1.1 About JP1/Service Support

JP1/Service Support is a program that facilitates the smooth transition between processes from the time an incident occurs until it is resolved. JP1/Service Support centrally manages user inquiries, system faults, and the problems and considerations that arise as a result of these user inquiries and system faults, as Items requiring resolution.

Figures 1-1 and 1-2 show the two main windows in which most JP1/Service Support activity takes place.

Figure 1‒1: Main window (Item list)

The primary use of the main window (Item list) is to perform Item-related actions. These include creating, editing, and searching for Items.

The left frame is the List of process work boards, which displays a list of process work boards. The top right frame is the Item list and displays a list of Items. The bottom right frame is the Item preview which shows a preview of the Item selected in the Item list.

For details about the main window (Item list), 4.2 Layout of main window (Item list).

The following describes the terminology used in the figure.

Target system

A term for a system being managed by JP1/Service Support.

Process work board

A process work board is a location where tasks are recorded for each process. You can create only one process work board per process. Settings that relate to actions performed on Items generally apply at the level of an individual process work board.

Process

A process is a category of task designated by JP1/Service Support. The four categories are incident management, problem management, change management, and release management. Process names are based on the processes defined in the ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) framework. In addition, JP1/Service Support allows the process display names to be customized to suit how you use the system.

ITIL is a set of guidelines seeing widespread adoption mainly in Europe that systematize the building and operation of IT systems. The processes defined in ITIL are as follows:

Incident management

The incident management process manages user inquiries and events that threaten to disrupt normal operations as incidents, and presents the appropriate answers and workarounds to the user at the earliest opportunity.

If an inquiry or event cannot be adequately resolved in the incident management process, responsibility can be transferred to the problem management process. This act of transferring responsibility to another process is called escalation.

Problem management

Problem management manages, as problems, inquiries from users, system faults, and other matters that warrant further investigation. This process diagnoses the root cause of problems and identifies permanent solutions.

If feedback needs to be made to the incident management process, a request to that effect can be made. If problem management determines that a user document or the system itself needs changing, a request for change (RFC) can be raised and escalated to the change management process.

Change management

Change management is triggered by a request for change. It involves a careful assessment of potential changes and proposals for their implementation, taking into consideration the risk of system failures and the impact the change might have on business operations. This assessment and the resulting proposal involve a team made up of people who have roles in the construction, operation, and use of the affected systems. In ITIL, these are called Change Advisory Board (CAB) members. The meetings at which CAB members assess the situation and come up with proposals are called Change Advisory Board (CAB) meetings.

If the meeting results in a change plan, the plan is passed to the release management process for implementation. The results of the RFC are also reported back to the problem management process.

Release management

This process establishes implementation plans based on proposed changes to affected systems. It is also responsible for building, testing and deploying changes according to the implementation plan.

The result of this activity is reported back to the change management process.

Figure 1‒2: System perspective of main window (Item status)

The primary use of this window is to check the work status of items, through operations such as displaying the number of unresolved Items and outputting reports about Item resolution.

The left frame displays a menu with the commands you can perform in the main window (Item status). The top right frame is the check status frame, in which you can view the statuses of Items registered in JP1/Service Support. The bottom right frame is the list of target Items. By clicking a number in the top right frame, you can display a list of the Items that contribute to the tally.

For details about the main window (Item status), see 5.1 Layout of main window (Item status).

The following describes the terminology used in the figure.

Perspectives for viewing statuses

From the menu, you can select the perspective from which to check Item statuses. You can select from the system perspective and the process perspective. Click the perspective in the menu to use it in the status check frame.

From the system perspective, you can view the statuses of every item in every system managed by JP1/Service Support. From the process perspective, you can view the status of the processes in a given system in greater detail than the system perspective.

Note that JP1/Service Support is provided as the following products to accommodate different scales of system and organizational needs:

• JP1/Service Support Starter Edition

• JP1/Service Support (Standard)

To Page Top