JIRA Service Management


Greetings!

In this article, the second in my series on JIRA Service Management (JSM), I will be exploring the **Access Management** capabilities available in a JSM project.

This will include looking at the Single Sign On (SSO) options provided by the [Atlassian Guard](https://www.atlassian.com/software/guard) product.

*Note: you will need to have Organisation Administrator permissions to implement SSO, as well as having access to your organisations MS Entra ID admin.*

## Key Principles 

The following are a few examples of areas that should be considered, ideally as part of your design for JSM as discussed in the initial article of this series, when planning for managing user access to JSM.

* Managing users should not be an onerous task
* Align with your organisations information security policies 
* Align with your organisations Joiners, Movers and Leavers (JML) process
* Review license usage to ensure you only those that need it have access
* Follow the principle of least privilege access so users only have permission to do what they need to do to fulfil their role

## Available Roles

There are three distinct roles, with JSM, that users can be assigned to.

* ***Administrator*** - access to all functionality plus the ability to access the **Project Settings** and make changes to the project’s configuration 
* ***Agent*** - access to the agent functionality to create and manage request and Incident records
* ***Customer*** - the ability to create requests, view requests that have been raised and search the knowledge base (if access is provided)

These roles can be assigned in a number of ways which we will explore in the next section.

## Basic User Management

JSM provides ‘out of the box’ functionality for managing users. It is accessed from the **Project Settings** menu under **Access -> People and access**.

![People and settings](https://res.cloudinary.com/xenos-design/image/upload/v1735566618/JSM/project-settings/project-settings-image-11-1_ivlzg7.png)

The **People and access** screen is where users of the JSM project can be managed. From this screen you can

- Add users to the project by
  - Clicking on the **Add people** button
  - adding the email of the users you want to give access to OR add from Google, Slack or Microsoft
  - Choose the role that you want them to have
  - Click on **Add**

![Add users](https://res.cloudinary.com/xenos-design/image/upload/v1735566619/JSM/project-settings/project-settings-image-11-2_tytvoi.png)

- Remove users
- View users by file using the **Roles** filter
- Search for specific users in the **Search roles** field

## Single Sign On (SSO)

To use SSO with any Atlassian product a subscription needs to be taken out for [Atlassian Guard](https://www.atlassian.com/software/guard). This provides four methods of authenticating users for SSO. 

From an architectural perspective this sits outside of JSM and can be considered a global Atlassian product as it controls access across all products that your organisation has signed up to with Atlassian.

These setting are accessed via the Atlassian Administration menu.

![Atlassian admin](https://res.cloudinary.com/xenos-design/image/upload/v1735573543/JSM/sso/image-1_y2nfjf.png)

### Domain Verification only

This is the simplest way of deploying SSO as it only requires you to have access to the DNS records for the email domain that you want to use for authentication e.g. stevengodson.com.

In the Atlassian Admin menu select **Settings** then **Domains** and click on the **Verify your company domain** button.

![Verify domain screen](https://res.cloudinary.com/xenos-design/image/upload/v1735573645/JSM/sso/image-2_yc1nz9.png)

Click on **Next** on this screen.

![Screen 1](https://res.cloudinary.com/xenos-design/image/upload/v1735574052/JSM/sso/image-3_jletk4.png)

Enter the domain that you want to verify and click **Next**.

![Screen 2](https://res.cloudinary.com/xenos-design/image/upload/v1735574051/JSM/sso/image-4_xrwen0.png)

On the following screen, select the method of verification that you want to use, follow the instructions and click on **Verify domain** when completed.

![Screen 3](https://res.cloudinary.com/xenos-design/image/upload/v1735574052/JSM/sso/image-5_aygnu8.png)

You should be taken back to the main Domains screen where your domain will be listed. *Note: this may take several hours to verify depending on the method that you choose.

![Domain listing page](https://res.cloudinary.com/xenos-design/image/upload/v1735574652/JSM/sso/image-6_tnjrni.png)

Once your domain is verified you can claim any existing accounts for users under that domain. From this point any users that are logged into their browser using the verified domain can login, using SSO, to Atlassian Cloud.

Access to specific projects within Atlassian will still need to be granted at the project level following the steps shown in the *Basic User Management* section of this article.

### Identity Provider Integration

If you want to be able to control access to your Atlassian projects and products, through your existing federated user management tool, this can be achieved by implementing an **Identity Provider** integration using **SAML** and deploying **Authentication policies**.

