There are many different ITSM solutions out there, of various size, cost and complexity. Finding the right one, or even knowing of the ones supported within the NZ market, can be time consuming and sometimes tricky.
While I do offer a service to help organisations with the selection process, I thought I would build up a compendium of solution vendors, solutions and partners who operate in New Zealand, to make life easier for you. Of course, I'd be more than happy to help you further.
All information quoted, was provided by the vendor. Gander Service Management is solution neutral.
While I do offer a service to help organisations with the selection process, I thought I would build up a compendium of solution vendors, solutions and partners who operate in New Zealand, to make life easier for you. Of course, I'd be more than happy to help you further.
All information quoted, was provided by the vendor. Gander Service Management is solution neutral.
Updated October 2020
Alemba is the creative IT Service Management software company behind Alemba Service
Manager (ASM), trusted by a number of global enterprises to deliver truly beneficial Enterprise Service Management Solutions. Our cutting-edge approach to software design combined with a commitment to customer service has fuelled a dramatic expansion, and Alemba now has offices in the UK, USA, France, South Africa, New Zealand and Australia. The ASM solution was built upon the foundation of a product called infraEnterprise, later renamed VMware Service Manager upon acquisition by EMC and VMware. Alemba assumed control of the Intellectual Property and rebranded it ASM on July 1 2014 and with our brand-new launch of Alemba Service Manager Version 10 in 2019. InfraEnterprise was launched by infra corporation in 1992 and so has 28 years of knowledge built in. The majority of Alemba personnel originate from infra corporation ensuring Alemba is an experience in the development and deployment of ASM. Alemba believes that the acquisition of ASM as your ITSM solution will be an excellent choice in order to transform, automate and both develop your aspirations in working to an ITIL3 approach and improve the customer experience at the customer System, delivered in a cost-effective manner by a proven technology partner leveraging the customer’ existing software investment. We provide a range of Professional and Support Services around the ASM product suite. With specialist consultants to cover each stage of the implementation lifecycle, Alemba is ideally positioned to deliver a successful, end-to-end ITSM project within your organisation:
Alemba ExperienceAlemba’s mission statement is to provide the next generation of Enterprise Service Management software to our customers centrally focusing on the User Experience, technical innovation and business process automation. Our strategic roadmap not only focuses on short term goals for user experience but is constantly evolving with long term goals in producing functionally rich Service Management software but maintaining its simple and intuitive user experience to our customer base. Thus, we constantly strive to deliver innovative and easy to use features within our interfaces leveraging consumerisation
techniques through user experience with other software, social media etc. to ensure we are always ahead of the curve with user interaction. Alemba Service Manager (ASM) will provide the customer with a service-oriented ITIL verified ITSM system delivering a world-class service experience to customers. Alemba will provide software and services as a complete package, not splitting the responsibility for the success of the project across multiple companies, thus ensuring all aspects of the project are under the control of Alemba. Alemba’s core value of focused innovation, created in conjunction with our customers, is supported by ASM’s philosophy of a zero-code approach to configuration and deployment. ASM abstracts complexity and risk from the customer, ensuring the successful delivery of the project. We operate closely with customers to ensure their requirements are not just delivered but exceeded. The result of this can be seen by the fact that Alemba Service Manager has been operating successfully for more than 13 years and has a vast array of recognisable customers 
AWS conducts datacentre penetration tests on a regular basis and is ISO 27001 certified for security infrastructure. Alemba also conduct its own penetration testing in the Alemba Cloud environment using JUMPSEC for security penetration testing on our cloud systems who are an approved Crest vendor. This is typically carried out on an annual basis and aligns to the HM Government Cyber Essentials security testing procedures.
HIPAA
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA), which incorporated requirements from the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH) of 2009, established national standards for the security and privacy of Protected Health Information (PHI) in the United States. To help customers comply with HIPAA, AWS offers a Business Associate Agreement (BAA) to all interested customers using our US-based data centres. The BAA was designed in conjunction with a leading law firm with expertise in HIPAA and provides fair and reasonable terms for healthcare providers, insurers and other organisations. AWS has completed an independent third-party examination of AWS platform against applicable controls of HIPAA. 
SOC 1 (SSAE16/ISAE 3402)
Service Organization Control (SOC) 1 reports are conducted in accordance with the Statement on Standards for Attestation Engagements (SSAE) No. 16 put forth by the Auditing Standards Board (ASB) of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA). The SOC 1 framework reports on internal controls over financial reporting for any service organisation such as AWS platform. SOC 1 aligns to the International Standard on Assurance Engagements (ISAE) 3402 international reporting standards. SOC 1 examinations are specifically intended to meet the needs of AWS customers and AWS customers’ auditors, as they evaluate the effect of the controls at AWS platform on the clients’ financial statement assertions. AWS has completed an independent third-party examination of AWS platform which spans a six (6) month review period. SOC 2 The Service Organization Control 2 (SOC 2) report is composed of a comprehensive set of criteria on security, availability, processing integrity, confidentiality, and privacy and is similarly set forth by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA). The SOC 2 reports are intended for use by stakeholders (e.g. customers, regulators, business partners, suppliers, directors) of the service organization that have a thorough understanding of the service organization and its internal controls. AWS has completed an independent third-party examination of AWS platform that also spans a six (6) month review period. SOC 3 Trust Services Report for Service Organizations Control 3 (SOC 3) reports are designed to meet the needs of customers who want assurance on the controls at a service organization related to security, availability, processing integrity, confidentiality, or privacy. AWS has completed an independent third-party SOC 3 examination of AWS platform. SOC 3 is composed of a comprehensive set of trust principles including security, availability, processing integrity, confidentiality and privacy. The AWS SOC 3 report is publicly available for customer review. 
AWS has completed the Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) Consensus Assessments Initiative
Questionnaire (CAIQ). CAIQ provides industry-accepted ways to document what security controls exist in IaaS, PaaS and SaaS offerings. Visit the CSA STAR Registry to view AWS’ response to more than 250 questions related to cloud security, trust principals, and assurance controls. 
N3SP is leading the way on convergence, VOIP and customized service solutions, which enable the NHS to make the most of a single NHS network and maximize on cost savings, reflecting a move away from tactical opportunities to strategic services. AWS is an approved and compliant Commercial Third Party (National Code: 8JF88). As part of the process to provide an N3-connected AWS platform Service, AWS completed a Healthcare Information Governance Connectivity Assurance Process (HIGCAP) application for connection to the N3 Network. Additionally, AWS has signed an Information Governance Assurance Statement and will comply with the N3 Acceptable Use Policy. Alemba utilises industry standard platforms, application servers, database servers etc. using Microsoft industry Standards & are a Gold partner for application development – The highest level available. This means Alemba has demonstrated best-in-class capabilities in the development and deployment of commercial or custom applications built using core Microsoft technologies. Because of this we can help drive the success of our customers and continue to deliver leading edge, user-focused Enterprise Service Management solutions. Alemba is a VMWare technology alliance partner meaning that we also work with VMWare and typically deployment the Alemba Service Manager software across our wider customer base in virtualised VMWare server environments. We are also a Professional Services Solution partner. Alemba Service Manager provides you with the following security structures to protect data within the system:
Alemba Service Manager's database encryption, role-based security and administration auditing allow Alemba Service Manager to meet the requirements of standards such as HIPAA, ISO 20,000, SOC, CSA, N3 etc. Alemba has PinkVERIFY certification for 13 of the possible 16 ITILv3/2011 processes supported by Pink. Alemba Service Manager delivers the following ITIL processes and functions as standard:
PinkVERIFY™ is recognized throughout the IT community as the assessment certification to achieve for your IT Service Management (ITSM) toolset. As the world's only independent IT ITSM tool certification program, PinkVERIFY™ helps organisations select the best tools for their ITIL requirements. PinkVERIFY™ is Pink Elephant’s ‘seal of approval’ and means that Alemba Service Manager is officially certified as an ITIL-compatible ITSM tool. Alemba’s PinkVERIFY™ status demonstrates our commitment to ITSM best practice and means our users can be confident in Alemba Service Manager’s ability to support the continual improvement of their ITIL processes. In conjunction with Alemba RapidStart, this provides the processes the customer requires to reach PinkSCAN level 3 maturity OOTB adding considerable value upon deployment meeting all required disciplines and beyond: 
Alemba Service Manager is an Enterprise Service Management application that combines user-focused design philosophy with robust out-of-the-box functionality. Backed by over a quarter of a century of heritage, Alemba’s specialist Service Management software is trusted by a large number of Enterprise-scale organizations across the globe.
