DRYiCE SX R9

This release of DRYiCE SX and DRYiCE GBP on SX includes enhancements in the Consumer Portal, Service Board, SLA Board, Fulfillment, Incident, Problem and Change processes, Asset and Configuration Board, AMS Board, and Foundation.

With this release, we continue to respond to our customer’s need for operational efficiency with the introduction of SLAs based on CIs and requester’s time-zone, enhanced knowledge search, mandatory linking of impacted CIs for change requests, and much more. Also, processes have been optimized with the introduction of mandatory policies, and new workflows to mitigate risks and increase maturity. Towards this end, we have brought in new functionalities, which are put forward in this release note.

Consumer Portal

• Now, while giving their feedback on incidents or service requests, users will be presented with the related information and the attachments that were provided by them for raising the requests. This will enable them to refer to the requests while providing feedback.
• Now, delegates who have been added on an adhoc basis will be able to see the delegated approval requests on their 'My Approval' page along with the other requests and take the required action.
• Now, users will be able to search and access knowledge articles from both the knowledge center and the local knowledge base of SX/ GBP on SX using the global search bar as well as from the ‘Knowledge Reference’ section. This will provide them with the flexibility to choose the most appropriate knowledge source to fulfill their professional needs.
• Now, while giving their feedback on incidents on the ‘My Feedback’ page users will be able to see CI names along with other details related to incidents thus keeping them updated on the affected CIs simultaneously.

Fulfillment

• Now, fulfillers will be able to view on their work item board, all requests assigned to support groups they belong to, across all their associated support companies.
• The ‘Fulfillment Request Number’ field displayed below the ‘Request Type’ field on the service desk page will now show the reference number of external fulfillment systems integrated with SX to enable service desk teams to quickly identify fulfillment systems that are responsible for the failure of service delivery.

Incident and Problem Management

• Now changes can be proposed from incidents or problems only after they have been linked to the impacted CIs, reducing the impact of failed implementations due to conflicting CIs.
• Now, incident/problem users and managers will not be able to create and update requests on the ‘Work Item Board’ for Assets/CIs that are not in the 'Deployed' state, ensuring accurate tagging of CIs.

Incident Management

• Now, while proposing problem tickets from incidents, users will have to mandatorily mention impacted CIs for the process to be completed. This information will allow RCA techniques to be deployed effectively, leading to better outcomes.
• Now, whenever service desk agents or incident fulfillers try to copy an existing incident that was raised for a service and had impacted CI captured, then the impacted CI details also must be mandatorily copied into the new incident ticket. This will ensure all the necessary details are captured for further processing.
• A capability has been introduced to propose P1 incidents as critical until they are marked as 'Fixed' so that P1 incidents that have been rejected as non-critical can again be proposed as critical if required.
• Now, reopened incidents will be automatically assigned to their support group, enabling any of the group members to pick them up for further processing.
• The critical incident management (CIM) process has been enhanced such that proposers of critical incidents will not need to mention any CIM username and only members of the CIM group will be able to accept or reject proposed critical incidents thereby controlling access based on roles.

Problem Management

• Now, problem users/problem managers will be able to create only CI-based problem requests, increasing the efficiency of the selected RCA technique.
• Now, problem users will only be able to see problem requests assigned to them or their associated groups while problem managers will be able to see problem requests that are assigned to all support groups of associated support companies.
• Now, whenever the source of a problem request has been captured as ‘Unresolved Incident’, ‘High Priority Incident’ or ‘Recurring Incidents’, the associated incident will also have to be linked to the problem request. This will ensure that the source of the problem has been documented for future references.

Change and Problem Management

• The 'Service/CI' column on the ‘Work Item Board' of change and problem modules has been relabeled as 'CI' since the change and problem tickets will only be allowed to be raised for an impacted CI.