This will, with the exception of Google Workspace, require you taking out a subscription to Atlassian Guard, which is licensed based on the number of users claimed rather than active, so I strongly advisee you to check the current pricing and be sure you have a valid business case to proceed.

Once you have setup your Atlassian Guard subscription, or signed up the the free 14 day trial, navigate to the **Atlassian Admin -> Security -> Identity Providers** screen and select your identity provider.

![Identity providers](https://res.cloudinary.com/xenos-design/image/upload/v1735576516/JSM/sso/image-7_dsy5ly.png)

*Note: most of these options will require you to verify your domain prior to setting up any integration.*

If the workflow for your specific integration does not cover setting up *Authentication policies*, I recommend navigating to **Administration -> Security -> Authentication policies** and creating a new policy for your specific *Identity Provider* integration to enforce single sign-on for all sync’d users.

These policies give you control over whether

- A user needs to use Two Factor Authentication
- Login using Third Party login routes
- Use API Tokens to access the JSM APIs
- Set how long users can be idle before they are kicked out. *Note: consult your organisations Information Security Policies to ensure compliance with any mandated periods*

#### Considerations

* If using groups to delineate role access, populate with a test user, wait for it to sync and test the access
* To give sync’d users with a group automatic access to certain projects, you just need to
  * In **Administration -> Directory -> Groups** select the applicable group and give all members access to *JSM* and *Confluence
  * In your JSM project go to **Project Settings -> Access -> People and Access** and add the user group to the appropriate JSM role (Admin, Service Desk Agent and Customer)
* The email addresses of the users, that are sync’d, **MUST** be the ones using a *verified domain*. Failure to do this means users will be treated *External* users and, as such, unmanaged

## Conclusion

We have come to the end of the fourth article in this series. We have explored the User Access Management controls for JSM.

In the next article we will go through the **User Portal** which is the main view for Service Desk Agents when work on different request types.

Hopefully this has been useful to you and I wish you well on your ITSM journey…


Greetings!

In this article, the second in my series on JIRA Service Management (JSM), I will be exploring the **Project Settings** available in a JSM project. Due to the numerous options, and level of detail, available in **Project Settings** I am splitting this article into two as follows.

This first article covered 

- Details
- Summary
- Features
- Access

The second article covers

- Request Management
- Automation

This article covers

- Channels & self-service
- Operations
- Notifications
- Language support
- Apps
- Versions
- Components

In my first article I setup a basic JSM project using the ‘out of the box’ functionality and the Customer Service Management template. Now we will go deeper into the available configuration options and discuss what is possible.

It is worth noting that, where additional functionality can be added as part of a paid subscription or license upgrade, I will be covering these in later articles.

## Key Principles 

The following are a few examples of areas that should be considered, ideally as part of your design for JSM as discussed in the initial article of this series, when planning for the configuration of a JSM project.

- Is your Service Desk going to be managing processes other than Incident Management and Request Management e.g. Problem Management, Change Management or Asset Management?
- What information needs to be captured for each process, both at the initial creation of a record and through its lifecycle?
- Are there existing process templates that can be used for the data capture and workflow?
- What queues and views are needed by the teams?
- How many customers are being supported and is there a need to split the data by customer?
- What integrations are needed? JSM can integrate with
  - Collaboration tools e.g. MS Teams and Slack 
  - Enterprise Management tools e.g. DataDog
  - Email integration for a more seamless service experience 

## Project Settings 

We will now go through the sections of the Project Settings menu and see what each sub element lets us configure.

This is accessed from the link shown below, you must have Admin permissions to see this link.

![Project Settings](https://res.cloudinary.com/xenos-design/image/upload/v1735475430/JSM/project-settings/project-settings-image-1_xpai6z.png)

### Channels & self-service

#### Portal

##### Portal Configuration

![Portal settings](https://res.cloudinary.com/xenos-design/image/upload/v1735038726/JSM/getting-started/Getting-Started-Image-3_jqwvux.png)