Make ITIL processes a reality IT processes are fundamental to organize the IT organization as efficiently as possible in the service they give. ITIL v3 is todays standard for the design of processes. Our consultant understands this like no other and can be of great value for your organization. Due to external as well as internal factors, IT processes have a lifecycle of approximately three to five years. Changing procedures, the growth of a company or struggling with the current market can influence your processes to change. The importance of good processes makes it easier for companies to do their jobs and satisfy their customers. A good balance between processes, tools and people are therefore very important. Innovation/Service Improvement At Alemba we are always looking to improve our software and strive to deliver innovative ways to collaborate with the Alemba Service Manager system and thus Alemba’s primary technology innovation is the officer and customer portal interfaces. Innovations such as the removal of all menus and their replacement by simple drag and drop functionality. The average agent experience offers a greatly reduced learning curve only requiring a single hour of training to be proficient in the system. The ease of use promotes the adoption of the tool ensuring that organizational process and procedures are adhered too. Alemba has found that the consumer centric interface of Alemba Service Manager removes one of the greatest risks in new IT service management projects failing to meet their expected goals, organizational resistance to new technology and process by providing a tool that people want to use and even enjoy using. Alemba Service Manager Expansion Alemba’s strategic focus is on delivering automation across the ITIL process delivering a tangible return on investment. We invest heavily in Alemba Service Manager’s development and works very closely with its customers to find out what areas deliver true benefit and avoiding the latest short-term trend. One of Alemba’s primary focuses is on user experience where we believe in having the right interface for the right person. Alemba is currently deepening functionality for:
Alemba Service Manager will provide an ITIL aligned web-based application that can support the processes required today while providing a platform for future process development.
Because Alemba Service Manager is a single application the integration between the processes is seamless and deep: 
Alemba Service Manager provides an ITIL aligned web-based application that can support the processes required today while providing a platform for future process development. As an example, Alemba Service Manager fully supports an ITIL based Incident Management process for the logging and resolution of IS Incidents. This process includes the following steps - Incident Logging / Incident Classification / Incident First Time Fix / Incident escalation / Incident work around provision / Incident resolution / Integration to Major Incident, Problem, Known Error and Change Process. Alemba Service Manager is not licensed on a modular basis and thus within the Alemba Service Manager RapidStart build the customer will immediately be able to leverage functions from Incident Management, Service Request Management, Configuration Management, Problem Management and much more without the need to purchase modules in the future. Upon this basis, all functions remain completely separate entities therefore Service Requests, Incidents, Problems, etc. are all defined functions however as expected maintain complete interoperability throughout. This means that any record can be linked to any other record in the solution forming parent/child relationships e.g. Incident→Major Incident→Change→Problem→Known Error→Knowledge Article. Linking is easily performed by simply selecting the tickets to be linked in the search screen and pressing the link button, you can then choose the ticket that you wish to be the parent. The linking Tab on a call will provide a diagram of the linked items. Manual linking can also be performed using the search facility inbuilt within the incident record. Alemba Service Manager also has an easy to use customer survey module, that allows the design of singular or multiple survey screens using different types of questions e.g. Yes/No, multiple choice, text based etc. creation of sets of customer questions that are then emailed out to customers on ticket closure or a pre-defined schedule based on business rules. The results of the customer surveys that are distributed are gathered together into graphs and reports that are supplied out of the box with the Alemba Service Manager customer survey module. The Integration of the Incident Management process with the Problem Management function finds the underlying cause of incidents and seeks to eliminate errors through the IT Infrastructure.
Both Incident and Problem Management within Alemba Service Manager integrate closely with other support services. An Alemba Service Manager Incident can clone a Problem record by simply dragging and dropping the “Tab” on the Incident record to the Problem Button on the button bar. Alemba Service Manager provides you with an ITIL aligned web-based tool set in order to achieve the goals within Problem Management. The Problem Management functions primary objective is to prevent problems and resulting incidents from happening, to eliminate recurring incidents, and to minimize the impact of incidents that cannot be prevented. Alemba Service Manager incorporates the ITIL derived Problem Management process allowing problems to be created, modified and ultimately closed during the Problem Management lifecycle. However, should a different process be required the powerful Alemba Service Manager workflow engine can be used to model it. The flexible 5 -tier Problem Categorization in Alemba Service Manager provides an extremely flexible method of categorising a Problem. The ability to document activities, procedures, workarounds and root cause analysis etc. is a standard feature of the Problem Management function in order to categorise accordingly and furthermore allocate any known temporary or permanent workarounds etc. before a problem can be fixed. Alemba Service Manager Problem records allow both estimated and actual time spent working on a Problem to be recorded to ensure that full time tracking can take place against problem. Similarly, the info panel presents at a glance statistics for current state, amount of downtime, call logged, assignee etc. for full high-level visibility. Reporting is available for full historical problem history analysis. When a problem is updated, resolved or closed this can in turn cascade down to the child Incident records both updating the incident owner, customer and/or closing the incident itself. Alemba Service Manager includes a Pro-active Problem Management engine that analyses in real time the incidents records to derive patterns, link those similar incidents together and create a Problem record. Alemba was recently awarded the “Best in Class” award for Proactive Problem Management by the Independent ITSM Review panel – Up against a number of competitors. Furthermore, the Graphical CMDB in Alemba Service Manager displays the impact of a Problem on a CI and any other dependent CI’s or Services. If a Problem causes a Service to be inoperable (down) an Outage can be recorded. The effect of that outage on other CI’s and Services can be visualized in the graphical CMDB. In addition, the simulation can highlight single points of failure and impacted services and customers of those services: 
Alemba Service Manager provides an ITIL aligned Change Management function as standard.
The default “Change Initiation” template inbuilt within the Rapid Start system allows you to manage the best practices for normal, standard and emergency RFC’s. This template controls the commencement off the Request for Change process leading into a Release Management process. This is all encompassed within the one RFC template because Alemba Service Manager has the facility to use Conditional Branch tasks that will automatically drive the workflow down specific paths dependent on the categorisation of the change selected. Any change request template will follow a designated workflow that clearly outlines all designated activities and approvals within the workflow highlighting the WIP for tasks and approvals. The graphical CMDB in Alemba Service Manager allows the relationships between CI’s and Services to be mapped and used to simulate CI failures (Outages). This feature is particularly useful when determining the impact of a Change on the infrastructure: 
As referenced above you can then be pro-active in modelling outages and finding potential fault lines and causes that can be simulated in the CMDB to ascertain the single points of failure and impacted services, stakeholders and/or assets that would be affected should an outage take place (or be impacted through RFC). Alemba Service Manager also provides the ability for notification of updates or for the CAB to approve or reject RFC’s through Alemba Service Manager Self Service license or alternatively formatted emails (that take the input of the field details of the change request) can be sent which are captured via a mail processor in order to accept/reject changes e.g. Subject heading = #AcceptRFC#CHG0001. The system ships with a set amount of base notification templates however these are fully configurable via the Designer to either amend, create or delete templates as required. Lastly the Alemba Service Manager Change Calendar provides both analyst and customer with visibility of the scheduled changes taking place – Which could be in turn across IT, facilities, HR etc. Alemba Service Manager fully supports the implementation of request management by
providing 3 functions that allow you to implement any business request process without the use of code. A Powerful Screen Designer – provides a GUI driven drag and drop interface to build Request Management input forms.
