DRYiCE Gold BluePrint on ServiceNow Quilon 2106

In this release we have included many new exciting features such as Patch Workbench app for automating the change process and updating CMDB tables after successful patch deployment, and associating IT assets with their respective contracts with OOB Contract Management. New enhancements in this release include a new handshake protocol in iUpdate app to check compatibility between publisher (source) and subscriber (target) instances prior to pushing the update sets, and achieving granular level visibility of all user based ServiceNow ITOM, ITBM and ITSM licenses in iLicense app.

Patch Workbench

• A bidirectional integration has been introduced between the Patch Workbench utility app in GBP and BigFix to synchronize patch and computer baseline details on both the applications.  Now, whenever a patch baseline or computer group is created, deleted or updated on either of the applications, the change will be updated automatically on the other application as well. The introduction of automated updates will save time and effort spent on manually updating the applications.

• Now when patch users click on ‘Create patch request’ tab on the left navigation bar, a ‘Change request’ form auto populated with patch, computer baseline information and ‘Change Initiator’ details will become visible. This will save the time and effort needed to fill the details in the form manually, automating the patch deployment process.

• The UI for Patch Workbench module has been enhanced. The sub-menus on the left navigation bar under ‘Patches’ and ‘Computers’ on the ‘Patch Change Request’ form have been removed. Now all patches and computers will be displayed in their respective dropdown lists on the search page of the ‘Patch Change Request’ form. The search page of the ‘Patch Request Form’ will now show the following fields: ‘Computers’, ‘Computer groups’, ‘Patches’ and ‘Patch Baselines’. The new format will allow users to obtain information on computers and patches from a single table.

• Now computers selected for patch deployment on the ‘Change request form’ will be made only on the basis of their appropriate categories and sub-categories. This will ensure that only the right equipment is selected for patch deployment, improving the accuracy of the patch deployment process.

• An integration has been introduced between Patch Workbench app and BigFix to collect information on every computer or server where the change for a patch upgrade was deployed. In case the deployment is successful, Patch Workbench will populate the CMDB with computer or patch baseline information, and the date, time of the deployment. Once the CMDB has been updated the ‘CMDB Update’ task will be closed. In case the deployment fails, the details of the CI will be recorded in the ‘Change Work Notes’ and there will be no updates made to the CMDB. This will automatically update the CMDB with the details without manual intervention.

• Now, clicking on the "Existing" tab in the "Patch Change Request" section will redirect users to a page listing all existing change requests related to patches. On clicking on a change request from the ones listed on the page, the users will be directed to a change form. populated with the details of the patch request. This will allow users to find all details related to a change request for a patch upgrade from a single location.

• Now on opening a patch record, patch users will be unable to edit computer groups on which the patch was deployed. This will prevent users from tampering information in the records creating a single source of truth for referencing patch details.

• The tabs on the left navigation bar have been updated as follows:

1.  The name of the subcategory under ‘Patch Baseline’, ‘Computer Group’ and ‘Patch Change Request’ has been changed from ‘Existing’ to ‘All’.
2.  The ‘Create Patch Request’ under ‘Patch Change Request’ has been renamed to ‘Create new’.
3.  Two new fields ’Open’ and ‘Closed’ have been introduced under ‘Create New’ and ‘All’ sections under the ‘Patch Change Request’ tab to show change requests that are in the open and closed state respectively.

• Now after a change for implementing a patch upgrade has been deployed, BigFix will fetch information on all CIs with the scope of the deployment. If the deployment was successful, the following details will be automatically updated in the CMDB. Patch and / or Patch Baseline Details deployed on CIs. Date & Time of deploying the patch. After the information has been recorded in the CMDB, the ‘CMDB Update’ task will be closed. If the deployment fails, the details of CIs will be added to the ‘Change Work Notes’. This will save the time and effort in manually updating the CMDB and improve the accuracy of the records.

