Information Technology Operation Management (ITOM)

Information Technology Operations Management (ITOM) software is done on purpose to represent all the tools stand in need to manage the provisioning, performance, capacity and availability of the computing, networking and application environment.

IT Operations Management (ITOM) is the administrative part involving technology infrastructure components and the requirements of particular applications, storage, services, connectivity and networking elements in an organization. ITOM is all about infrastructure:

• Servers
• Applications
• Storage
• Virtualization
• Cloud
• Network

ITOM Methodology

Information Technology Operations control the way an organization manages software and hardware and involves other IT support, such as network administration, device management and help desks of all categories. IT Operations Management (ITOM) and IT Operations Analytics (ITOA) assist an organization rectify the way that IT make a start on services, deployment and support and help to safeguard consistency, reliability and quality of service.

Components of IT operations are chosen to provide effective services at the required quality and cost. IT operations are generally considered to be separate from IT applications. In a software development firm, for example, IT Operations incorporates all IT functions other than software development and management.

Different organizations describe IT operations in various method; the term is also used to describe the department that controls, IT operations as well as the collection of services and processes and how the department works as a standardized procedure. ServiceNow ITOM technologies are handed down to support ServiceNow's cloud infrastructure and operations.

Figure 1: Information Technology Operation Management

When ITOM is integrated along with ITSM, processes like Incident, Problem, and Change Management become more systematic and IT all together becomes far more effective. IT Services and Operations Management Strategy brings together and automates outcomes from all areas of the business by holding a single platform across the organization to increase the pace of service delivery.

Integrating IT Operations management and Service management enables to view and run these entities as one, aligning company and their operations with client’s needs.

Conclusion:

Information Technology Operation Management software and IT Service Management collaboratively monitors and controls the way an IT organization manages and handles software, hardware service as well as other IT support.

About Author:

Vinita Vaishnav  is a consultant in Systems Plus Pvt. Ltd. Within Systems Plus, she actively contributes to the areas of Technology and Information Security. She can be contacted at: vinita.vaishnav@spluspl.com

Bridging Miscommunication Gaps Within Team

“We need to talk “

Did you cringe a little ? The above sentence can cause a lot of anxiety, that something is dreadfully wrong.

Poor communication can hinder teamwork such as team communication, presumption and sometimes even lose the trust in a team member. Good communication alongside discipline and responsibility can serve as a very essential part of any project success. Discipline and responsibility can be more of accounted on an individual level, but communication is more of a team effort.

How can you at individual level avoid poor communication? :

Listen: Before presenting your opinion about anything, listen keenly to what is being discussed in the team and what your team members are emphasized. Often it happens that there are various distractions and we forget to pay attention to what is being discussed. The lack of paying attention can miss out a very important point. To avoid loss of data, you can even write down small notes in order to remember most of the discussion

Carousal of meetings: Often it so happens that there are short video conferencing or calls or communications via mail. This detachment is a huge communication barrier. Having stand-up meetings regularly to have a touch base and solicit feedback from team members can really prove effective in good communication within the team. Make sure that you encourage your team to have regularized stand-up meetings and actively participate in them. Informal get togethers within the team, like team lunches, parties, etc., go a long way toward turning colleagues into friends, which inevitable leads to a much deeper level of trust & consequently, better communication

Brainstorming: This can be an effective way to break ice between team members. These sessions can really be helpful to know an individual’s mindset better. It is a creative technique that produces numerous ideas. One can be expressed about self thought process during such sessions.

Speaking the right Language: We all tend to prefer “language” for communication. Some people understand better when provided a statistical data, whereas others may favour graphs and pie charts. Many will prefer story telling and anecdotes. In order to make every team member in sync, it is important to present your view in a “language” that everyone understands.

Respond promptly: The response time that is taken can effectively matter communication. A tardy response can leave the front person with an impression that you are too busy to reply. Procrastination may lead to major communication gaps. Responding back instantly as simple as “ I will get back to you “ can be really effective. Also checking your mails, messages and missed out calls on a regular basis can keep you updated.