Approvals are able to take place license free in email format, Alemba Service Manager Mobile or via Alemba Service Manager Self Service. Visibility is also seen using intuitive image progression for the underlying request and approval flags for any tasks or approvals that are outstanding. Alemba Service Manager Self Service portal users can then initiate request fulfilment and procurement requests direct through the service catalogue facility. The exciting “My Store” service allows end users to utilise and log incidents or requests across multiple units using a very easy consumer style type environment lending itself to everyday activities outside of normal associate business day to day life that makes using the service catalogue engaging. End users can then browse their service catalogue and easily request services adding them to their shopping cart without the need for a license. Service Catalogues can be segregated to ensure that certain users only see services/requests which are applicable to their line of work e.g. HR Service Catalogue/Facilities Service Catalogue/CRM Service Catalogue: 
Lastly both a full suite of request management reports is available for analysis of workload and planning but also Resource Manager for Managers or authorised personnel to view which users have commitments across requests and tasks. Users with the rights to do so can allocate resources to requests but should it be required re-allocation of resource can take place against any task that resides against the request. Alemba Service Manager is a single tool that integrates the ITIL processes around a central CMDB and thus is the foundation of the system and therefore inherently links into all other areas:
The Configuration Management Database (CMDB) in Alemba Service Manager can control the creation of CI's either manually or through integration with other third-party asset discovery tools from creation to disposal. You can then leverage the innovative workflow features if desired to control the end-to-end lifecycle of your configuration items automatically with no manual intervention. The workflow engine in Alemba Service Manager automates the maintenance of assets being able to create, update and retire them greatly simplifying the administration of the CMDB.
Alemba Service Manager houses a Federated CMDB with over 16 out of the box, low cost connectors, for automatic CMDB creation including bi-directional integration with physical asset discovery tools such as SCCM/SNOW, etc. or virtualized e.g. vCenter infrastructure. The Federated Connector approach of Alemba Service Manager allows multiple sources of data to be connected to the system and that data normalized and presented inside the application without replication based upon any type of criteria (real time drill back is also provided). Service and CI relationships can be built into the system in order to simulate outages, dependencies and find causes to potential issues. Outages can be simulated to ascertain the single points of failure and impacted services, stakeholders and/or Configuration Items that would be affected should an outage take place. A full graphical topology diagram is available to view (see example diagram with a basic company topology below) the relationships and dependencies between linked CI’s. You have the ability to utilise filters to turn off component links e.g. Cabling, ports, peer to peer, network links, depends on etc. 
In addition, Alemba Service Manager houses a Service Request function aligned to ITIL best practice disciplines such as for example e.g. Joiners, Movers & Leavers templates etc. In conjunction with Alemba Service Manager Self Service & the Alemba Service Manager workflow engine You can then create a variety of workflow templates to suit the requirements and automate processes bypassing the technical team and using dynamic approval mechanisms. Each template can comprise completely different configurable forms that you are able to configure via the Alemba Service Manager Screen designer and furthermore follow completely different request workflow paths. As well as asset management Alemba also provides a software asset management facility that means organizations can now trust the outcome of both their asset SAM processes and leverage discovery technologies to audit usage of approved and non-approved software. Alemba’s approach is focused on an Authorized View of your Assets/Software Assets, ensuring you always know exactly what has been approved for deployment. As part of automated service request workflows for software deployment or loan laptops for hardware licenses can then be automatically allocated depreciating the amount available. Similarly, where software or hardware has been manually allocated, ownership transferred, reserved etc. then users that have the appropriate security privileges can manage the transactions against the applicable inventory. The transaction history of the inventories can then be viewed in order to report across a variety of parameters and date ranges. Lastly thresholds can be applied to notify the desired personnel and/or create new request records in order to initiate new orders for the hardware/software in question and assign onto the applicable procurement team or department. Ultimately Alemba Service Manager’s CMDB provides You with a complete holistic view of both hardware and software inventories, the dependencies and who a complete audit trail of user access to meet with the core goals of Configuration Management. The Alemba pre-built Rapid Start Service Catalogue contains a set of the most common Services and Service Actions used across our customer base. Nine high level Services are defined, and grouped into Technology Services, Enterprise Services or Professional Services.
Each Service is linked to a set of Service Action requests. Each Service Action also has an accompanying graphic to be displayed in Alemba Service Manager Self Service. 
Alemba Service Manager Self Service comprises an exciting “My Store” service that allows end users to utilise and log incidents or requests across multiple authority units using a very easy consumer style type environment lending itself to everyday activities outside of normal associate business day to day life that makes using the service catalogue engaging. End users can then browse their service catalogue and easily request services adding them to their shopping cart without the need for a license. Service Catalogues can be segregated to ensure that certain users only see services/requests which are applicable to their line of work e.g. HR Service Catalogue/Facilities Service Catalogue/CRM Service Catalogue. Alemba Service Manager ships with a Service Portfolio Management capability that includes three standard workflows to control service introduction, change and retirement. This effectively allows service automation through Alemba Service Manager Self Service managing the request for introduction of a new service, through service pipeline, published to the service catalogue and ultimately being available for end users to then request automatically all through the inherent service introduction ITIL aligned workflow. The service catalogue as part of its CMS provides a single source of information that can be used to manage and maintain Your Service Portfolio (Catalogue/Pipeline) and contractual bindings to customers for services available and contains all required variables stated and much more. Each Service created in Alemba Service Manager records its current state such as Design ---> Test----->Production as well its portfolio status e.g. Service Pipeline, Service Catalogue or Service Retired in order to track all stages of its lifecycle in Service Portfolio Management. The following information can also be maintained: Users & Departments / Criticality / Service Level / Turnaround Time / Charging / Target Audience / Support / Availability / Impact Analysis / T & C's / Service Hours / Service Targets / Backup & Recovery Arrangements / Financial & Vendor Information E.g. Acquisition & Disposal Costs / Linked Services /CI's/Components (both text and graphically) / Contracts / Stakeholders / Cost Centers. Staff privileges can be restricted using a combination of integration through Active Directory permissions and Alemba Service Manager inherent security controls on the service catalogue, subscription groups etc. The service catalogue in Alemba Service Manager is an integral part of the Alemba Service Manager CMS that also includes Configuration Items. Alemba Service Manager fully supports a structured content for the Service Catalogue allowing Your services to be built out of other services, sub-services and CI's. Expanding on the first paragraph Alemba Service Manager houses the capability to manage end-to-end Service Introduction, Service Change and Service Retirement lifecycles all through the usage of Self Service, workflows and automation. Alemba Service Manager has an inbuilt Service Level Management function that supports Service Level Agreements (SLA), Operational Level Agreements (OLA) and Underpinning Contracts (UC). Each of these agreements operates with independent clocks, the SLA measuring the performance of the whole IT team, the OLA measures the performance against the agreement between the Service Desk and second line support teams, with the UC measuring the performance of any suppliers involved in the process. The SLA response and resolve time for each agreement can be configured against each priority defined in Alemba Service Manager. Each Priority is derived from a combination of Impact to the business and Urgency of repair. These times are defined in the Alemba Service Manager “Priority Matrix”. The Service Level Management area of the system allows you to create a variety of SLA's (as well as the default SLA's shipped with the product - Platinum, Gold, Silver & Bronze) across the ITIL functions required. Full service descriptions including schedules, public holidays, hierarchical alerting etc. can be assigned to the SLA. Response and resolution times for an SLA can be defined in the SLA matrix based several measures e.g. business unit, so that if a Service is degraded the actual response and resolution time will be dependent on the Business Unit reporting the fault. The advanced search screens also provide SLA owners with the ability to create ad-hoc reports as and when required. Lastly you can publish the remaining response and resolution target times to the Alemba Service Manager Self Service screens in order for end users to see how much time remains. Likewise, analysts are able to leverage Gantt chart mechanisms as well as countdown timers for SLA escalations and breach. Both the ability to manage IT hardware inventories and software deployment for licenses tracking is part of the standard Alemba Service Manager Asset Management functionality. Automation of the deployment of hardware and software can be performed as part of automated service request workflows that can then be automatically allocated depreciating the amount available. Similarly, where software or hardware has been manually allocated, ownership transferred, reserved etc. then users that have the appropriate security privileges can manage the transactions against the applicable inventory. The hardware inventory summary on the loan laptops record allows you to understand exactly the amount of laptops a) On order b) Purchased c) On Hand – Available – The