- Portal URL - this is the link to your external facing portal for your service desk
- Service project information
  - Portal name - a mandatory title for your service desk project, this is visible internally and externally
  - Introduction text - the text that customers / users will see under the service desk project (Portal) name
  - Logo - allows you to add a logo to the portal which will sit beside the portal name
- Channel access - clicking of *Edit customer permissions* opens a new page where you can
  - Decide who has access to the portal, and other engagement routes, e.g. Restricted to users who have been given access or Open to anyone who has the link
  - Decide what customers can see within the project. This very much depends on whether your service desk project supports multiple customers or just one and the data privacy regulations that you need to comply with

![Channel Access](https://res.cloudinary.com/xenos-design/image/upload/v1735040287/JSM/getting-started/Getting-Started-Image-5_zhcbzf.png)

- Announcements - controls who can add banner announcement messages to the portal e.g. notifying users of an upcoming service outage or major Incident

##### Portal groups

![Portal groups](https://res.cloudinary.com/xenos-design/image/upload/v1735040889/JSM/getting-started/Getting-Started-Image-6_lrwxht.png)

This tab allows you to add sections to your portal to enable a logical grouping of request types e.g. Incidents, Requests, Changes etc. By default it comes with the General group populated with 7 request types, assuming you have that many in your project. The groups can be re-ordered by clicking on the top left of a group tile and dragging around the page

##### Final View

Once you have configured your portal you can use the Portal URL to see what it looks like. I recommend making changes incrementally and checking the portal after each change so you can see the results in real time.

Below is a simplistic view of where your changes will be visible.

![Portal after customisation](https://res.cloudinary.com/xenos-design/image/upload/v1735041252/JSM/getting-started/Getting-Started-Image-7_dexplf.png)

If you look at the top righthand corner you will see me logged in as a user, a search icon and a Customer button, the latter only being available to those with permissions to add announcements.

#### Email

![Email settings](https://res.cloudinary.com/xenos-design/image/upload/v1735059290/JSM/getting-started/Getting-Started-Image-8_xcltez.png)

The Email section provides the capability to manage the email addresses that customers / users can use to report issues and request services.

The default email address is *support@[your-account-name].atlassian.net*. However, this can be amended by clicking the ellipsis, under the **Actions** heading, and selecting **Edit**. This opens the following pop-up from which the email address name can be amended and the Request type that will automatically be created upon receipt.

You will notice that the Request types in the drop down field represent the full list of Request types that were created earlier in this article.

![Manage email popup](https://res.cloudinary.com/xenos-design/image/upload/v1735059290/JSM/getting-started/Getting-Started-Image-9_iqhkjs.png)

If you want to create multiple email addresses then click on the **Create Atlassian email** button which opens the same pop-up form.

It is also possible to link external emails to your project, useful if you want to keep a corporate “feel” to the service desk. Simply click on the **Add external email** button, select the option that fits your use case and follow the instructions to connect to your email provider.

![Email integration](https://res.cloudinary.com/xenos-design/image/upload/v1735060223/JSM/getting-started/Getting-Started-Image-10_d4fszs.png)

#### Chat

The chat options of JSM are shown as four streams.

- Integration - with Slack or Teams to give a more integrated feel to the customer experience, crucial in a world where Experience Level Agreements (XLAs) are ever pushing their way into the foreground of CIO thinking
- Workflows - seamless fulfilment of requests within the chat
- Chat to Request - including triggers within a chat to allow agents to generate request records from a chat message
- Virtual Agent - the ever ubiquitous use of AI and Machine Learning to support customers through automation and knowledge bases

![Chat options](https://res.cloudinary.com/xenos-design/image/upload/v1735060739/JSM/getting-started/Getting-Started-Image-11_jhf0wg.png)

#### Widget

The **Widget** page gives you the functionality to configure a deploy a widget to the customer portal that can be used to 

- raise an issue with the service desk
- search the knowledge base
- engage with a virtual agent

![Add a widget](https://res.cloudinary.com/xenos-design/image/upload/v1735934803/JSM/project-settings/project-settings-image-21-6_jeouji.png)

*Note: you will need to have portal access set to Open before you can add a widget. This can be set from the Portal settings page.*

#### Knowledge base

The JSM knowledge base is a feature that needs to be enabled but, currently, incurs no cost. It essentially deploys Atlassians Confluence product.