Taking ownership: As a part of a team, every member in it should know that what roles they play to achieve goals. For this it becomes vital that you take ownership of a task and manage it throughout the process.

Affable: Personalities of individual team members also impact their communication with their teammates. A cordial & gregarious personality, makes it much more comfortable for teammates to approach you.

Conclusion: 

Last but not least, better communication is a step towards an efficient team. The matter of fact is that we should not restrict communication only in meetings but have a transparency with team members.

About Author:

Ammara Ansari is a consultant in Systems Plus Pvt. Ltd. Within Systems Plus, she actively contributes to the areas of Technology and Information Security. She can be contacted at: ammara.ansari@spluspl.com

Defect Clustering And Pesticide Paradox In Software Testing

When we discuss principle of testing, Defect clustering & Pesticide Paradox are two important principles of testing which often called together.

Defect Clustering

In an application small number of modules contains maximum number of bugs or shows most operational failures

Once defect clustering is identified, testers will focus on these known areas that may also be called as Hotspots, same information is helpful for development team also as they can emphasis more on major affected modules.

Defect clustering cases are often include in Smoke testing which ensures major complex conditions are verified. Defect clustering analysis is often done after first round on test by Project manager or Test manager with the help of defect sheet. Defect sheet should have information of Module for all reported defect. Manager can take pivot of Module Vs Defect count and easily analysis occurrence of Defect clustering

Moreover it is based on the Pareto principle, also known as the 80-20 rule, where 80% of issues are from 20% of modules. 

Importance of Defect Clustering 

• QC can focus on the same modules/functionality in order to find more number of available bugs
• Time is saved thus cost for finding defects

Below is the sample example which shows identified modules (highlighted) of Defect clustering.

Module	Count of issues	Percentage %
Master 1	4	2.07253886
Master 2	8	4.14507772
Master 3	28	14.50777202
Master 4	5	2.590673575
Master 5	9	4.663212435
Transac 1	24	12.43523316
Transac 2	25	12.95336788
Transac 3	6	3.10880829
Transac 4	33	17.0984456
Report 1	22	11.39896373
Report 2	8	4.14507772
Report 3	21	10.88082902
Total	193

Pesticide Paradox

Pesticide paradox refers to when same set of test is executed again & again then eventually the same test case would no longer find new bugs.

After 2 or 3 rounds of testing, count of new defects start dropping as most of the bugs got fixed by cleaning ‘Hot Spot’ area. Development team put more focus & become extra careful in those module where testers found more defect and might overlook in other places 

Thus by executing same set of test cases would no longer gives more defect. The test case should be updated for new & different type of test in such a way that it will produce more defects

Methods to Avoid pesticide paradox

• Preparing new set of test cases & updating it tot already available test case
• Developing new set of tests case to perform test on different function/module of software 

By using above methods testers can find more effective defects in the modules which are not been focused by testers earlier or modules which are not taken extra care as testers are focusing in defect clustering modules

The first method is time consuming, as number of cases will be too large thus increase the testing time and in turn will increase the cost of testing.

To manage this testers should identify & remove test cases which are of less importance & are of low priority.

Testers can identify & remove useless test cases without compromising with the quality as all the test cases covering important areas of the software will be retained.

Bottom Line:

Defect cluster is useful during initial round of testing but it is always good to use one of the Pesticide Paradox method

Although created test case has maximum coverage and average rate of finding defects is high but we still need to keep updating, reviewing test cases on regularly basis.

About Author:

Vinayak Jadhav is a consultant in Systems Plus Pvt. Ltd. Within Systems Plus, he actively contributes to the areas of Technology and Information Security. He can be contacted at:  vinayak.j@spluspl.com

Best practices for Contract Lifecycle Management

It has been quiet a long time that I and my team have been working on a Contract Lifecycle Management application support for one of our elite client. To start with I would like to give a brief introduction on what is a contract as per law definition.

“A contract (or informally known as an agreement in some jurisdictions) is an agreement having a lawful object entered into voluntarily by two or more parties, each of whom intends to create one or more legal obligations between them.” as defined by law.