number of laptops available to be allocated to staff d) On Hand – Unavailable – Laptop held back e) In Use – Laptops allocated f) Reserved – Laptop reserved for allocation g) Retired – Laptops which have been retired from use. Using Alemba Service Manager’s powerful workflow engine you can create service request workflows for the request of hardware or deployment of software. Customers need only log onto Alemba Service Manager Self Service and populate a form with the applicable dates that they require access to a loan laptop. Alemba Service Manager will then automatically send an approval task to the line manager or stakeholder who is responsible for the inventory. Upon approval and the loan start date being surpassed Alemba Service Manager will analyse the inventory to ascertain whether any laptops are available for reservation. If so, it will then place one of the laptops to be reserved for the customer. If not, it will initiate a new service request record and assign to procurement to source more laptops in the inventory. The workflow will then proceed allocating tasks to the IT team and ultimately both allocating and transferring the laptop back to being available within the inventory when it is returned by the customer. All changes to the hardware and software inventories are fully auditable whereby approved customer personnel with appropriate security privileges can manage the transactions against the applicable inventory. A full transaction history of the inventories can then be viewed in order to report across a variety of parameters and date ranges. Lastly thresholds can be applied to the laptop equipment estate to notify the desired personnel and/or create new request records in order to initiate new orders for the hardware/software in question and assign onto the applicable procurement team or department e.g. Amount of loan laptops available reaches a low level and thus new ones need to be ordered. Asset management and governance reports are included as standard within the reporting suite to manage hardware and software asset management compliancy. In ITIL, an event is defined as a change of state which has significance for the management of a configuration item or IT service. It can also refer to an alert or notification created by any IT service, configuration item or monitoring tool. Alemba Service Manager can easily handle events received from external systems such as network discovery tools and root cause analysis applications to provide an end-to-end Event Management solution. Alerts generated by a network discovery tool monitoring the IT infrastructure, for example, can result in the automatic logging of an event incident within Alemba Service Manager and the appropriate routing of that event incident for resolution and also flag the CI outage accordingly in the system. The closure of that event incident within Alemba Service Manager can in turn update the status of the corresponding alert in the external application. Alemba Service Manager achieves this through interfacing with external sources in an easy and cost-effective way through a variety of mechanisms e.g. SQL to SQL, SNMP, API etc. e.g. The most popular integrations include SCOM, SolarWinds, Altiris or Nagios integration for the logging of event incidents where thresholds have been breached. Alemba would recommend that escalation occur on the exception following the ITIL best practise guidelines. Expanding on the above, the Alemba Service Manager integration platform supports Event Management integration to alert monitoring tools. Standard connectors for tools such as MS SCOM/SMARTS are available off the shelf to consume events/alerts deployed by the tool. Furthermore, Alemba Service Manager can intercept email alerts to create/update event incident records where breaches have occurred in the specific monitoring tool of choice. Alemba can provide a connector for any alert management system. The Alemba Service Manager availability management function provides an overall summary for the availability of Ci’s and Services.
A history of the outages experienced is recorded against each service and CI. Alemba Service Manager automatically creates outages on dependent CI’s and Services so that the availability of all affected services and CI’s generates an accurate record of the effective availability of each CI and Service not just their mechanical state of function. Alemba Service Manager can help support the understanding of the Capacity of CI’s and Services that are being deployed across your estate. External systems can be used to integrate into Alemba Service Manager to detect the availability of CI’s and systems such as VMWare Capacity Planner to detect the available capacity of the IT infrastructure. Alemba Service Manager can for example record on each Service and CI record: • Design Capacity • Number of actual users • Transaction response times • Workload volumes • Power Requirements • Budget Information • Transaction counts for applications and application-based services. • CI and Service performance statistics In addition, capacity plans can be developed in the advanced Alemba Service Manager workflow engine that can be automatically trigger should certain capacity thresholds be breached. This feature is commonly used to automate the increase in capacity processes. The CMDB greatly aids the creation of future capacity plans and forecasts for Services and CI’s by recording the transactional volumes and performance statistics. Alemba Service Manager offers a variety of features in order to track full financial
management in the tool from contracts, asset depreciation, cost centres etc. The timesheet facility in Alemba Service Manager supports the reporting on time spent and expenses incurred in resolving incidents. Timesheet recording can be viewed in the Timesheet Manager across date ranges and intervals for specific types of tasks or calls. Where expenses and materials have been used these can also be captured against the incident records. Alemba Service Manager can also integrate with purchasing and accountancy tools. In particular the outward-bound action task in the advanced workflow engine enables Alemba Service Manager to trigger integrations at the appropriate point in a workflow allowing Alemba Service Manager to fully control the business process: 
Example - A Alemba Service Manager workflow will initiate an integration to a purchasing system only if the approval task is approved, however if it is rejected the integration does not operate. This control over the business process makes Alemba Service Manager uniquely powerful in business process automation. In the above a billing process is initiated that triggers the internal team to capture the billing information. An approval task as to whether the P/O has been received is then run. Should this have been received this will integrate with the billing or purchase system of choice and push the data to the system via the outbound action task. Should the P/O not have been received an email will be sent to the client with a 3 day wait period before the approval task is once again sent. Should it now be received the integration will take place. Should it not a new billing process can be initiated automatically as the billing cycle has now ended. Once integration has taken place further emails with invoices etc. can be sent before the request is closed out. Alemba Service Manager fully supports the total cost of ownership of each service. To achieve this Alemba Service Manager records the following: • The cost of all equipment purchased to deliver the service. • The disposal value of all equipment. • The cost and time spent on maintaining all this equipment. • The cost of downtime of the service to the business. Alemba Service Manager's integration platform allows integration to accountancy systems general ledgers to obtain cost centre information. Alemba Service Manager can support different cost models based on the underlying cost and performance data stored in the Alemba Service Manager database. Alemba Service Manager supports recording the users of a service as stakeholders of that service and so the cost of the service can be divided between the different users of the service. This allows you to fully track and model price/cost modelling for the services you provide and the targets you set. The fact that Alemba Service Manager records the cost and time against each task and action taken by analysts allows reports to be created to understand the cost incurred by service, contract, configuration item, location or business unit as required. Finances and cost centre information can be captured against request screens for business proposals and likewise against the services within the Service Catalogue itself to ensure compliance against process and regulations in place. IT Service continuity is provided in Alemba Service Manager within the CMDB including:
• Performance Baselines measuring the change in performance over the lifetime of the Service • CI Baselines to enable the IT Infrastructure to be restored to a known CI state should a change or release fail • Identify Single points of failure via the inbuilt live outages • Allow categorisation of environments in order to ascertain which environments do not have associated disaster recovery • Model Impact analysis, simulation of outages and find causes via the inbuilt graphical CMDB. As part of a Continuous Service Improvement program, you may want to perform Component Failure Impact Analysis to identify critical CIs and fragile services, with multiple single points of failure (SPOFs). Multiple link types can be created in order to ascertain the up and down stream of impact across the infrastructure. For example, Service A can impact Service B, Service A and B could both impact each other or both Service A and B have multiple links. In combination with the CMDB the Alemba Service Manager knowledge base is commonly used to: • Create and store Business Continuity Plans • Create and store Process/Policy and procedure documentation Once created, plans and documentation can then be linked to specific CI’s, Services and environments to ensure IT Service Continuity procedures are in place and easily accessible. The Alemba Service Manager workflow engine can then be used to develop process to automate the recovery of your services and business operations in the face of disaster. Should an Incident be logged, and a disaster be declared the workflow engine can model and automate the recovery process ensuring that all steps are followed and that at a time of high stress everyone knows what to do: 
