1st level escalation.
  • Option to list “Request Pending My Approval” in the request list view
  • Customizable request Print View
  • Templates for replying a request
  • Templates for resolving a request

• Asset Module
  • Fetching software from Mac machine.
  • Support for scanning multi processor information in linux machine.
  • An asset can be connected to a number of services which can be captured in the Relationship section of an asset. This functionality, earlier available in Enterprise edition will now be available in professional edition also

• Remote Desktop
  • Earlier remote desktop connection will be established without client acknowledgment. Now client should acknowledge remote desktop access initiated by technician.
  • Option to enable / disable Remote Desktop Access functionality in the application.
  • Option to enable / disable Remote Desktop Access permission for technicians.

• Software Licensing
  • Support for Client Access License (CAL) and Volume based Software licensing.
  • Additional fields for Software license.

• Problem / Change Module
  • Marking of a problem as Known Error is made configurable.
  • Earlier, changes of type ‘Standard’ are automatically considered to be pre-approved. This has been further enhanced so that any change type can be marked as pre-approved.
  • Problem/Change raised on an asset is displayed in the “Request” tab of the Asset details page.

• IT service segment is made available in Professional Edition. Earlier this was available only in the Enterprise edition.

• Support for NTLM v2 based authentication for pass through authentication (single sign on). Users who have configured single sign on before 7.6 need to reconfigure SSO after migrating to 7.6.

• Option to select the Domain for a requester and technician.

• Any modifications in the Admin section, an entry would be added in the log viewer.

• Option to Thread Dump is available in the Support Tab.

• Email Command
  • Ability to parse incoming mails on enabling E-mail Command under Mail Server Settings configuration.
  • Ability to parse incoming mails to set various request fields (like category, level, mode, priority and so on)
  • Operations like pick up request, assign request, close request, edit request can be performed through email itself.

• Http form submission based API enhancements
  • Http form submission API support to add / update / delete Site, Requesters, Technicians.
  • Http form submission API support to add / update Assets.

• Tasks Enhancements
  • Ordering of tasks
  • Groups support in tasks
  • Specifying the dependant tasks for a given task

• Business Rule Enhancements
  • Option to send mail when a rule matches
  • Option to continue with the next business rule even after a successful match.
  • Option to apply the Business rule on editing the request also.
  • Option to mark a Business Rule as inactive.
  • Option to override the values with the ones in Business rules on successful match.

• Notification Rules Enhancements
  • Notifications will not be sent to technicians when the operation is performed by the technicians themselves. New request creation, request assign, request close, task assign, task close notifications will not be sent to the technician, if the operation is performed by the technician himself / herself.

Behavioral Changes

• Certain modifications has been made to enhance the performance of ServiceDesk Plus,
  • The time frame to auto refresh the request list view page is set from “Every 3 minutes”. If the time frame is set to Every 2 minutes then on upgrading to 7.6, the value is automatically set to 3 minutes.
  • In all list views, the maximum number of rows is set to 250. If the number exceeds the maximum value and on upgrading to 7.6, the value is automatically set to 250.
  • Navigation buttons in the details page of request, problem and change has been disabled by default. If required, this option can be enabled in the database.
  • Column-wise search for requests on the bases of request template has been disabled.

• While printing a request, the assets associated to the requester will not be displayed.
• On reopening a request, the time frame from ‘Closed’ to ‘Open’ state is added to the due by time of the request.
• While creating a new request, technicians associated to the selected site and technicians with permission to view “All” sites from Roles would have been listed earlier. Now, only technicians who are directly associated to the site will be listed.
• On entering a solution/workaround for a Problem, the status of Known Issue must be marked manually from the Actions tab.
• Ability to add and execute Business Rules and Service Level Agreement without selecting the criteria. These Business Rules and Service Level Agreement are executed when the none of the request values satisfy any criteria mentioned in other Business Rules and Service Level Agreement.
• Access to Remote Desktop Control is restricted to technicians with AERemote Control role.
• System Log under Support tab can be viewed only by the administrator and the site administrator.