In a day - to - day business scenario contracts have been signed for various professional requirements such as IT, Administration, Security, Hardware, Transport, etc. This also requires a well-aligned structure to maintain the contract related data for future utilization. This can be defined with the help of Contract Management.

“Contract management is the process of managing contract creation, execution and analysis to maximize operational and financial performance at an organization, all while reducing financial risk. Organizations encounter an ever-increasing amount of pressure to reduce costs and improve company performance.” as defined by Wikipedia.

Gone are the days when contracts were manually maintained and managed by organizations. As the industry has evolved, so is the process of Contract Lifecycle Management. More refined processes and applications are streaming the market with automation that leads to significant improvements in cost savings and efficiency. 

“Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) is defined as a proactive methodical management of a contract from initiation through award, compliance and renewal.” as defined by Wikipedia. 

This blog will help an organization place few players that are considered as best practices for Contract LifeCycle Management. Below diagram states few best practices that have been analyzed for CLM

1. Central Repository:
Data is the most valuable asset of an organization. It helps in drawing a future picture for upcoming generations and also speaks about the history. It is always advisable to maintain a centralized repository as a best practice for contract management. Well amongst the few logical reasons are to establish complete set of contracts for easy tracking, managing and security considering how often one needs to refer available data. It helps you in locating the required detail without much hassle at a single location compared to the ancient method of file cupboards. Top most advantages also include the aligned structure for storage and reporting ease. We use the search option to filter and search for the expected results.

2. Automated Alerts:

Timely reminders is a crucial need for Contract Management. It allows the users to meet the deadlines and acts as a cost savings opportunity. Automated alerts is a better version of Tracking crucial contracts milestones over manual tracking that is more prone to human errors. It also, has an additional benefit of being directly linked to your contract and hence reduces the supervisory task of setting manual reminders/notes using outlook. Any change in the contract will be considered for system generated alerts. Alerts are suggestively configured for reminders on contract expiration dates.

3. User Level Security:

One-Stop solution for a complete business process with user accessibility security boundaries is a wise decision. Data visibility to the authorized individual is the most crucial task. This is quiet complex for manual data allocation, but feasible in a contract management application. Enhanced security measures is a mandatory aspect considering the volumes of data involved and the probability of sensitive data being open to many unauthorized users. Group level user access is provided to users in the Contract Lifecycle management application that currently we are working on. 

4. Audit Trail: 

Maintaining an audit trail of the changes performed. Crucial input for audit and ensure compliance. It is a crucial task to compile the necessary records for an audit in a decentralized system. A CLM system should offer tools such as language and template libraries, tracked edits, and user permissions that make compliance even easier to achieve. A next generation CLM system also support automated workflows that helps in inculcating the culture of performing required checks and following the required procedure for completing a Contract lifecycle. This ensures an organized, timely and error less contracts trails. As data is centrally available with required time stamps and versioning and also user identifications for the required tasks. 

5. Process Automation:

Adding to the benefits specified in the above point for automated approval process, it also helps in eliminating bottlenecks and improve the productivity of your staff. In a manual process contract approval process is time consuming considering the authorizers availability, data completeness and verification. Automated email alerts on contract submission, template repository, e-signatures, etc. are also part of this batch of future features resulting in a great way to stay on top of deadlines without missing a beat. A new feature addition e-signatures has helped in reducing the wait time due to manual tasks of mailing, scanning, or faxing a hard copy agreement for user convenience in case of unavailability due to travel or work from home.

6. System Integration:

Seamless communication between systems is one of the key requirements of a smart application. As part of an organizational IT structure we are aware that even though we believe in a single platform structure, many organization still use multiple systems. To manage a complete process and keep the data real time many internal and external Integration links are required. Hence it is very essential that your CLM system is flexible enough to support the various types of integration needs and match the format diversity of other system designs. 

7. Maintain Template module:

For a Global Company it is a boon to create a reusable template library with the company’s standard language, terms, and clauses. As part of standardization, every contract consists of standard language, terms, and clauses. This makes it effective for reference in a scenario such as staff members are unsure of proper language when drafting an agreement, when major errors can be made. One can even have user level security for the templates shared in the common library for compliance purpose. A common template library helps in reducing miscommunication for company standards, improves productive time and provides a central repository for access.