![](https://res.cloudinary.com/xenos-design/image/upload/v1735934998/JSM/project-settings/project-settings-image-21-7_vajnev.png)

To add a knowledge base you will need to

- Click on **Try Now**
- Accept the T’s and C’s on the next screen and wait
- Then, once the last screen appears click on **Go to knowledge base**

You will be taken to the following screen where you can see 

- Create spaces
- Link an existing space
- Set who has visibility
- Select which articles are shown

![knowledge base](https://res.cloudinary.com/xenos-design/image/upload/v1735935242/JSM/project-settings/project-settings-image-21-8_emiuzd.png)

#### Virtual service agent

The **Virtual Service Agent** is an AI driven tool that can enhance the customer experience and shift volumes away from the service desk agents, allowing them to focus on more value add activities. 

However, as this incurs an additional cost it is out of scope for this article.

#### External resources

The screen is used to add links to external tools and / or websites, outside of Atlassian, that customers will find useful. To add one you just need to

- Click on **Add link**
- Populate the form, as shown below, and click on **Add**

![Add link form](https://res.cloudinary.com/xenos-design/image/upload/v1735935805/JSM/project-settings/project-settings-image-21-10_kbiuch.png)

The link will now be visible on the customer portal, as shown below.

![Portal with external resource](https://res.cloudinary.com/xenos-design/image/upload/v1735935805/JSM/project-settings/project-settings-image-21-12_gp7szc.png)

#### Issue collectors

![Issue collectors](https://res.cloudinary.com/xenos-design/image/upload/v1735935991/JSM/project-settings/project-settings-image-21-13_ujdvut.png)

**Issue collectors** are a great way to engage your users, from any website that can run JavaScript, to provide feedback or raise an issue. To add one click on **Add issue collector** and populate the screen that appears.

![Collector form](https://res.cloudinary.com/xenos-design/image/upload/v1735988493/JSM/project-settings/project-settings-image-21-14_ckzp1u.png)

Once you have customised the collector configuration to meet your needs, click on **Submit** and you will be taken the the following screens that provide you with the HTML and jQuery code that you need to include in the website that the collector is for.

![HTML](https://res.cloudinary.com/xenos-design/image/upload/v1735988493/JSM/project-settings/project-settings-image-21-15_sejrba.png)
*HTML*

![JQuery](https://res.cloudinary.com/xenos-design/image/upload/v1735988493/JSM/project-settings/project-settings-image-21-16_jpmsww.png)
*JQuery*

### Operations

In the view shown below only Incident Management is listed. However, if you take out a Premium or Enterprise plan, and switch on Problem Management or Change Management, they will appear in this part of the menu as well.

#### Incident Management

This is a summary page that lists useful articles for managing fields, in both Standard and Premium services, configure responder alerts, set communications preferences and Post Incident Reviews, the latter two being Premium services.

![Incident Management](https://res.cloudinary.com/xenos-design/image/upload/v1735989074/JSM/project-settings/project-settings-image-21-17_nskfny.png)

### Notifications

The following screens are used to configure and enable/disable notifications that will be sent internally within your support organisation e.g. issue assigned to agent or Priority 1 Incident raised, and notifications that will be sent to customers e.g. request created or approval required.

Depending on how your service desk operation is designed, you can switch off all customer notifications or customise the templates (Premium functionality).

#### Internal notifications

![Internal notifications](https://res.cloudinary.com/xenos-design/image/upload/v1735989714/JSM/project-settings/project-settings-image-21-18_q4i5xx.png)

#### Customer notifications

![External notification](https://res.cloudinary.com/xenos-design/image/upload/v1735989714/JSM/project-settings/project-settings-image-21-19_mycocr.png)

### Language Support

This setting allows you to add support for additional languages to your JSM project.

![Language support](https://res.cloudinary.com/xenos-design/image/upload/v1735990449/JSM/project-settings/project-settings-image-21-20_x4jcn4.png)

The main page lists the default language for the JSM project. This is what was selected when the JSM project was originally created. From this page you can

- Change the default language
- Add a new language by selecting one or more of the languages shown in the pop-up when you click on **Add Languages** button, as shown below

![Add languages](https://res.cloudinary.com/xenos-design/image/upload/v1735990449/JSM/project-settings/project-settings-image-21-21_q24iho.png)

### Apps
#### Microsoft Teams integration

From this screen you can integrate JSM with your organisations M365 Teams solution. This gives you the ability for customers to engage your service desk through Teams channels, assuming they either sit on your Teams or allow integration with theirs.

You should check with your IT Security Manager, prior to going down this path, to ensure that you are compliant with your organisation’s information security policies.

