Let’s start the new year the only way we know how – with updates to the Service Manager portal and Asset Management! Available on our latest branch is the recently released v10.4 of the Service Manager Portal and v8.4 of Asset Management – collectively known as the Precision Release. With this release, we’re giving you deeper portal navigation, granular Cache Builder control, more Global Search functionality, and more ways to further streamline your Asset Management practices.
Asset Management v8.4
When it comes to Hardware Assets, it seems like as though there are ever so slight variances in the Model you purchase from your Manufacturer. For example let’s say that regardless of the Manufacturer, their Models were G7, G7A, G7AA. Said another way, the difference between these three models is so narrow that instead of 3 distinct Catalog Items to manage them discretely – you just want to manage them all as a G7. Now available on Catalog Items is the new Model Alias field that seeks to address this very need. To begin using this new functionality, just head into Asset Management Settings and check off “Use Model Alias on Catalog Item forms”
Once you’ve updated this, you can now enter a semi-colon separated list of Models on Catalog Item forms and we’ll take care of the rest. Best of all, this works regardless of whether you are using Model strings or enums. So no matter where you are in your Asset Management journey this feature helps you now and into the future. And as you might expect, this new field is also made available in Catalog Item forms seen on…
Portal 10.4
Asset Management
The Service Manager portal, where you’ll see that Catalog Items also render this field so you can continue to execute your Asset Management practices entirely from the web. PLEASE NOTE: To all of our customers of Asset Management, this version of the portal is dependent on the aforementioned version of Asset Management. Make sure you upgrade Asset Management before upgrading to this version!
But that isn’t the only thing that’s changed about Asset Management in the portal. A request that’s come up has been offering similar console-like functionality for all things Asset Management. Now Asset Management classes open one and immediately go to another. With 10.4 your related Assets and Configuration Items now redirect to their own dedicated CMDB pages instead of popup windows. For example:
Here on a Support Contract, related Assets also link back to their original Hardware Assets.
These are just a couple examples, but rest assured the opportunity for deep navigation in Asset Management is now realized in the portal no matter what angle you approach it from.
Cache Builder Maintenance
Speaking of changes in the portal, now available in Administrative Settings for the Portal is the Cache Builder Maintenance page. Providing you the opportunity not just to modify logging levels of the Cache Builder, but also initiate on demand, selective cache rebuilds for Users, Scoped Access, Config Items, Enums, and your Service Catalog.
Now you can rebuild what you need, when you want, without needing underlying access to the server running Cache Builder to do it.
Global Search
We continue to expand upon one of the most powerful features in the portal with three more enhancements to further extend Global Search to help you work and search the way you want.
When searching you’ll now see the “Show More Results” link at the bottom of your results which re-directs you to the new dedicated Global Search results page. This new page automatically passes your search query along, maintains your filters, and introduces pagination when you have a lot of results to comb through
Toggle Global Search for End Users
Depending on the needs of your organization’s need for Global Search, it’s possible that your Analysts are the only ones truly interested in leveraging this functionality. That’s why also included in this release is the ability to disable Global Search only for End Users but keep it available for your Analysts.
Analyst and End User Comment Search
Apart from introducing wholly net new functionality in Global Search as we move closer to leaving Beta Feature status, we’ve also been working on several use cases as they pertain to specific Classes you may choose to sync in order to search against. That said, our first pass of being able to search Analyst and End User Comments and then redirect back to the Parent Work Item is now available in the latest iteration of Global Search.
Comment Search has been a long standing community request that we are excited to finally begin to deliver through the lens that is our Service Manager portal and Global Search.
The year is only getting started and we’ve got quite the roadmap ahead of us for 2021. You can grab v10.4 on our latest branch and don’t forget as always to let us know your thoughts in the community. Alternatively, feel free to reach out to me directly at team@cireson.com if there is something else you’d like to discuss!
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