8. Reporting:

The most tedious task of the year is collating of data and presenting it in the desired format. This is time consuming and manual execution may lead to errors. A CLM application should provide a tool that is capable of establishing a series of custom reports in a very effective way. Reports are a need of the niche team members to have the overview of status, geographic breakdown, or value of certain contracts. These reports will also help the organization for future plan and milestone analysis like on the average contract lifecycle or how many contracts were processed in a given time frame. Reports allow you to measure success and track productivity for more informed business decisions over time.

Conclusion: 

So here we go with a collated list of pointers that can be considered as best practices for CLM. Centralizing contracts, automating alerts, automating approval process, template module, integration and reporting are the keys to an effective contract management process. Well managed contracts lead effectively to productivity, minimized risks and maximized profitability.

About Author:
Mrudula Palyekar is a consultant in Systems Plus Pvt. Ltd. Within Systems Plus, she actively contributes to the areas of Technology and Information Security. She can be contacted at: mrudula.palyekar@spluspl.com

Best Practices In Application Support

Best Practice are a set of ideas or thoughts which helps in execution of project. A best practice is a method that has been generally accepted because it produces superior results and helps in smooth driving of the project. Best Practices is a standard way of doing things which accelerates work and reduces intricacies. Best Practices in Application Support helps employees to efficiently complete tasks in time, reduces complexity, reduces work and solves issues faster. Best Practices are prevalent to most of the companies or industries regardless of specific domain like Project Management or Audits. Also, new standards for Best Practices can be achieved by defining a problem, analyzing the problem, testing the problem and then finding a solution to the problem by implementing best practices as an improvement measure. In cognisance, best practices should always be defined so that it improves quality and reduce waste. Best practices helps in improving skills of company’s workforce. Best Practices for Application Support project are as follows:

• Raising a ticket or request for every query: 

A request or ticket should be raised for every query whichever comes first for e.g. user login issues, unable to view report tab etc. This type of requests come often so a request should be raised for every query. It helps in maintaining records of the tickets and narrows down the search. In future, if similar query comes, then you can recheck from previous ticket for solution on Service Desk. One should have best practice of raising a ticket or else it may cause complexity in tracking records in future.

• Conduct Monthly Status Calls:

It is essential for a project to have a smooth workflow, so it is important to conduct Monthly Status Calls. This monthly calls helps in billing activities, discussions on open tickets (queries), discussing issues and remedies related to project, maintaining Client relationship and helps in providing remedies. Monthly Calls in Application Support is must as it gives the update or status of project. Also, MoM (Minutes of Meeting) after monthly status call is necessary as it contains discussion occurred on call. 

• Monthly Billing Activities:

Billing activity should be performed every month so that company’s revenue does not get affected. Billing activities include all tickets raised last month, description of tickets and efforts billed per hour for those tickets. Billing activities should be discussed in Monthly Status Calls or Monthly Billing Calls. Also, Monthly Billing activities is a best practice because it helps in keeping update of the payment received and payment yet to be received.

• Weekly Reports:

This is the best practice for maintaining record of tickets as weekly reports contains open tickets, description of tickets, status of tickets etc. Weekly Status Reports can be Service Desk Ticket Reports (SDT Report) or End of Week Report (EOW Report). This detailed reports of tickets can be extracted from the application used for raising service requests. This gives the Top management an idea on the amount of efforts spent and the number of tickets raised based on which they can efficiently do the resource planning. It also helps in Project Management in Application Support. 

• Follow-up on Open Issues:

This helps in updating the status of ticket. By following-up with the user one can know if the respective query is solved or still the user is getting the same error. So best practice is to follow up on open issues so that ticket or request can be closed based on user’s response. If follow up is not done regularly then it may lead to disturbance in workflow of project. Also, Open issues on Service desk should be updated regularly because it helps in providing latest updates while a report is extracted from Service Desk.