Change Management

• Now, change users/managers will be able to create only CI Based RFC tickets making it mandatory to associate the impacted CIs for proposed changes, improving the visibility of potential CI conflicts with the proposed change thus avoiding implementation failure.
• When a change request is now referred back the change form will be editable so that the proposer can make necessary modifications in the form itself and resubmit the same.
• Justifications given by change proposers to ignore conflicts of changes being proposed with other scheduled changes or blackout windows will be captured in the activity journal so that those are available for audits at a later date.
• Users working on change tickets will be able to snooze the monitoring of the impacted CI during the downtime period so that incorrect alerts and messages are not generated during scheduled and planned downtimes.
• The change workflow has been enhanced with the introduction of ‘Implementation User’ and ‘Implementation Manager’ roles, enabling only users with these roles to work on the implementation stage of the change.
• Only implementation users, change users, and requesters of change requests will be able to replan changes if needed, allowing users having these specific roles to replan changes.

All processes

• Now, fulfillment managers, incident managers, problem managers, and change managers will be able to assign tickets to a group from the list of 'all support groups' present. This will enable them to even assign tickets to groups for whom corresponding AMS rules do not exist.

Asset and Configuration Management

• The names of all listed support companies will be visible to asset managers in the support company drop down on the add/edit page of CMDB, including scenarios where the consumer company is the support company itself, allowing them to select the appropriate support company corresponding to CIs.
• The ‘Edit CMDB’ page has been enhanced with the introduction of ‘Task Plan’ to configure automatic change tasks, improving the efficiency of change management tasks.
• The edit page for CIs on the CMDB Board will now have an approval section for configuring approvals.
• When updates are made to support groups against any records in CMDB the corresponding AMS rules will automatically get updated removing the need for manual intervention.
• The introduction of Chain Entities on the CMDB Board will automate the process of creating additional AMS rules.
• Asset and config managers will be able to view, edit and add CIs for their own company and any other associated companies.

Assignment Management System

• Now, upon deleting chain entities from the service board the corresponding AMS rules will be automatically inactivated removing the need for manual updates.
• The 'Service' option has been removed from the AMS board for change and problem requests since they can only be created based on impacted CIs.
• A new 'Service/CI' column has been introduced on the AMS board to capture CI and service details while configuring new rules. A new 'Impacted CI' filter has also been added to enable configuration managers to filter out rules created for specific CIs and analyze, modify, or inactivate them if needed.

Foundation

• Super admins/app admins will be able to see, and associate support groups associated only with specific support companies that have been selected from the company module on the foundation portal.
• The sections for company, user, groups, and location on the foundation portal have been enhanced with the introduction of pagination.
• Now the default status of bulletins will be 'active' once they are created, removing the need for manually publishing them after they are created.
• Super admins have been provided with instance-specific passwords to access the foundation portal of SX/ GBP on SX instances, ensuring secure access.
• Now, app admins will be able to create foundation data for their company as well as for all associated companies, accelerating the onboarding process.

Notifications

• The 'Refer back' notifications that are triggered to requesters when approvals are referred back will now contain the 'Refer back reason' label instead of 'Reason' so that the notifications are clear and easy to discern.
• The reminder notifications triggered before services are about to expire will now also contain the order number, enabling requesters to ask for an extension of existing orders rather than having to raise new requests.
• Now, admins will be able to configure notifications including company logo, portal URL, signature, header, and footer for tenants on multi-tenant instances from the notification board available under the 'Other Links' icon on the right-hand side corner of the home page. This will help them self-serve routine activities thus removing any dependency on the product engineering team.
• Now, upon forming a problem investigation team (PIT) during a problem workflow, notifications will be triggered to each member of the team to inform them about their inclusion in the PIT and the need to start work on the same.
• Now, notifications will be triggered to assignee group members when tasks are assigned to them, thus making them aware of the need to begin work on them.
• Now notifications triggered based on comments posted by assignees or requesters in tickets/ requests, will also contain information such as request-id, requested date and time, requested component, etc. making it easier for the recipient to find additional details associated with the request.

DRYiCE SX™ accelerates service delivery by seamlessly aggregating catalogs creating a single system of engagement.

DRYiCE GBP SX™ offers true enterprise service management by unifying IT and non-IT services on a single catalog.

For product-related inquiries, please reach us at support.dryice.ai@hcl.com