• When the Change Approval Board (CAB) approves a change request for a patch upgrade on GBP on ServiceNow, the information contained in the change request will be auto populated in an XML file and executed on BigFix for deploying the change. After recording the success or failure of the patch upgrade, the CMDB will be automatically updated with the date, time and details of all the CIs where the patches were deployed successfully. This will save time and effort needed by the BigFix team to capture the details of the change request from ServiceNow and execute it on BigFix. Automation will help to reduce the errors in capturing the change request details manually leading to smoother and error free implementations. 

Advance Survey

• The UI of Advance Survey has been enhanced by improving the layout and design of ‘Overall Survey’, ‘Incident Closure Survey’, ‘Request Closure Survey’, ‘Post Order Fulfillment Survey’. The ‘My Survey’ section has been enhanced to include the count of all active surveys. The changes in UI will provide a better user experience.

Agent Mobile App

• A new capability has been introduced in ‘My Work’ section on ‘My Incident’ applet to allow service desk agents to view all incidents in ‘Open’ or ‘Resolved’ state.  On swiping left on the chosen incident, service desk agents will be provided with an option to comment on, reassign or resolve the incident. This will allow service desk agents to triage, process and resolve incidents on the go.

• The home page of Agent Mobile App has been enhanced with the addition of new tabs such as ‘Applications’, ‘My Work’, ‘Incidents’, ‘My Approvals’ to deliver out of the box mobile-first experience for agents. In order to find more resources, agents will have to click on ‘More’ to access the following applets, namely ‘My Team’, ‘Major Incidents’, ‘’Notifications’, ‘Saved’, ‘Settings. The new ITSM Agent Mile app provides an intuitive interface to manage their work, view schedules, check who is on-call, respond to major incidents, and take many more actions while on the go.

• The Agent Mobile App has been enhanced with the introduction of new tabs for ‘Incidents at Risk’, ‘Breached Incidents’, ‘Change Tasks’, ‘Catalog Tasks’, and Approvals’ to enable agents to access and process tasks assigned to them from their mobile phone.

1. Incidents at Risk - Users can now view details in the ‘Incidents at Risk’ tab by clicking on it. In order to perform an action, users will have to swipe left on the record from the list view.     
2. Breached Incident - Users can view the details in the ‘Breached Incidents’ tab by clicking on it.  In order to perform an action on the record, users will have to swipe left on the record from the list view.
3. Change Tasks - Users can click on the ‘Change Tasks’ tab to view task details, activity, related tasks, add comments and close the task.
4. Catalog Tasks - Users can tap on a record in the ‘Catalog Tasks’ tab to view details and activities related to the record or swipe left on the record to add comments and close the task.
5. Approvals – Users can click on the approval to view details and activities related to an approval or swipe left to Approve / Reject approval requests. On clicking the menu, users will be able to see the option to add comments to post it in the ‘Activity’ section. 

• A new option has been provided on Agent Mobile App to create an incident on the home page under ‘My Work’ section. This will allow agents to create incidents anywhere, anytime with their mobile app.

• Under ‘My Tasks’ in My Work applet, users will be able to see the list of catalog tasks assigned to them. 

• The ‘My Incidents’ applet on Agent Mobile App has been enhanced to allow fulfillers to view details of incident tickets in order to resolve or reassign the tickets or add comments and work notes from their mobile phone. This capability will allow fulfillers to work on incidents assigned to them from their mobile phones, anytime, anywhere.

• Now in order to close a task from the Agent Mobile App, agents will have to open the task from ‘My Tasks’ tab and close the task after providing their comments. This will allow users to close the task, anytime, anywhere using their mobile phones.       

Incident Management

• Now, after an assignee has taken ownership of an incident ticket with status and sub status in the ‘Pending’ and ‘Appointment Scheduled’ state respectively, the ‘Date’ and ‘Time’ fields will become enabled on the incident form.  Once the mandatory fields have been filled and the ticket has been submitted, an email notification will be triggered to the requester informing them on the date and time of appointment. If the requester proposes an alternate date, the assignee will be able to make the recommended changes. If the assignee changes the date, the new appointment date will be reflected on the requester’s calendar. This will ensure that both the assignee and the requester are kept informed about the appointment time.