• Updating Credentials:

The login credentials for various Applications involved in the Support Project should be maintained in a file and updated (if changed) regularly and shared with the team. This helps team members to login with their updated passwords without much hassle. Also, the credentials file should be updated with the new version so that it becomes easy for team to search for latest updated credentials.

• Continuous improvement:

Continuous improvement is a necessity for every project in an organization. Also, team should spent one hour daily to identify gaps in Application Support Project process and help in expressing new ideas or ways to fulfill those gaps in Application Support Process. Continuous improvement should be taken under consideration for an essential growth of a company. 

• Periodic Trainings:

Periodic Trainings should be conducted if any new functionality is added in Application. If periodic training is not conducted then it becomes difficult for team in understanding new functionality. Thus, organization should have best practice of conducting trainings whenever some functionality is added or whenever a new user is on boarded.

Conclusion:

Best Practices in Application Support helps in enhancement of the process thus improves efficiency. Also, best practices are accepted by everyone for e.g. a new employee joining an organization and working on an Application Support Project should have this best practices for smooth functioning. Thus, organizations should have best practice implemented so that teams will have right path to reach the goal of the project.

About Author:

Mikhil Chauhan is a consultant in Systems Plus Pvt. Ltd. Within Systems Plus, he actively contributes to the areas of Technology and Information Security. He can be contacted at: mikhil.chauhan@spluspl.com

Discover Business Analysts Competencies by Connecting the Dots

Being a Business analyst, an individual need to sort through information rather would say—lots and lots of information—in order to identify problems and uncover requirements of the solution. This process requires the ability to connect the competencies similar to connecting the dots.

Although the phrase “connecting the dots” has been around for a long time. However, the theory of connecting the dots has better demonstrated by Steve Jobs. He has some different ideology when he described what connecting the dots. He said, “You cannot connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect them looking backward. Eventually you must trust that somehow the dots will connect in your future.

Well, that sounds good. But what does it actually mean? How do we go about connecting the dots?

There are some competencies identified which when considered as Dots and connected in an appropriate way will demonstrate how business analysis can be performed smoothly.

Experience – A Deep Dive From Past

We cannot look backward if we do not have the background or experience to make sense of the new information we are taking in. That does not mean we need to have specific industry or project experience. But it does mean that we need to have learned from similar situations. We need to apply appropriate business analysis skills to new situations, guided by what worked and what did not work in the past.

Understanding of Context – Grasping Essence

We need to understand the context of the current situation. “Context” is one of the core business analysis concepts. Understanding the context provides important information about such things as the culture of the organization and the stakeholders, values and beliefs of the organization and the stakeholders, processes followed, conditions that affect the situation like weather, terminology, and technology.

“Experience” gives us something that can affect identifying the problem and the creation of the solution

Recognize patterns - “Know the core and act with confidence” 

Recognizing patterns requires an ability to take in information from a variety of different sources, to synthesize lots of disparate information and make sense of it, to rearrange it, to understand what is important, to stay focused, and not get distracted by the irrelevant. The ability to recognize patterns is what allows us to understand which “clues” are relevant, because we have seen them, just in different situations. 

It’s about the ability to see a problem and say with confidence “Particular solution will work and this one won’t”.

Think? Rational but with an intuition

BAs need to use both their rational minds and their intuition. Several years ago, there was a heated discussion on a social media group about which would serve the BA better—being “analytical” or being “intuitive.” 

Most discussion participants saw it as an either/or. Effective BAs were either more logical or more intuitive. Not only be analytical but also, we need to break down information into smaller pieces and determine which pieces are needed. We need to use our analysis to uncover the root causes of a problem, which helps separate facts from hearsay, gossip, and opinion. 

Parallel to this, we also need to use our intuition if we have any hope of being able to think critically and conceptually, as well as to be able to synthesize a lot of information quickly and be able to make sense of it.

Thrive in ambiguous situations

We often hear about the need for BAs to tolerate ambiguity. I think that effective detectives and business analysts are those who not only tolerate but actually thrive in ambiguous situations. The ability to thrive in uncertain situations allows business analysts to create structure from chaos. When business analysts can synthesize all the information they have accumulated during elicitation activities, put it together in meaningful ways, and are able to create understanding and gain consensus—that’s a true thing of beauty and brain.