Once implemented you can expand the capability through the use of integrated workflows, automation and the AI Agent (additional costs apply).

#### Slack integration

From this screen you can integrate JSM with your organisations Slack solution. This gives you the ability for customers to engage your service desk through Teams channels, assuming they either sit on your Teams or allow integration with theirs.

You should check with your IT Security Manager, prior to going down this path, to ensure that you are compliant with your organisation’s information security policies.

Once implemented you can expand the capability through the use of integrated workflows, automation and the AI Agent (additional costs apply).

#### Development tools

![Repository connect](https://res.cloudinary.com/xenos-design/image/upload/v1735991281/JSM/project-settings/project-settings-image-22-1_y2ekfr.png)

As you can see, this screen lets you connect Developer tools to JIRA.

#### Explore apps

This page lists the additional Atlassian Marketplace apps that JSM can integrate with. If you click on one of the tiles it shows you

- Details of the app
- Privacy and security statements
- Support details
- Version information
- Whether there is a cost for using it
- Additional resources

If you want to deploy one just click on the **Get it now** button to initiate the integration.

![Explore apps](https://res.cloudinary.com/xenos-design/image/upload/v1735991475/JSM/project-settings/project-settings-image-22-2_dom7ud.png)

### Versions

This screen gives you the functionality to list Releases of what you are supporting with your JSM service desk.

![Versions](https://res.cloudinary.com/xenos-design/image/upload/v1735991992/JSM/project-settings/project-settings-image-23-1_x6aerd.png)

You can add a new version by clicking on the **Create version** button and populating the pop-up that opens.

![Add version](https://res.cloudinary.com/xenos-design/image/upload/v1735991992/JSM/project-settings/project-settings-image-23-2_gty2to.png)

Once added you can change the status of the record to

- Released
- Archived
- Merged
- Edited
- Deleted

![Updated list](https://res.cloudinary.com/xenos-design/image/upload/v1735992220/JSM/project-settings/project-settings-image-23-3_xkfuyj.png)

### Components

The **Components** screen is where the components of the service(s) that you are supporting, using your JSM instance, are managed. This list populated the *Components* field that can be seen in the **Request Management -> Fields** menu.

![Components](https://res.cloudinary.com/xenos-design/image/upload/v1735992531/JSM/project-settings/project-settings-image-24-1_k1ebnu.png)

From this page you can *Edit* and *Delete* components.

To add additional components, simply click on **Create component**, fill out the pop=up form that appears and click on **Save**.

![Add components](https://res.cloudinary.com/xenos-design/image/upload/v1735992532/JSM/project-settings/project-settings-image-24-2_wsvnct.png)

## Conclusion

We have come to the end of the fourth article in this series. We have explored what JSM is, gone through some of the **Project Settings** feature.

In the next article we will continue to go through the **Access Management** options to discover just how versatile JSM can be.

Hopefully this has been useful to you and I wish you well on your ITSM journey…


Greetings!

In this article, the second in my series on JIRA Service Management (JSM), I will be exploring the **Project Settings** available in a JSM project. Due to the numerous options, and level of detail, available in **Project Settings** I am splitting this article into three as follows.

This article will cover

- Details
- Summary
- Features
- Access

The second article will cover

- Request Management
- Automation

The third article will cover

- Channels & self-service
- Operations
- Notifications
- Language support
- Apps
- Versions
- Components

In my previous article I setup a basic JSM project using the ‘out of the box’ functionality and the Customer Service Management template. Now we will go deeper into the available configuration options and discuss what is possible.

It is worth noting that, where additional functionality can be added as part of a paid subscription or license upgrade, I will be covering these in later articles.

## Key Principles 

The following are a few examples of areas that should be considered, ideally as part of your design for JSM as discussed in the initial article of this series, when planning for the configuration of a JSM project.

- Is your Service Desk going to be managing processes other than Incident Management and Request Management e.g. Problem Management, Change Management or Asset Management?
- What information needs to be captured for each process, both at the initial creation of a record and through its lifecycle?
- Are there existing process templates that can be used for the data capture and workflow?
- What queues and views are needed by the teams?
- How many customers are being supported and is there a need to split the data by customer?
- What integrations are needed? JSM can integrate with
  - Collaboration tools e.g. MS Teams and Slack 
  - Enterprise Management tools e.g. DataDog
  - Email integration for a more seamless service experience 

## Project Settings 

We will now go through the sections of the Project Settings menu and see what each sub element lets us configure.