Alemba Service Manager provides a multitude of mechanisms for reporting capabilities including both on a historical and real-time basis including: • Historical Reporting Outputs • Real-Time Dashboard and Wallboards • Advanced Search capabilities • Query Builders • Report Designer • Report Scheduler • Trend Reports • Alemba Service Manager Self Service Reports – Graphical entities as well as reports which You would like to publish to sub sets of end users or globally can be made available. • Report Integration to third party tools i.e. PowerBI/Tableau The reporting engine in Alemba Service Manager supports reporting on all fields in the database with either its internal reporting engine or an external reporting engine using ODBC or can be integrated with other external functions and published e.g. SharePoint. Alemba Service Manager contains an in-built report designer that can be used to amend the standard reports or indeed new create custom reports. This gives access to data views and allows reports to contain tabular views, graphs, perform calculations, summary views, etc. Producing a report in this manner allows you to use the report scheduler to send reports to the customer portal or via email. Data views are also provided as part of the Alemba Service Manager application to allow other reporting tools to be utilised. Data can also be exported easily to excel or a variety of other formats to create a quick ad-hoc report. There is also a dashboard builder that allows you to configure real-time dashboards quickly and easily. Alemba Service Manager also houses an advanced search engine that allows You to search across all functions within the system whether it be Incident, problem, service, knowledge etc. The search functions allow Your analysts to add any searchable criteria across any field in the system in order to locate search results across multiple parameters. Once search results are visible these can then be sorted by selecting the headers, results filtered by selecting the headers and drop downs, shown in multiple formats e.g. Graphed, in the format of a report and much more. Alemba Service Manager Self Service offers a license free 100% web based HTML interface providing a platform and browser agnostic GUI for both end users and analysts alike offering home page features including a multitude of easy to understand information to the end user
based upon their logged records e.g. Incidents, request, complaints etc. to News Desk feeds, Major Incident capabilities, global google style search, chat & Get In Touch widgets for easy access to the service catalogue. It can fully be branded to Your corporate logos and colour themes via the inbuilt Skins Designer. A separate mobile application (iOS and Android) is available for end users to access the interface however the main Alemba Service Manager Self Service interface can also be accessed via mobile devices if required offering a variety of mechanisms for end user viewing capabilities. The user experience is determined by Your system administrators based upon the security privileges that are in place for the end user. Ultimately You have complete control over the user experience to ensure that the end user can seamlessly associate their Service Desk interface with web interfaces they experience in everyday life outside of business applications incorporating elements of consumer driven features e.g. Amazon Style shopping cart, searching mechanisms etc. You can adopt a unified Self-Service Portal incorporating business entities across IT, HR, Facilities etc. or can have segregated portals for each business unit: 
During the incident logging process, the end user can take advantage of dynamic knowledge suggested knowledge that promotes knowledge articles to users during call logging to achieve faster solutions and reduced workload for the Service Desk. By utilising suggested knowledge this: • Showcases the twenty most relevant articles, based on the data entered into the submission form fields, are returned in Suggested Knowledge; • Enables users can review suggested knowledge article details without leaving the submission form; and • Allows users to acknowledge useful knowledge articles by pressing the 'help factor' button. These action increments the Help Factor rating of the knowledge article, and automatically closes the call they were logging. Users can view their existing and historic items including incidents, requests, service catalogue orders and more. The front page of the self-service portal gives a dashboard summary of open items. Clicking into these items gives the user more detail on the specific status of the items (Add attachment, note or even close call). Clicking into each item gives the user the option to update or cancel the incident if they have resolved it themselves. Dynamic screens can be utilised to logically walk the end user through self-service processes by presenting or hiding attributes or sections of the screen based upon the details they enter in the logging process e.g. If during a new starter process the user populating the form has to set the type of position from "Temporary", "Permanent" or "Contractor" you’re are able to configure the screen to present the next fields. If the user picks "Permanent" then the screen does not change however if the user picks "Contractor" it is assumed that they are being supplied from an Operating Company and will have a defined "Finish Date" thus the two new fields dynamically appear. You can also leverage dynamic screen to auto hide sections or dynamically make new sections of forms appear. Users of Alemba Service Manager Self Service can initiate a chat with Analysts and hold a discussion with them in real time. Messages are displayed in a separate window, in a familiar instant messaging layout. At the same time in Alemba Service Manager Core, analysts can choose when to make themselves available for chat. They then receive popup notifications of new chats and can pick up chats from a chat queue. In the background, each chat always logs a new call. All chats are linked to one or many calls, so chats seamlessly form a part of existing incident management and can be reported on in the same way. Additionally, when an analyst picks up a chat, the First Call Back on the call is automatically completed, so this too can be monitored in standard ways. This scrutiny ensures that analysts are motivated to answer chats promptly and so ensure user satisfaction with this new way of resolving their issues. For any pertinent information that is required to be conveyed to end users the ability to publish alerts to the News Desk on Alemba Service Manager Self Service will also serve to decrease the amount of phone calls to the service desk where known issues are declared. Bulletins can automatically be created as a result of Major Incidents or analysts can clone them to bulletins in the Alemba Service Manager Core interface. Date ranges can be applied and flagged as to whether the bulletin is for internal viewing purposes alone or externally available to the portal. If available, then end users can drill into the bulletins should they require the ability to view full details. In conjunction with the agent interface the Major Incident capability in Alemba Service Manager Self Service allows end users to easily add themselves to any existing Major Incidents without the need to actually log a call at all via two simple clicks. Alemba Service Manager offers the facility to send out by default both automated email notifications as a result of records being created, updated or closed but also based upon any business logic for any given notification scenario. Alemba Service Manager also houses the capability within the logging form to send out ad-hoc email notifications without the need to open up separate email clients in order to send information using pre-defined message templates to individuals, distribution groups or ad-hoc email addresses. Stakeholders and groups can be utilised to automate who should be notified based upon specific scenarios. By default, Alemba Service Manager will notify all parties within a ticket record when a ticket is logged, updated or closed through email/SMS notifications however pop up in-application notifications can also be enabled (fully configurable) so that analysts received immediate notifications without even having to leave the Alemba Service Manager application for call updates e.g. On assignment, upon escalation etc. Indicators will also be placed in the ticket search screens against the applicable record to denote that an update has been added. The system uses SLA’s to measure against deadlines and alerts. The SLA definition matrix allows the SLA of an Incident to escalate based on the details in logging form or a combination thereof. Control of the SLA response and resolution times can be set by customer, VIP status, CI, Service, Location, Department, Organisation etc. These can be created up to a maximum of 4 alert points during the lifecycle of an SLA to dynamic stakeholders or nominated personnel via the "Recipients" icon (typically alerts are set at 50%, 75%, 95% and 100% of the deadline) A separate escalation alert then operates to warn off a response breach. Problem management is a key process of IT service management. It consists in preventing problems and resulting incidents from happening. Ideally, a good problem management strategy should aim to solve problems before incidents occur. There are two approaches to problem management: • Reactive problem management, through the logging of calls and requests • Proactive problem management, through o Trend analysis of call and request data (for example by performing simple searches or running IPK or workflow activity reports) o The integration of event management tools that enable you to identify events (defined as any deviation from normal or expected operation of a piece of infrastructure) before incidents are logged o The automated logging of calls and requests based on a set of user-defined criteria. This is supported by the AI Ops functionality, as described below AI Ops enhances your Problem Management process by allowing you to set up rules to automatically log calls or requests based on events in your call and request activity. In this way, problems may be identified before Incidents occur. You can schedule “AI Ops rules” which will run and analyse your Call and Request activity. Each rule has a “threshold” that is, a particular number of events within a running period, and a set of conditions which, when met, will automatically trigger a new call/request in Alemba Service Manager. Some scenarios where AI Ops is used to its maximum potential are: • A Problem Manager suspects instability in the network environment. She can configure an automated AI Ops rule to log a Problem call whenever more than 5 high priority outage calls are logged against critical servers. She can configure the rule to exclude any servers that have a Physical Status of “In Test” or “Training Dedicated”. Finally, she can link a Call Template to the rule to direct the call to the Problem Management team when it is logged by the system. When this AI Ops runs and reaches the threshold of 5 high priority outage calls against the critical server, a new call is automatically logged by the system and forwarded to the Problem Management team. • The Problem Manager is concerned that a high level of redundancy in the network is making it difficult to identify unreliable hardware. She is most concerned when outages occur in multiple redundant items supporting a parent hardware item. She configures an automated AI Ops rule to log a call whenever there are more than 5 occurrences in a 3-month period where more than 60% of the redundant items linked to the parent CMDB item are out at the same time. Alemba was recently awarded the “Best in Class” award for Proactive Problem Management by the Independent ITSM Review panel – Up against a number of competitors. The responsive Alemba Service Manager interfaces allows users to take their Alemba Service Manager implementation with them wherever they go, accessing their critical support services anytime, anywhere, using their favourite device, whether Android or Apple iOS based inside or outside of the corporate network.
