Solution Manager Service Desk an End-to-End Helpdesk Solution

Transcription

1 Solution Manager Service Desk an End-to-End Helpdesk Solution Summary With SAP s Solution Manager Initiative, customers are now required to incorporate a Solution Manager system into their SAP landscape. This requirement has left customers anxious to realize as many benefits as possible from their (typically considered non-core) SolMan system. Movado Group, Inc. has made the best of the situation by leveraging and extending the Service Desk functionality delivered with the system to build a fully functional, end-to-end solution for their corporate help desk. This article describes how MGI has implemented their Service Desk solution and discusses some of the customizations and enhancements which were required to make the SolMan Service Desk the right fit for their global IT organization. Author: David Daniel Company: CIBER, Inc. Created on: 29 April 2009 Author Bio David Daniel (CIBER, Inc.) lives in Fayetteville, Arkansas and has been working in SAP Basis and Security for over ten years now. The Solution Manager system described in this paper was developed for Movado Group, Inc. throughout an implementation project where he was engaged to provide technical consulting services SAP AG 1

2 Table of Contents Message Creation...3 Message Creation in SAP GUI...3 Customizing the NOTIF_CREATE Interface...4 Message Creation via the Corporate Intranet...5 Automated Message Creation...6 Automatic Notifications...6 Customized Component Hierarchy...8 Available Partners...9 Message Search...10 Reporting for Service Desk...11 Summary...11 Disclaimer and Liability Notice SAP AG 2

3 Message Creation At MGI, helpdesk messages can be created by helpdesk personnel, IT users, and even by end users. To facilitate all types of users, two methods of creating messages were made available. Message Creation in SAP GUI For helpdesk personnel and the more SAP-centric end user population, messages are typically created directly in the SolMan system using transaction NOTIF_CREATE. This transaction provides a customizable interface for creating standard SLFN (Service Desk) transactions. Customized NOTIF_CREATE screen 2009 SAP AG 3

4 Customizing the NOTIF_CREATE Interface NOTIF_CREATE, in its default form, included certain fields which were not relevant for the helpdesk process as implemented at MGI. Additionally, there were fields which, while used, would always need to have the same value and thus a changeable field in NOTIF_CREATE could lead to confusion. For these reasons, NOTIF_CREATE was customized using the delivered program RDSWP_NOTIF_CREATE_CUSTOMIZE_S. Program RDSWP_NOTIF_CREATE_CUSTOMIZE_S allows the attributes of fields available in NOTIF_CREATE to be changed. For the MGI implementation, the fields for Solution, Project and Business Process were not used, and so those fields were made Invisible. A generic ibase component was created which was to be used for all Helpdesk messages and so that field was given a default value and then it was also hidden in NOTIF_CREATE. Hiding and defaulting fields 2009 SAP AG 4

5 Message Creation via the Corporate Intranet To facilitate end user self-service for Helpdesk Messages, message creation and monitoring via the web was implemented. A simple WebDynpro-ABAP application was created which allows intranet users to create messages via a simple browser interface and to also check the status of messages. Message creation via browser Message lookup via browser 2009 SAP AG 5

6 Automated Message Creation A third way that messages are created is via an custom interface to Movado s HCM SAP system. Whenever a new-hire or termination occurs, there are a number of steps that IT must perform (allocation of equipment, access setup, etc.) and so whenever these actions are performed in the HR system, a message with all relevant personnel information is created and assigned to the appropriate IT support organization. Automatic Notifications In a helpdesk scenario, there are many situations which arise where automated notifications need to be sent to individuals or groups. This objective can be achieved by utilizing the Post Processing Framework for service desk messages. Using the PPF, Movado s SolMan system has been configured to automatically send notifications to the appropriate individual or group when: A message is reassigned to a new processor (notification to new processor) A message is created (confirmation to message reporter) A Crisis message is created (notification to crisis team) A message s status is changed to Proposed Solution (notification to message reporter) A Personnel Action message is created (notification to appropriate regional PA team) A Very High priority Change Request is created (notification to Global IT team) 2009 SAP AG 6

7 Example Message Creation Confirmation Example Proposed Solution Notification 2009 SAP AG 7

8 Customized Component Hierarchy In addition to customized Category and Subject fields, the Component Hierarchy was changed to mimic a traditional Category-Type-Item layout for the MGI Service Desk. The component hierarchy was updated via a custom program which allows the ability to upload a user-defined component hierarchy which can replace the delivered hierarchy or add to it. Additional functionality was included to allow the reset the hierarchy to its delivered state by downloading the most recent version using standard tools. Customized Component Hierarchy Program to Update Component Hierarchy 2009 SAP AG 8

9 Available Partners To ensure that accurate and complete information for end users was captured in messages, SAP Business Partners which can be assigned as message reporters are automatically created by an interface to Movado s corporate LDAP (Active Directory). Over 1,400 Reported By Partners Available for Selection at Message Creation The interface uses SAP s LDAP connector and standard function modules to periodically read Active Directory and create new partners for any new AD users. Partners which were created but are no longer found in AD are flagged for deletion so that they can no longer be used in messages SAP AG 9

10 Message Search The ability to use previous helpdesk messages as a knowledge base to help resolve new issues is a powerful tool. For Movado, this ability was accomplished via a developed interface to the open source Lucene search application (at the time of the writing of this paper, a TREX interface is not available for Service Desk messages). The interface uses SAP JCo and Lucene to index all messages and perform searches against the index. Search interface similar to standard Results presented in standard format The search allows users to search messages using a combination of message fields (partners, category, etc.) in addition to search to the index on the contents of the messages. The developed interface provides the ability to maintain indices and perform full and incremental updates as well as search functionality SAP AG 10

11 Reporting for Service Desk To ease management reporting for Service Desk Messages, enhanced extractors were implemented to retrieve summary data into Movado s BI reporting system. With the data available in BI, it can be presented in many different ways to deliver the views that give the MGI management team the appropriate insight into the Service Desk Process. Summary Since MGI started using the Service Desk as their helpdesk solution, thousands of messages have been created. Currently, their entire user population (over 1,400) is available as Reported By partners in the solution and the system issues hundreds of automated notifications in a day. In short, the Service Desk provides all of the tools necessary to allow MGI to effectively manage their end-to-end IT problem tracking and resolution needs SAP AG 11

12 Disclaimer and Liability Notice This document may discuss sample coding or other information that does not include SAP official interfaces and therefore is not supported by SAP. Changes made based on this information are not supported and can be overwritten during an upgrade. SAP will not be held liable for any damages caused by using or misusing the information, code or methods suggested in this document, and anyone using these methods does so at his/her own risk. SAP offers no guarantees and assumes no responsibility or liability of any type with respect to the content of this technical article or code sample, including any liability resulting from incompatibility between the content within this document and the materials and services offered by SAP. You agree that you will not hold, or seek to hold, SAP responsible or liable with respect to the content of this document SAP AG 12