Conclusion:

Having these competencies does not necessarily mean a BA will be successful. But these skills are necessary to connect the dots. Connecting the dots is necessary if we BA’s are going to do our jobs of finding problems and recommending solutions that provide value to stakeholders.

About Author:

Himanshu Suryawanshi is a consultant in Systems Plus Pvt. Ltd. Within Systems Plus, he actively contributes to the areas of Technology and Information Security. He can be contacted at: himanshu.suryawanshi@spluspl.com

How to become PCI DSS compliant

In this blog we are going to talk about what is PCI DSS, to whom do these standards apply and how can one become PCI DSS compliant.

Let’s see what we understand by PCI DSS.

PCI DSS: Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) is managed by Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council (PCI SSC). PCI SSC was launched on 7th September 2006 to improve the security of the payment account throughout transactional processes. PCI DSS helps in building and maintaining a secure environment for all companies that accept, process, store or transmit credit or debit card information.

PCI DSS applies to any organization that accepts, processes, stores or transmits cardholder data (CHD). It does not depend on the number of people working in an organization. Even if there is a single transaction which involves transmitting CHD, the organization has to be PCI DSS compliant.

PCI DSS compliance: Merchants are categorized into 4 different levels of compliance as defined by Visa. Categorizing the merchants into different levels is a tough task and can raise many questions. To avoid this, Visa recommends the merchants to contact their acquiring banks and with the help of the bank merchants can complete the following steps:

• Determine the Merchant Level based on the most recent annual Visa transaction
• Understand the requirements which are necessary for PCI compliance
• If needed, hire an Approved Scanning Vendor (ASV), who will guide the merchants to adhere to the validation requirements of PCI DSS

PCI compliance levels and requirements: There are 4 different levels of PCI compliance defined by Visa. All merchants fall under one of the four Merchant Levels based on the volume of their annual financial transactions. The following table gives a brief description of each Merchant Level:

    *Note: Compliance validation requirements are set by the acquirer.

Understanding the requirements validation:

• On-site or Self-Assessment: On-site or Self-Assessment is also known as Report on Compliance (ROC). This assessment is usually performed by a PCI SSC certified Quality Security Assessor (QSA) or by a certified Internal Security Assessor (ISA). The acquiring bank can treat this assessment as a validation, that the organization / merchant is handling the card data as per the PCI DSS. This is applicable to Level 1 and 2 merchants.
• Self-Assessment Questionnaire (SAQ): This self-evaluation tool is used by merchants and service providers to understand their compliance with the PCI DSS. This is applicable to Level 2, 3, and 4 merchants. The following chart helps the organization / merchant to understand their compliance with the PCI DSS.

    (Note: The above chart is available @pcicomplianceguide.org)

• External Vulnerability Scan: A PCI SSC Approved Scanning Vendor (ASV) performs vulnerability scanning of all the systems components which interact with the system and are a part of or provide the path to Cardholder Data Environment. This applies to all merchants.

The merchant must submit the validations requirement to its acquiring bank once they have been verified as compliant. The acquiring bank then submits the compliance status of the Merchant to Visa.

Conclusion: 

This blog helps us in understanding different requirements for a merchant to be PCI DSS compliant. Once a merchant follows all the requirements and the details are submitted to Visa by the acquiring bank, they can be termed as PCI DSS compliant.

About Author:

Akash Poojary is a consultant in Systems Plus Pvt. Ltd. Within Systems Plus, he actively contributes to the areas of Technology and Information Security. He can be contacted at:    akash.poojary@spluspl.com

Role of a Business Analyst in SDLC

The SDLC which is Software Development Life Cycle, is the total development life cycle of a system or a software. It involves a series of steps performed in a company to deliver a software project. A Business Analyst is closely related with each of the steps involved in the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC). The series of steps which involves a BA in the SDLC process are as follows:

Naturally, a Business Analyst is not just confined to the above mentioned roles. Given below is a brief description of the activities in which a BA is involved.

