Introduction
ServiceNow is one of the most popular and widely used cloud based IT solutions for Enterprises. It includes Incident Management, Change Management and Problem Management which are disjointed modules of ITSM processes. In an organization, Service Desk Managers need to ensure that the Help Desk teams working on Customers’ Tickets are connected to the Development teams fixing Bugs or applying Change Requests, and the entire ticket resolution process runs smoothly. Also, for each change in support ticket status Customers should get an automatic update. Without having a clear visibility throughout an Incident’s lifecycle i.e. starting from an incident being recorded in ServiceNow to its release, it is not possible for a Manager to monitor the Bug resolution progress and team performance real-time. This may also lead to error in customer update and performance issue in support system. Kovair Omnibus ensures that the Service Desk Manager gets a consolidated report on how many Incidents from ServiceNow have been recorded and addressed; how many of them are Bugs and Change Requests; what are the tentative Delivery Packages for a particular Bug or Change Request and the delivery date that developers suggest; what is the Release Go-Live date and finally, when the Bug is resolved and Incident is closed in ServiceNow. Kovair Omnibus with its ServiceNow Integration adapter enables bi-directional synchronization of data between ServiceNow, Kovair and any other tools connected to Omnibus. This allows ServiceNow artifacts to be visible from Kovair and other development tools used by other teams.ServiceNow Data Flow Diagram
The following data flow diagram explains how a Service Desk Manager monitors Incident status in ServiceNow from its inception to release with the help of Kovair Omnibus platform.
Kovair Omnibus Use Cases
Based on the above diagram, following are the use cases defined by Kovair to address the data flows.Use Case 1
An Incident is created in ServiceNow and assigned to a group.| Tool | Event | Action |
|---|---|---|
| ServiceNow | An Incident is created in ServiceNow and then assigned to a group Event Condition Assignment Group = “ALM Support Group” Other fields populated Incident ID, Summary, Description, Status, Attachments | |
| Kovair | Add Incident Fields Mapped: ServiceNow. Incident ID <->Kovair. Incident No ServiceNow. Summary <->Kovair. Title ServiceNow. Description<->Kovair.Description ServiceNow. Status<->Kovair.Status |
- The ID of the ServiceNow Incident should be populated in a field (ServiceNow Incident No) in Kovair Incident entity.
- Status of the Incident Record is ‘Assigned’.
- Once the Incident is added in Kovair, the Kovair IncidentURL should be synched back to ServiceNow.
- ServiceNow URL should be available in Kovair Incident Record.
Use Case 2
Incident Categorization| Tool | Event | Action |
|---|---|---|
| Kovair | An Incident is linked with an Change Request / Bug Event Condition If Incident is categorized as a ‘Bug’, then a Bug should be linked. If Incident is categorized as a ‘Change Request’, then a Change Request should be linked. | |
| Kovair | Linked Change Request / Bug is displayed in the Incident Record |
Traceability Views from Kovair
ServiceNow users can derive the following traceability relationships from Kovair.
Business Values
- End users who log incidents do not need Kovair license to view the Incident record and its status in Kovair
- Service Desk Manager can anytime review the status of any Incident record using Kovair interface.
- Release Number and Go-Live Date can be tagged with the logged Incident based on the Delivery Package (linked with Change Request / Bug) tagged with the Release.
- Notifications are sent to users on every status change of an Incident
- Users can also see list of Related Incidents that are already logged and linked with the Change Request / Bug.
- Users can establish and view end-to-end traceability relationships between Incidents, Change Requests / Bugs, Delivery Packages and Release.
- Reports can be generated which would display Incidents (group by Application/Priority) resolved after every Release goes live.