Unicenter ServicePlus Service Desk (USP)

[fustbariclation]

Has anybody here used CA's USP?


I'm trying to get it to work for a client. It has been 'verified' by
the 'Pink Verify' programme, but I know that that means virtually
nothing.


USP is clearly an ond fashioned help desk or 'trouble ticket' product
that has had some ITIL functions grafted on to it - mainly for
marketing purposes probably!


If anybody has used it, I'd be interested in any answers to these
questions. I've asked them on the Unicenter forum, but I've got fairly
low expectations - last month a couple of customers agreed that in
their words: 'ITIL is crap', so I think that the users generally have
rather a long way to go in process thinking!!


Does the Change Mangement module have more useful statuses when the
'ITIL extensions' are loaded? The version that I've got to use has the
same status codes for Incident, Problem and Change, which makes little
sense.


Have you used the 'workflow management' model to automate the Change
Management process? As the product is shipped, there is a set of
pre-defined actions that send out messages, mainly for the pre-defined
escalation points. There aren't any tasks that accept authorizations
and none of the tasks supplied call any external APIs or scripts. As
far as I can see the 'workflow management' is fairly rudimentary. You
need to hand-roll the tasks and there isn't a tie-in between tasks and
status, nor any timers to control task operation. I'd be keen to know
if somebody has got around this using scripting to hear how difficult
and time-consuming it was.

[ITIL_Boy]

You wrote: "Does the Change Mangement module have more useful statuses when the 'ITIL extensions' are loaded? The version that I've got to use has the
same status codes for Incident, Problem and Change, which makes little
sense. "

I do use Unicenter Service Desk and I can tell you is very adaptable to the ITIL environment, you can add different status codes for Change.

Also you can modify the Workflow Tasks according to your premises and you can even pre-assigned those Tasks to diferent departments/Groups in your company. In our company we have changed the Tasks twice in the last year since we are still in the learning process, but everybody is happy with the adaptability of the USPSD. By other side, you are right there's no tie between the Tasks and the Status.