Issues Fixed

1. SD-12654: Problem in viewing attachments in Outlook 2003, when an email is sent from ServiceDesk Plus through exchange 2007.
2. SD-13809: In Requester login, the requester additional fields such as multi line and pick list are shown as a single line text field under “My Details” tab.
3. SD-13903, SD-14795: Due by time is not updated/recalculated when a closed/resolved request (within the due by time) is replied back.
4. SD-13972: In Change Module, a technician with View and Edit change permission is unable to add work log since there is no Add button in work log.
5. SD-13984: If the server is running in IST and the selected time zone in Personalize window is MST, then on editing the request details page the date values (created, due by) are displayed in IST.
6. SD-14101, SD-14156: Saving a draft from conversation does not save it in the parent request. Instead the draft is saved in the child request. The drafts cannot be viewed unless the request is split.
7. SD-14137: If a Holiday’s description contains ‘&’ then in edit holiday page, ‘&’ is displayed along with ‘amp;’.
8. SD-14138: Forwarding a conversation does not follow “Forwarding a Request” email template under the Notification Rules.
9. SD-14154: In IE 6 and IE 7 browsers, while associating department to a requester from requester list view page, an “Invalid argument” alert occurs but the department is associated to the requester.
10. SD-14214: Unable to associate Incidents from Actions drop down list under Problems and Change details page.
11. SD-14266: Change module -> Print Preview, the size of the attachment is improperly displayed in change print view.
12. SD-14290: Unable to dissociate all the groups that are associated to the technician from the technician edit page.
13. SD-14314: Unable to edit and update requests when the priority field is removed from the template. This occurs only in Inline Edit.
14. SD-14365: List of all technicians is displayed while assigning tasks for a request in a site.
15. SD-14337, SD-14388, SD-14424: Issue with navigation link in the site list view page. The first 100 sites are displayed, and neither selecting ‘show 200 per page’ option nor clicking the next button allows users to view the 2nd or 3rd page of sites. Also, selecting the view 25 or 50 sites fails to change the display.
16. SD-14397: Reset the requester view permission to “Show all their site request”. After an AD import the request view permission reverts back to “Show only their own request.”
17. SD-14423: Unable to select additional fields with quotes in Request Closing Rules.
18. SD-14648: Duplication of requesters occurs while associating assets to users on Importing Assets from CSV.
19. SD-14702: Duplication of assets on changing the Product Type of a Product.
20. SD-14781: Unable to import users from Active Directory again if the department is disabled.
21. SD-14817: If the change additional fields are set as mandatory under change closure rules, then on removing the additional fields, the change cannot be closed.
22. SD-14861: On clicking “View All Conversations” link in Request Details page, the navigation buttons disappears.
23. SD-14890: Bullets in description of Requests, Problem, Changes are not shown while viewing. This happens only in IE browser.
24. SD-15303: Changes with Status as ‘Rejected’ and Approval Status as ‘Submitted for Approval’ are displayed under Unapproved Changes in the Home page.
25. SD-15325: In Problem/Change module -> History tab -> Property View link, the “by” field is always blank.
26. SD-15406, SD-15387: Editing the date/time additional field of a request will show the Request History values in a long format.
27. SD-21039: Department field becomes empty when the department field is not mapped while importing requesters from CSV for second time.
28. SD-21067: Failure in updating the requester’ s password on performing CSV import for the second time.
29. SD-21019: Malfunction in Scheduled Backup; when the backup location is in another machine and full rights of the backup folder is given to the user logged into ServiceDdesk Plus server.
30. SD-21193: Line breaks in a WorkLog description is not shown in the request details.
31. SD-21205: In a request template, though the value for the group is selected; while creating a new request with that template, the technicians based on the group is not displayed. Instead all the technicians under the requesters site is displayed.
32. SD-21208: Unable to edit the technician details if “&” character is in phone number (or) Mobile number field.
33. SD-21356: Request search works for the first 500 character of the request description.
34. SD-15283, SD-21350: Some of the ‘$’ variables are not replaced properly in Notes addition notification.
35. SD-21414: Incorrect values displayed in the “Task” column of change list view page.
36. SD-21748: Technicians with only ‘View’ permission for the change module are able to delete CAB members selected for approval.
37. SD-22196: In SLA escalation for Non English language, if the $ticket owner is added in the escalation list along with other technicians, on saving the $ticket owner is not displayed in the list.
38. SD-22217: While editing a requester, unable to set the department as None. This happens if sites are not configured.
39. SD-22220: In IE 7; unable to perform Network Scan based on IP address range.
40. SD-22256: Asset pre populated while creating a Preventive Maintenance task is not displayed while editing the Preventive Maintenance task