Dependent on the mobile device being used ASM will render the screen to the applicable device to maximise the screen estate available offering the best mobile experience to the user. Users can easily access their calls on the go, viewing details of calls assigned or assigned to you. Then you can assign the call to another user or group, update the call notes, review history, manage approvals, change the status or close a call and much more (capabilities will vary dependent on whether the user is an agent or end user through their security rights) 
Customers can easily select the appropriate request through the "My Store" facility which can then automatically log the request e.g. Password Reset which then dynamically takes the customer name and auto-populates all other fields within the request template form from an analyst view both storing all details and closing immediately. Similarly, should analysts log a service request over the telephone quick solutions and call templates are available so that should certain field attributes be defined any appropriate quick solution will appear for them to select and that in turn will dynamically populate all other associated fields on the logging form and close out upon submission Users of Alemba Service Manager Self Service can initiate a chat with Analysts and hold a discussion with them in real time. Messages are displayed in a separate window, in a familiar instant messaging layout. At the same time in Alemba Service Manager Core, analysts can choose when to make themselves available for chat. They then receive popup notifications of new chats and can pick up chats from a chat queue. Alemba can also integrate with common social collaboration platforms such as Live Chat and Microsoft Teams. With the ASM chat functionality In the background, each chat always logs a new call. All chats are linked to one or many calls, so chats seamlessly form a part of existing incident management and can be reported on in the same way. Additionally, when an analyst picks up a chat, the First Call Back on the call is automatically completed, so this too can be monitored in standard ways. This scrutiny ensures that analysts are motivated to answer chats promptly and so ensure user satisfaction with this new way of resolving their issues. Continual Service Improvement's main focus is to maximize the value of services to the business by ensuring, as a Service Provider, that services are optimized and cost-efficient. Improvement opportunities can be identified throughout the service lifecycle. The Alemba Service Manager Rapid Start system ships with two pre-defined customer surveys for both calls and requests that house the following default parameters (fully configurable): • Closed from 01/07/2017 • All Closure Groups selected. • 5 Days minimum between Surveys sent to Customers. • 20% (1 in 5) closures result in a Survey being sent. Additional surveys can be added as required. Surveys do not have to specifically just contain questions as they can be configured to include mood icons so that end users can use both textual fields as to their feedback as well as visual indicators. This enables you to monitor the user record within Alemba Service Manager to monitor the current mood of the end user. Alemba Service Manager supports partitioning which allows confidential tickets to be placed in a secure partition of which only members of the secure partition and view and update the tickets. This allows all of our customers to scale and evolve as their business grows thus being able to incorporate different business functions incorporating varying service catalogues into the system to have separate data and configurations in a tenanted style single application ensuring that you can evolve into true Enterprise Service Management. This makes Alemba Service Manager the ideal product to be expanded into areas such as CRM, facilities and HR Support and ensure seamless integration between other business departments across your business or maintain separate Service Desks across the shared service again offering significant value utilising one standard system - See Cardiff University success story on the Alemba website http://alemba.com/customers/cardiff-university The use of the application to support these and other areas of the business will deliver significant additional value for you not only now to deliver to the requirements of the three areas but also as you mature with the product. Alemba Service Manager ships with standard, out-of-the-box PM functionality embedded within the workflow engine. Alemba Service Manager PM builds on, and fully interacts with, the Alemba Service Manager ITSM Suite, specifically the industry-leading workflow engine. Setting up a project, authorising and initiating a project and managing an active project are all standard parts of the Alemba Service Manager PPM feature set. The project form is fully editable, so any number of fields can be added via the Designer without the use of code or customisation. To make initiation of new projects even easier, project templates can be defined (either by setting them up as such from inception or by cloning successful previous projects) and used. A number of project views are available to ensure that the Project and Programme managers have the best visibility on progress at all times. Budgeted time and costs come as standard on all tasks and automatically roll-up and consolidate within projects. Managers can track these at all times and see when a project is running over planned expenditure. Project resources can fill in timesheets and again those times are automatically rolled up to the associated projects and consolidated. Projects can have individual tasks and approvals which form part of the underlying project management workflow or have activities to be completed which are not necessarily in a defined order. All of these can be assigned manually or automatically to individuals or groups as part of the project. Project Managers or authorised personnel who have the ability to oversee workload can easily view which users have commitments across the whole system ranging from calls, request to tasks. Users with the rights to do so can allocate resources to project but should it be required re-allocation of resource can take place against any task that resides against the project. Projects fully interact with the rest of the ITSM suite including incidents, problems and changes in order to fully gain overall insight into all affected areas for project success. Lastly, Kanban boards can be viewed across projects, tasks, changes etc. with their associated completion status moving through the applicable lifecycle. Alemba Service Manager’s partitioning feature allows You to segregate parts of the system to be facilities centric and remain completely separate to that of IT whilst still sharing some data e.g. People. One such area is the CMDB that allows Facilities to take control over their assets and information that is completely separate. There is full control over item and asset types. Buildings, rooms, equipment, and assets can be logged, tracked and managed effectively. All items can be linked to other items, assigned locations, departments or users. They can also be linked to contracts or renewal dates when they are due for replacement or compliance checks. Attachments such as drawings, certificates or contracts can be added to any item and have full version control utilising Alemba Service Manager’s inbuilt Document Management capability that means documents and drawings must be checked in and out before changes can be made – An imperative function for the facilities management remit. Alemba Service Manager has the ability to created scheduled requests meaning plant and equipment replacements can be scheduled accordingly and budgets assigned. Rooms that are created as configuration Items can have multiple other CI’s added to them that formulate the contents of the rooms e.g. Light fixtures, electrical points, internet ports etc. Items can be linked to incident and request workflows to schedule maintenance, repairs and replacements. As much or as little as the system can be configured to be purely facilities facing or minor elements to control ticket attributes, categories, assets etc. The system also has an external license free portal whereby contractors or third-party suppliers are able to view and pick up tickets. Typically, certification e.g. Fire Compliancy are managed as CI’s/assets and linked to the Contract Management areas of the system that allows you to track alerting and scheduling of compliancy checks and ensure notifications are deployed at a given interval prior to the checks being required to take place. The system ships with 188 reports by default which provide on demand reporting across all areas of the solution including Administration Reports, Incident Management, Request Fulfilment, Problem Management, Change Management, CMDB, Availability, Knowledge Management, Service Level Management and much more. Additional information captured in requests by adding new fields within the Alemba Service Manager form designer can also be utilised in reports and dashboards. Facilities Management screens, reporting and views are kept completely separate from other business partitions that may be in use. ASM incorporates multiple mechanisms of integration bi-directionally (Import and export) into the system from simple one off or scheduled CSV imports through to SQL to SQL database packages and through a range of third-party external connectors for associated tool integration. Some examples of our integration platform are detailed below:
Other standard connectors include Solarwinds, PRTG, CA, Centennial, Standard Database Resource Connectors, HP Insight, Ivanti, SCOM, SCCM, LDAP/AD, EMC Smarts, vRO, Cisco, Generic SQL Connector, JIRA, Azure DevOps, Firescope etc. In combination with the Alemba
Service Manager Workflow engine you can automate a variety of standard processes such as security cards, new starters, Transport request etc. Email Integration ASM supports bi-directional integration with MS Exchange 2010/2013/Exchange Online/Office365 allowing emails to create incidents and requests from emails sent to dedicated mailboxes (including the upload of attachments and embedding of screenshots in ticket audit history which the system monitors). There are no limits to the number of mail boxes that can be configured and each mail box can have templates associated with them that allows additional parameters to be configured based on which mail box an email is received at thus allowing both un-formatted emails and formatted emails with set attributes to be intercepted by ASM. Should a user reply via email to any existing incidents or requests the system can seamlessly update the records provided that logic is in place to delegate the email to the appropriate record e.g. Incident number is in subject heading. Emails can be intercepted through anonymous users however it is often important that the technician or user is captured against the logging form for referential integrity. A default "Sender" email e.g. customername@ASM.com can be used as the sender if required to hide technician email addresses. Hardware Asset Discovery Integration Expanding on the above regard’s asset discovery for automatic CMDB creation ASM includes bi-directional integration with physical asset discovery tools such as SCCM, Altiris, iServer etc.: 
The customer can map the aforementioned attributes and indeed any other applicable attribute to the asset’s within ASM that in turn will be updated accordingly based upon where information has been captured. The customer can configure what you would like to do when new assets have been discovered, asset’s updated e.g. Status change or when assets
have been removed from external systems and whether this should be mirrored within ASM. The Federated CMDB houses a “Pending Imports” area so that if during discovery anomalies are found then the customer can review and decide whether to promote to the live asset management function or disregard. Likewise, discrepancy reports can be created should there be a status change at a point in the asset lifecycle in order to review and understand the reason for potential status changes. The Federated Connector approach of ASM allows multiple sources of data to be connected to the system and that data normalized and presented inside the application without replication based upon any type of criteria (real time drill back is also provided). In combination with the workflow builder the customer can leverage specialist tasks that will automate the provisioning of for example new assets within ASM simply by using details such as “Asset Tags” which in turn when integrated within for example SCCM upon the given frequency would then auto-populate any other applicable attributes thus minimizing the burden of workload on the customers designated staff managing the systems. Software Asset License Management Integration ASM includes bi-directional integration with software licence management tools such as SNOW. ASM provides a software asset management facility that means organizations can now trust the outcome of both their asset SAM processes and leverage discovery technologies to specialized software licence management tools to audit usage of approved and non- approved software. Alemba’s approach is focused on an Authorized View of your Assets/Software Assets, ensuring you always know exactly what has been approved for acquisition, deployment & decommissioning. The below diagram illustrates the service engagement model: 
ASM's integration platform and ASM's Software Asset Management capability, provide a real-time audit of the customer’ software asset estate is available when using ASM as the approved view e.g. via a release/request fulfilment/procurement process and a 3rd party e.g. SNOW to act as the validation view. This provides immediate and automated feedback to business on license expiry, usage and compliance. Network Monitoring Integration ASM can easily handle events received from external monitoring systems such as network discovery tools and root cause analysis applications to provide an end-to-end Event Management solution. Alerts generated by a network discovery tool monitoring the IT infrastructure, for example, can result in the automatic logging of an event ticket within ASM and the appropriate routing of that event ticket for resolution and also flag the asset outage accordingly in the system. The closure of that event ticket within ASM can in turn update the status of the corresponding alert in the external application. The AI Ops pro-active analyser can also be used to trend event tickets an suggest potential problems on the infrastructure should a correlation be seen between event tickets that are logged. ASM achieves this through interfacing with external sources in an easy and cost-effective way through a variety of mechanisms e.g. SQL to SQL, SNMP, API etc. e.g. The most popular integrations include SCOM, SolarWinds, PRTG, Altiris or Nagios integration for the logging of event tickets where thresholds have been breached. Alemba would recommend that escalation occur on the exception following the ITIL best practice guidelines. The aforementioned ASM integration platform supports Event Management integration to alert monitoring tools. Standard connectors for tools such as Solarwinds, PRTG and MS SCOM are available off the shelf to consume events/alerts deployed by the tool. Furthermore, ASM can intercept email alerts to create/update event ticket records where breaches have occurred in the specific monitoring tool of choice. DevOps Integration Alemba integrates with DevOps tools such as Azure DevOps and Jira. For example, the ASM to DevOps interoperability concept allows for the creation of bugs/Epic Work Item/Product Backlog etc. in DevOps triggered by pushing messages sent from ASM or vice versa. Once an issue is created in DevOps, updates can be passed between the issue and for example the Epic Work Item, Product Backlog etc. in ASM that created it. The DevOps integration a) Sends messages to the DevOps REST API to perform actions such as creating issues in DevOps, updating fields and comments in the issue, and updating issue status. b) Retrieves push messages from DevOps to perform actions such as updating fields or adding notes to the ASM project, bug or task NB Parameters are fully configurable and an abundance of attributes can be mapped in both systems for bi-directional integration. The type of action performed e.g. Create, update, notify, cancel or complete is part of the Integration Platform Bi-Directional Connector settings, ensuring proper communication, and maintaining reconciled information between ASM and DevOps. This allows complete bi-directional real-time updates in ASM and DevOps for any interaction. CTI Integration ASM also has an inbuilt Computer Telephony Integration function through direct interaction with telephony systems such as Cisco, Mitel etc. which aids analysts and users should they call via telephone to allow for: 1. Automatic identification of the caller’s record within ASM 2. Quick visibility of those users’ outstanding incidents 3. Automatically displays the incident the user is phoning about 4. Quicker logging of new incidents All user information is typically imported on a daily basis (or more frequently at the customer’s discretion) via Active Directory into the "Person" function of ASM. API/Web Services As well as our powerful integration platform Alemba also has an industry recognized RESTful API. The Alemba RESTful API uses standard HTTP so it is much simpler in just about every way to use for the creation of integrations often with applications that also have a RESTful API. ASM also fully supports the use of Web Services to access the functions of the RESTful API, including the ability to create, update or assign incidents, tasks, and requests; create, update and delete Configuration Items or create a person record plus attach objects. Integration can take place between a variety of systems including DML’s, finance, HR, SharePoint etc. The RESTful API permits many different data formats to be used for integration ensuring integration is simple and cost effective with the widest range of applications. The RESTful API provides better support for browser clients due to its support for JSON than older SOAP methods. The Alemba RESTful API provides high performance and scalability as RESTful data reads can be cached. The RESTful API style emphasizes that interactions between external applications and the ASM services are enhanced by having a limited number of operations. The basic CRUD (Create, Read, Update and Delete Cycle) operations can be supported for all entities and are distinguished by HTTP Verb: Create - POST: api/v1/call/25 / Read - GET: api/v1/call/25 / Update - PUT: api/v1/call/25 / Delete - DELETE: api/v1/call/25 Flexibility is provided by assigning resources their own unique universal resource indicators (URIs). Each operation (GET, POST, PUT, and DELETE) has a specific meaning, the RESTful API avoids ambiguity making integration easier and more reliable. The Alemba RESTful API URIs specify a version number, as /api/ASM/v1/table/(table name) or no version