This is accessed from the link shown below, you must have Admin permissions to see this link.

![Project Settings](https://res.cloudinary.com/xenos-design/image/upload/v1735475430/JSM/project-settings/project-settings-image-1_xpai6z.png)

### Details

The first section of Project Settings is Details. This allows you to

- Change the icon that appears in the top left-hand corder of the project screen
- Change the name of the project
- Change the project key, which is the unique prefix to the various record types
- Change the team type to more closely match how you are using JSM and get more tailored recommendations from Atlassian
- Add a URL
- Choose a category, assuming you have some configured
- Add a project description so that users can clearly understand when the JSM project is being used for
- Change the Project lead, typically to the Service Desk Manager/Team Lead or the owning Service Delivery Manager
- Add a default assignee, so tickets are automatically assigned when raised. This can be useful if you have a single person or role that initially triages tickets

![Details](https://res.cloudinary.com/xenos-design/image/upload/v1735476243/JSM/project-settings/project-settings-image-2_rgydgl.png)

### Summary

This section is a one-stop shop to see the key configuration options that are in JSM, whether the defaults or ones that have been configured is subsequent sections.

![Summary](https://res.cloudinary.com/xenos-design/image/upload/v1735476568/JSM/project-settings/project-settings-image-3_tvvyms.png)

### Features

![Features](https://res.cloudinary.com/xenos-design/image/upload/v1735476854/JSM/project-settings/project-settings-image-4_tzxvdt.png)

The Features section is where you switch on or off, and start top configure additional functionality. There are two tiers of features

- Standard, which can be accessed trough the base JSM license charge, and
- Premium, which incurs an uplift to the license charge and gives you access to a range of use features

In this article I will be covering the Standard features only, with the Premium ones being covered later in the series.

#### Views

![Views](https://res.cloudinary.com/xenos-design/image/upload/v1735478574/JSM/project-settings/project-settings-image-5_zrnimc.png)

Clicking on the **Select views** button opens a pop-up where you can select / de-select which of the available view types the service desk agent role can see and use in your JSM project.

![Select views](https://res.cloudinary.com/xenos-design/image/upload/v1735479243/JSM/project-settings/project-settings-image-6-1_tqjb76.png)

#### Work Categories

![Work categories](https://res.cloudinary.com/xenos-design/image/upload/v1735478574/JSM/project-settings/project-settings-image-6_deeukl.png)

##### Service request management

Enabling this feature provides you with a dedicated Service requests space, that can be accessed from the main project side menu, where you can see, raise and manage all service request records, that haven been created, in dedicated queues.

![Service Requests](https://res.cloudinary.com/xenos-design/image/upload/v1735479637/JSM/project-settings/project-settings-image-7-1_dbplf4.png)

##### Incident Management

Enabling this feature does a couple of things.

Firstly, as with service request management, you get a dedicated area in the main project side menu.

![Incidents](https://res.cloudinary.com/xenos-design/image/upload/v1735480160/JSM/project-settings/project-settings-image-7-2_pq1wnn.png)

It also creates a new **Operations** section in the Project settings menu, which we will come to later in this article. However, it is essentially a consolidation of guides and links to other areas of **Project Settings** that relate to the creation and management of Incidents. 

#### Customer Service

![Customer service](https://res.cloudinary.com/xenos-design/image/upload/v1735478576/JSM/project-settings/project-settings-image-7_qrmqrg.png)

##### Customer and organisation profiles

Enabled by default, this features allows the creation of customer and / or organisation profiles from the **Directory** section of the main left-hand side project menu. These are great for holding information of customers that can be pre-populated in a record, information on key contacts, service entitlement information etc.

##### Products and entitlements

If enabled, this features allows the creation of Products profiles from the **Directory** section of the main left-hand side project menu. You can set specific fields for data capture and define who can see the information. There is also the facility to import data, from external sources e.g. a CRM, using an API.

This feature is useful if you need to hold details of entitlement to support for the products that your organisation sells.

##### Developer escalations

Similar to Incident and Service request, enabling this feature gives a dedicated section under **Queues** in the main left-hand menu of the project. From this area you can add or create specific request types for Developer escalations that will be visible in this queue.