• Incident managers and admins will now be able to add trigger conditions for proposing an incident as a major incident candidate.  Once activated, service desk user will be able to select all or any one of the trigger conditions and verify the eligibility of incident ticket being proposed as a major incident candidate. The verified ticket will become visible under ‘Candidates in the List View’ under the ‘Major Incidents’ tab allowing the major incident manager to evaluate the candidate and decide whether it should be promoted as a major incident. This will provide the checks and balances before an incident can be proposed as a major incident.     

Problem Management

• Now problem managers will be able to create and use their own RCA techniques apart from ‘Fishbone’, ‘5W1H’, ‘5Whys’ RCA techniques offered in GBP.  This will allow problem managers to choose the technique that is best suited to the problem.      

Communication Manager

• Now communication managers will be able to select the most appropriate template from the SMS or email templates module basis preset rules to configure notifications to users updating them on an activity, such as an update to an incident or change request. This will save time and effort for manually configuring the template for each activity.

• Introduced a property to configure API endpoints of external service providers, which will make the task of selecting appropriate service providers at any point of time easier once their credentials have been verified. This will allow communication manager utility to function with any service provider.

Change Management

• Now, only the assigned change manager will be able to view the ‘Fill Out PIR’ button on ‘Post Implementation Review’ form that is triggered to all members of the ‘Change Management Group’ after a change record moves to ‘Completed’ state. This will enhance the authenticity of the PIR by ensuring that the change implementer and reviewer are not the same person. 

iLicense

• Now a help text explaining how the license count is calculated will be displayed after the user has selected ‘Type of License’ in the newly created license count record. This will help users understand how user and node-based licenses are calculated.

• A new ‘Product Suite’ field has been introduced in the license mapping form for all user based ServiceNow licenses. This will enable accurate mapping of all ServiceNow offerings with license details such as type of license, license name, license purchased, license used and availability of license, improving transparency.

FSM Break-fix

• A new SR called ‘Raise a new Break-Fix Request’ with respect to field service has been introduced in the SR Catalog  on Self-Service Portal to allow service desk users to  request for deskside support.

Knowledge Articles

• The following OOB tasks have been introduced in the related list for knowledge articles 

1. Feedback Task – This will allow users to flag a knowledge article and trigger a feedback task. 
2. Translation Task - Now a ‘Request Translation’ link has been provided on the knowledge article to enable ITIL users to translate the parent knowledge base article from English to Spanish language.
3. Translated version - Once the translation task has been completed, the translated version of the parent knowledge article will be available for ITIL users under ‘Translated Version’ related list on the knowledge article.

• This will allow users to find knowledge articles in Spanish language also.  

​​​iUpdate

• A handshake protocol has been introduced between publisher and subscriber instances to mutually identify and authenticate each other. This will verify the compatibility of publishers and subscribers instances to send and receive update sets, preventing connection timeouts and failures. An option has been introduced on the navigation menu to access the status of the REST API response codes and messages in iUpdate application. This will provide an updated status on the failure or success of requests from the targeted resource.  

Email Notifications

• Enabled expiry notifications to the users belonging to the knowledge owner group 30 days before expiry and also 7 days prior to the expiry of knowledge articles for necessary action. These notifications will allow the users in the knowledge owner group to extend the expiry date of articles. 

Contract Management

• The Contract Management feature available out of the box has been extended to GBP to track IT assets of customers and map them to their respective contracts. The ‘Contract Forms and Layouts’ OOB plugin has been enabled in GBP to check if the contract is for services, maintenance, lease or any other purpose. A new search capability has been introduced to enable contract managers or admins to explore all types of contract models available in GBP. This will enable contract managers to associate assets with contracts and assess the total cost of ownership.

DRYiCE Gold BluePrint is a ready-to-use process ecosystem that is based on best-of-breed IT Service Management (ITSM) platforms and coupled with our strong three decades of Service Management expertise. It offers a superior experience to manage enterprise IT services enriched with intuitive features that facilitate self-service to improve operational efficiency thereby empowering executives in making informed decisions.

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