Initiation and Planning:

At first when a prospective project is put forth in front of the team, the Project Manager, Business Analyst and the Technical Architect is involved in the Initiation and Planning phase. Key points for discussion are as follows:

• Feasibility of the project?
• Will the project be profitable?
• Technical challenges?
• Project technical risks?
• Impact Analysis

On completion of the above discussion, a SOW (Statement of Work) keeping the client in loop is signed and a project plan is made which gives a detailed view of the milestone of the project, iteration and end date of each phase during the development of the project.

Requirement Analysis:

During the Analysis Phase most of the typical business analysis requirements related activities take place. A Business Analyst is heavily involved in making appointments with the client and start with interviewing them about the requirement of the project. This process is commonly known as Requirement gathering or Requirement Elicitation. This is where the BA will also use their modelling skills to document business requirements and prioritize activities. The information gathered is documented using MS Word or any similar software to represent use cases, use case diagram, activity diagram and data flow diagram etc.

Design and Development:

The requirements have now been designed into a solution which is being implemented. The Business Analyst doesn’t have much to do in this phase. At times, it can happen that the BA is asked to clarify requirements or in certain Agile Scrum projects the business analyst will be asked to review prototypes. Business analyst should frequently have meeting with the team or developer in case of clarification to ensure that the project is on the right track. 

Testing and Implementation:

During the Testing and Implementation phase the Business Analyst can assist with reviewing the test scripts to ensure all functional requirements are being tested. The BA can also make use of a Traceability Matrix to trace the requirements during implementation. After which the project is sent for User Acceptance Testing, in which business analyst makes an appointment with client and the client performs a sanity check. In case of bugs the project is sent back to the development team, else client will accept the project and beta version is implemented.

Conclusion:

Thus this concludes that the role of a BA is not confided to Analysis or Requirements Gathering phase alone but also in the Design and development as well as the testing phase.

About Author:

Disha Udani is a consultant in Systems Plus Pvt. Ltd. Within Systems Plus, she actively contributes to the areas of Technology and Information Security. She can be contacted at: disha.udani@spluspl.com

Value Addition of Service Desk In Application Support

Service Desk is the single point of contact between the service provider and the users. It satisfies both Customer’s and Service Provider’s objectives. A typical service desk manages incidents, service requests, and handles communication with the users. The purpose of a service desk is to maintain records of all the tickets and related communication i.e. it helps user to maintain record of the communication between client and service provider. Service desk helps in maintaining the records of the tickets thus making it available whenever required or any user can refer to the communication related to that ticket in a couple of clicks. There are various workflows for various type of requests i.e. different workflow for incident, problem and query. Service Desk in Application Support also has different workflow for User Management which includes User Creation, User Modification and User Deletion. It is an important tool which is used in Application Support Management. The reports extracted from Service Desk provides all information related to tickets and it also gives detailed report of all tickets which helps in Application Support Management. When a ticket is been closed on Service Desk then tab ‘Time spent’ on ticket has to be filled which helps in maintaining time records and thus helping in billing activities. It contains all records related to communication, onboarding trainings, tickets, user management etc. A service desk seeks to facilitate the integration of business processes into the service management infrastructure. A service desk also provides an interface for other activities such as customer change requests, third parties (i.e. record maintenance). Service Desk in Application Support helps in creating user reports, raising user management tickets, submitting new requests, view request list etc. 

Service Desk in Application Support:
There are various advantages / benefits of using Service Desk. Service Desk helps in providing following functions:

• Submitting new request:

This feature of Service Desk helps in submitting a new request i.e. a request for new user creation, user modification request, change request etc. There are various fields required for submitting a new request like: Project Name – which contains name of the project, Task – user creation, modification or deletion, Requestor – a person who has raised a request, Priority – it contains priority of the request raised i.e. high, medium or normal, Status – which can be awaiting response user, closed, open etc., Request Type – it can be user management or incident or query, Request Date – date at which request is raised, Title – requested issue title, Description – description of the request raised, and Solution – conclusion of request. The new request submitted can be seen in request list with required details and thus helps in record maintenance and in database management.