number, such as /api/ASM/table/(table Name). URIs with a version number provide a consistent interface that is guaranteed to maintain backwards compatibility after ASM upgrades. For example, if the default response format for a particular HTTP method change after an upgrade, versioned URIs continue to use the previous format. By specifying a version number ASM URIs, ensure that future updates to the REST API do not negatively impact your integration making upgrades to ASM cost effective and simple ensuring that a highly integrated systems does not become trapped on an older ASM version. The ASM RESTful API supports authentication and Oauth for enforcing access controls to web resources. The user record that is used for authentication is subject to access control in the same way as an interactive user. Each request requires the proper authentication information. All tables, including base system tables, global tables, and scoped tables are accessible via web services by default. You must fulfil any other web service security requirements, such as authentication to access tables via web services. The API can be used to return information about itself, in the form of hypermedia – machine readable descriptions and links to further similar information, allowing a developer to progressively explore the breadth and depth of the API for themselves. What is more, these descriptions are used by the API itself, guaranteeing that this “documentation” is always current. Alemba Service Manager supplements the core ITIL aligned processes with the ability to manage further relation processes such as third-party supplier and contract management functions. The Contract Management functionality tracks all relevant agreements with contractual obligations from suppliers, third parties and contractors. You can: • Set an automatic reminder & review to alert you when a contract is due to be reviewed or expire • Automatically manage and control all of your contracts against SLA's • Store contract details including description and contract terms • Associate a contract with the CIs it supports. • Add and remove CIs from a particular contract. • Automatically initiate the contract renewal process – for instance, getting quotes or setting up meetings with vendors • Allocate Payment Cycles, durations, payment amounts, contract states • Associate with Underpinning Contracts A contract could be a warranty, support or maintenance agreement, or a record of the purchase of any Configuration Item or Service. If you have support contracts with external suppliers, or even internal departments, the key elements of these documents can be recorded within Alemba Service Manager. A contract is always linked to an External Supplier organization. Alemba Service Manager is a deep and detailed application that addresses the functions of service management out of the box however at Alemba we strive to enable our customers to configure the system themselves post go-live. Therefore, typically nominated system administrators are able to configure and model their business processes without the use of customisation by using the Alemba Service Manager Core application that offers a web-based interface for ease of accessibility. It is important to understand the difference between "Customisation" & "Configuration" the former being something that does not exist within the standard product and needs to be developed, the latter being something that can easily be changed by trained users within the standard product. Features of Alemba Service Manager that ensure customisations are the exception include: • User Configurable Fields – Alemba Service Manager has the ability to add an unlimited number of user defined fields which are written to the API, Reports for publishing etc. • Screen Designer - A configurable screen builder that allows any form to be built whatever the business requirements • Skins Designer - An extension of the screen designer allowing branding and configuration of Alemba Service Manager Self Service • Dynamic fields – Alemba Service Manager allows rules to be set to control the visibility of fields on a form based on the field values in other fields on the form. • Advance Search Centre Capabilities – Alemba Service Manager allows You with full flexibility to build and mould their own searches. • Workflow Engine – Alemba Service Manager encompasses an extremely powerful workflow engine that will allow You to create virtually any business process that follows a logical workflow • Email Template Designer - Create and configure a variety of email templates for any scenario • API - Control access to the API from the Workflow for process-controlled integration. Alemba Service Manager also fully supports role-based security that controls access to features, functions and data in accordance with compliance guidelines. Roles are defined in the Alemba Service Manager administration application and can be defined at a high-level function access privilege e.g. Incident Management, Problem Management access etc. down to a granular-level field level security detail (Read/Write/Edit/Delete). Role based security and partitioning can be used in Alemba Service Manager to restrict access to field values based on a user’s role or membership of a group and partition. The hierarchy or security roles in Alemba Service Manager is as follows: 1. Super Administrator with permission across all partitions. 2. Partition Administrator - Has full administration rights across their given partition(s). 3. Officer - Role based security grants required permissions. 4. Customer - Role based security access to customer portal only. 5. External Suppliers - External Supplier portal access. There is no limit as to the amount and combination of users/groups that can be created and combined with the role-based security to publish access privileges across the application. All changes including human intervention and system generated events are recorded in Audit logs within the system and the database. Alemba’s Professional Services Organisation (PSO) is entirely centred on minimising time-to-
value. We are committed to reducing the path to success through agile implementation methods and enable you to rapidly realise the benefits of your investment in Alemba’s software products. As part of the project implementation and governance It is part of the Project Managers role to own the phases of the implementation and the progression, own the delivery plan and ultimately provide overall responsibility for project budget and timescales including project planning, skills and resource management. You will be assigned an Alemba Product Consultant who will provide a focal point and constant as well as a Project Manager for the project implementation. All Alemba Consultants are fully trained and governed by the PRINCE2 Project Management framework thus delegation will be based upon active projects assigned. Alemba’s Alemba Service Manager solution ships with a pre-configured ITIL aligned database called Alemba Rapid Start that is pre-configured with a complete suite of processes and templates through Incident Management, Problem Management, Change Management etc. At Alemba we understand that no two clients are the same and thus whilst many of the processes, templates and values created by default offer a solid foundation (including categorizations, pre-built service catalogue and a suite of SLA’s) the rapid start system allows you to easily amend and configure these to their business requirements prior to Go-Live in collaboration with the Alemba nominated project team: 
RapidStart is designed to get you started with the key processes that you need to move from Service Transition to Service Operation to ensure that you can realise time to value in the shortest but most effective and efficient timeframes taking the emphasis and reliance from your resources by utilising best practise tried and tested approaches to service management process deployment. Alemba’s extensive delivery experience, allied with our RapidStart database and delivery methodology, breaks the mould of the traditional ‘requirements gathering’ processes. All too often requirements analysis cycles fail to achieve the desired outcomes due to misinterpretation or lack of knowledge, and these problems are exacerbated by a traditional “blank page” software implementation approach during which a vendor: • Educates the customer using a standard set of materials • Installs the base, blank, software • Asks “what do you want” In these circumstances, people lean towards what they know (or are comfortable with) and despite the best efforts of all involved unwittingly end up re-creating the same old problems in a new system. With Alemba, requirements gathering starts immediately at the point of solution exposure, by using pre-built data as a Production Pilot and asking, “what doesn’t the system do in order for you to use it”. Workshops then enable you to learn-by-doing, and quickly take ownership of your software with confidence. As a result, the customer’ needs and expectations are repeatedly fed back into the solution cycle and the risk of failing to meet business requirements is mitigated. And the costs and resources consumed by a traditional gathering, defining and designing can be reduced or re- purposed. Using the Rapid Start system a comprehensive set of pre-built Service Management processes, and matched system settings, provide a ‘ready-to-go’ system that is fine-tuned to match the customer needs. This approach eliminates the “blank page” issues traditionally witnessed with Service Management implementations, and reduces ‘time-to-value’, delivery risk and cost. |