Hallo Solution Manager Community!
Those of you who are attending SAP TechEd in Las Vegas might already be very excited and are either currently packing their stuff, or are already on their way. In a few days the TechEd season for 2013 will be kicked-off in the USA. Perfect timing to draw your attention to some sessions at TechEd 2013 about IT Service Management and Change Control Management.
So what are the five sessions you shouldn't miss, when you are interested in Change Control Management and IT Service Management?
Session 1: Change Control Management – Maximize the Value (ITM105)
In my opinion the number one session you should visit if you are interested in change management in general. Change Control Management is the name for the application portfolio inside of SAP Solution Manager that is all about managing and controlling changes. Firstly it includes the basic transport management features (CTS and CTS+) to set up a transport strategy across technologies but it also features all other change management tools like Quality Gate Management or Change Request Management. See how Change Control Management supports the technical layer up to the process layer, highlighting the new features and maximize the value in the unique Change Control areas. As an example, this includes support for SAP HANA as well as the new infrastructure layer central CTS, that is now available for QGM and ChaRM. Understand how standardized processes, methods, and tools ensure thorough transparency, continuous quality and flexibility of the change process. From my point of view: The perfect session to start with Change Control Management and gain a valuable overview about the topic.
Session 2: SAP Solution Manager - an ITIL Tool (ITM219)
Besides Change Control Management, IT Service Management is another important component in SAP Solution Manager. Especially in the last couple of month, there is growing interest in SAP's IT Service Management solution - which is why this session is my number two. Recently SAP Solution Manager has been re-certified by PinkVerify beginning of 2013 and is currently the only tool in the market which verified to provide solutions for 15 processes based on latest ITIL 2011 edition. This is another piece of the full picture of SAP Solution Manager as SAP's IT Management plattform. Classic ITSM processes like Incident, Problem and Change are no longer making the difference between an average IT department and a state-of-the-art IT alone. With SAP Solution Manager you can further evolve your IT organization with processes like "Financial Management" or "Service Portfolio Management". In this sessions you will see how you can manage your IT Service processes according to ITIL Best Practices running on SAP. You get an introduction to the ITIL processes and the approach how to manage them within SAP Solution Manager.
Special note: Don't miss to hear personally from david.birkenbach why you should attend this very session in a short online teaser video recorded at SAPPHIRE NOW in Orlando this year.
Session 3: Discover the New Flexibility of Change Request Management with Central CTS (ITM161)
With session number three we are going towards real "hands-on" experience. This session highlights a fundamental shift in managing changes of heterogeneous business critical SAP environments with Change Request Management (ChaRM) of SAP Solution Manager 7.1. With the latest support package, Change Request Management leverages the new central Change and Transport Infrastructure (cCTS) which provides further flexibility for controlling your transports and changes. You will see how the regular "Request for Change" and "Normal Change" processes have been enhanced by the central CTS functionalities. I highly recommend this session to all people that are already using ChaRM or are interested in Change Request Management to establish an ITIL compliant change management in their organization.
Session 4: Service Catalog Design with SAP Solution Manager 7.1 (ITM265)
As you might have heard already (if not, check session ITM219) SAP Solution Manager is currently the only tool that is certified for all 15 ITIL processes in the market. One of these 15 processes is Service Catalog Management. In this hands-on session we will do a deep dive into this topic. For quite some time, SAP Solution Manager already has a request fulfillment process via the "Service Requests". Now, with SAP Solution Manager 7.1 and the latest Support Package, the ITSM scenario offers a new predefined process to support the ordering of IT services via Service Catalogue. This is called the "Service Order" - learn in this session how you can use and set up this new service order process. The process includes approval steps, costing and service fulfillment. I highly recommend this to all people that are interested in service catalog management or enhanced request fulfillment processes.
Session 5: Configure Central CTS Foundation for ChaRM and QGM (ITM208)
The word or rumour has already spread a little across the community, now we are making if oficial: There will be a new enhanced infrastructure for change control management in SAP Solution Manager. It is called "Central CTS" and provides more flexibility features and literally more "horse-powers" when it comes to transport management. The basis for this is a new central transport foundation layer that is directly integrated into the task list of the SAP Solution Manager. As the names says, in this session you can get insides about the configuration and learn which entities are used in CTS (for ABAP and non-ABAP). Definitly a session for everybody that is looking for more flexibility for their existing change control processes in SAP Solution Manager - but also for everbody that is interested in Change Control Management with SAP Solution Manager in general.
That's it - these are the five sessions you shouldn't miss at TechEd this year. Of course, there is even more - so don't miss out other important session about SAP Solution Manager, IT Service Management and Change Control that go beyond my selection. In any case - last but not least - have fun, enjoy the TechEd and take the chance to get your personal experience about IT Service Management, Change Control Management and SAP Solution Manager.
And don't forget to pay a visit to our ITSM Wiki in the SCN - and follow us on Twitter!
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