---

Service Manager 2012 is just around the corner (Q4 2011). However, Cased Dimensions are already stealing the lead in SCSM 2012. As a member of Microsoft SCSM TAP (Technology Adoption Program), Cased Dimensions has early access to products prior to their release.

Service Manager 2012 is just around the corner (Q4 2011). However, Cased Dimensions are already stealing the lead in SCSM 2012. As a member of Microsoft SCSM TAP (Technology Adoption Program), Cased Dimensions has early access to products prior to their release.

Major Areas of Improvement

• Service Requests
• Self-Service Portal
• Release Management
• Data Warehouse/Reporting
• Orchestrator(Opalis)/VMM Integration

Incremental Improvements

• Incident SLA - You can now group several activities into a parallel activity group. This parallel activity won't be completed until all activities within it have been completed.
  

• Parent/Child Work Items
• AD Connector Improvements
• Powershell
• Subscription Infrastructure
• Parallel Activities
• Performance Improvements
• Bug Fixes

Service Requests

Service Manager will now support the Service Request process that's been requested since beta. Solutions like this: http://scsmservicerequest.codeplex.com/ will be embedded and supported within SCSM 2012. Service Request is pretty similar to a Change Request but is more focused around activities.

Service Request in SCSM 2012 Self-Service Portal

 

Self-Service Portal

The new SCSM 2012 Self Service is based on SharePoint 2010 and Silverlight. This new portal has many of the requested features that SCSM 2010 didn't have, such as the simple function to allow end users to post comments on their own active Tickets (Incidents).

The layout and functions on the portal itself is based upon a Service Catalog and is defined from within the console. Another function is you can configure different security setting depending on which role the user is member of (basic feature of SharePoint).

Microsoft has also written custom SharePoint webpart controls, that allows easy customization for all Service Manager related webparts.

Release Management

This is also a new process that SCSM 2012 will support. A Release Record has a close relationship with a Change Request and the Work Item itself is focused around activities.

Data Warehouse Reporting

In SCSM 2012 you will be able to gather data from SCCM, SCOM, SCSM and custom sources (such as SAP or HR) to the same Data Warehouse.

By defining OLAP cubes within SCSM you can easily create reports through 'drag and drop' in SharePoint or Excel. The goal is codeless reporting – you do not need to request a person to write lines of SQL code.

Orchestrator(Opalis)/VMM Integration

SCSM 2012 comes with two new connectors:

Orchestrator (new 2012 name for Opalis) - The 'Orchestrator' connector is used to import runbooks from Orchestrator so these can be used from within SCSM.

VMM - The VMM connector imports information on different clouds and VM templates so these can be used when creating Service Offerings in the Service Catalog.

Service Requests, System Center Orchestrator (SCO) & VMM working together:

For an example on how to architect SCSM, VMM and System Center Orchestrator (SCO) please see our SCO Architecture page.

For an example self-service process example using SCSM, VMM and System Center Orchestrator (SCO) please see our Self-Service Process Page.

For advice on how to make best use of SCSM 2012, VMM and Orchestrator, please contact us at info@caseddimensions.com.