• Request List Management:

Request list management helps in viewing the list of requests. Also, request list can be updated whenever required. Service Desk in Application Support automatically generates new Request ID whenever a new request is submitted thus it easily helps customers in finding Request ID. Request List Management in Service Desk has search filters like pending on, status, except close, request ID, owner etc. which helps in providing exact data and fastens the process. Also, service desk contains records of on boarding training or activities conducted for users. If request list is not managed properly then it may cause management complexity, improper data management or data loss. So, request list should be updated and managed properly for continuous service improvement.

• Advanced Reporting tool:

Service Desk in Application Support helps in extracting detailed report of tickets thus it is called as an ‘Advanced Reporting Tool’. The report includes all the necessary data required i.e. it contains detailed information related to tickets. Reports in Service Desk can also be extracted by applying filters for date i.e. from 2nd February to 28th February. This narrows down the search for a customer or user in getting exact data. The reports can be generated for internal as well as external client purpose. Reports in Service Desk helps in Application support management. In our case, it keeps record of created, modified and disabled users which helps in monthly billing activities, quarterly reports and adhoc report.

• Application Management:

Service Desk in Application Support is related to Application Management for e.g. a service desk ‘Autodesk’ used for an application ‘Auto-tool’ which is used by a ‘company’ for their contract management. Service Desk helps in maintaining knowledge base which helps in analysing, understanding and solving queries or incidents. Service Desk in Application Support manages single point of entries, lifecycle management of all service requests. Also, an administrator of Service Desk can manage requestors, manage tasks, manage request list, edit tasks etc. 

Conclusion:

Service Desks provide pro-active, cost efficient and user-centric support. A service desk has a more broad and user-centered approach which is designed to provide the user with a single point of contact for all IT requirements. Service Desk in Application Support is a tool to deliver a superior customer service experience and boost efficiency. It provides innovative change management and extensive automation for IT service management.

About Author:

Mikhil Chauhan  is a consultant in Systems Plus Pvt. Ltd. Within Systems Plus, he actively contributes to the areas of Technology and Information Security. He can be contacted at: mikhil.chauhan@spluspl.com

Overview on ServiceNow Tool

ServiceNow is the Enterprise IT cloud company that provides Software as a Service (SaaS). It is specialized in Information Technology Service Management (ITSM), Information Technology Operation Management (ITOM), and Information Technology Business Management (ITBM).

ServiceNow may also be looked on as Service desk platform that is based on Model-View-Control (MVC) concept. When starting with a ServiceNow application, first think of the data structure, where information needs to be stored and all get linked together to create tables and fields. This is a model facet. A simple view on this data is created automatically, with form and lists showing information about data. This data can be configured automatically or by manual updates. This is a control aspect.

ServiceNow provides the following management configuration:

1. IT Service Management

2. IT Operations Management

3. Business Management

IT Service Management (ITSM)

IT Service Management describes a planned way for managing, designing, delivering and improving the way information technology (IT) is used.

IT Operations Management

IT Operation Management is a process to manage day-to-day IT Infrastructure and also, manages performance and availability of the application environment.

IT Business Management

IT Business Management combines financial management, application management and project management in a single cloud platform to optimize resources to manage the business.

Purpose:

ServiceNow is a web-based tool for employees from different departments, where they can log service requests and various incidents. The primary purpose of ServiceNow web-based tool is to provide ease of access to users to request and receive timely help and in accurate manner. 

Different types of Users in ServiceNow:
ITIL users - able to work on Incidents/Tasks.
ESS users – ServiceNow End user.
Specialized Administrator - One with Admin rights for a certain module.
System Administrator - One with Complete admin rights over the system.

Key Features of ServiceNow:

Conclusion:

ServiceNow provides a structured process that delivers everything-as-a-service and also provide ease of access to users to request and receive timely help and in accurate manner.

About Author:

Vinita Vaishnav is a consultant in Systems Plus Pvt. Ltd. Within Systems Plus, she actively contributes to the areas of Technology and Information Security. She can be contacted at: vinita.vaishnav@spluspl.com