![Developer escalations](https://res.cloudinary.com/xenos-design/image/upload/v1735481666/JSM/project-settings/project-settings-image-8-1_uskqif.png)

#### Operations

![Operations](https://res.cloudinary.com/xenos-design/image/upload/v1735478574/JSM/project-settings/project-settings-image-8_oqblot.png)

##### Services

Enabled by default this feature provides the functionality to create a representation of the services that you are supporting, using JSM, and the linkages between them. A good place to start when trying to work out what needs to represented is your Enterprise Architect or ITSM Architect as they should have clear visibility of the service ties, inter-linkages and how best to represent them.

The menu to access this functionality sits in the **Operations** group in the main left-hand menu on the project itself. I will be covering the detail of these in a separate article, but creating a Service allows you to specify

- Name
- Type
- Tier
- Service Owner(s)
- Change approver(s)
- Responders
- Stakeholders
- Repository (BitBucket)
- Description

All of this is invaluable in managing services through their lifecycle.

##### Alerts

Enabled by default this feature provides the functionality to manage IT alerts. The menu to access this functionality sits in the **Operations** group in the main left-hand menu on the project itself.  

Coupled with JSMs ability to interface with Enterprise Management tools, such as DataDog, and the process automation functionality that exists in Atlassian products, you can monitor alerts coming in from your services, perform an action(s) dependent on the data in the alert and auto-assign to resolvers and / or initiate escalations.
##### On-call

Enabled by default this feature provides the functionality to integrate with OpsGenie to manage your on-call rotas for support start and automate ticket assignment and notification outside of your core support hours.

OpsGenie is separate to JSM and incurs additional charges to use. As such it is out of scope of this article.

#### Issue view

![Issue view](https://res.cloudinary.com/xenos-design/image/upload/v1735478575/JSM/project-settings/project-settings-image-9_bmzdeo.png)

##### Suggestions

If enabled this provides your service desk agents with an AI assistant, for Incidents and Service Requests only, that will provide summarised insight into a ticket and suggested actions that can be followed.

It is automatically enabled for Premium and Enterprise plans in JSM.

##### Similar requests panel

Enabled by default this feature provides the functionality provides your service desk agents with a view on similar records, within a type e.g. Incidents.

This visibility is great as it allows agents to identify and escalate trends or major incident scenarios earlier on that just waiting for dashboards to update. It also maximises efficiency as it reduces the need to “re-invent the wheel”, thus giving your customers a better experience.

##### Customer sentiment analysis

This feat is only available for Premium or Enterprise plans, so is out of scope for this article but will be covered in a later one.

I will highlight though that this kind of user sentiment capture and analysis can be a great way to get a balanced view for Experience Level Agreements (XLAs), which I take a look at in a [two part series](https://blog.stevengodson.com/series#XLA) on them.

#### Feature Lab

![Feature lab](https://res.cloudinary.com/xenos-design/image/upload/v1735478575/JSM/project-settings/project-settings-image-10_xeoyng.png)

##### Default request types

If enabled this functionality lets you assign one of your selected request types as a default for certain issue types.
Simply click on the **Default request type settings** button and the following modal will appear, from which you can assign the defaults.

![Default request types](https://res.cloudinary.com/xenos-design/image/upload/v1735561830/JSM/project-settings/project-settings-image-10-1_twg4k4.png)

This functionality takes some of the guess work away from the service desk agents and ensure that requests will be raised in a consistent manner,

##### Request type groups

Enabling this feature allows you to create and add groups that request types can be assigned to. These can be functional, logical, organisational groupings that help your service desk agents provide a more effective service to your customers.

Once enabled, navigate to the **Request types** section in the main left-hand menu and select on of the options.

Click on the ellipsis under **Actions** for the request type that you want to change and select **Edit** under request type group.

![request type groups](https://res.cloudinary.com/xenos-design/image/upload/v1735562863/JSM/project-settings/project-settings-image-10-2_ihmkyi.png)

Then either select the group that you want to assign to the request type from the **Assign to group** tab.

![assign to group](https://res.cloudinary.com/xenos-design/image/upload/v1735563113/JSM/project-settings/project-settings-image-10-3_azmhrx.png)

Or, go to the **Manage groups** tab, click on **Create group** and, once created, go back to the **Assign to group** tab to assign it to the request type.

![create request type group](https://res.cloudinary.com/xenos-design/image/upload/v1735563114/JSM/project-settings/project-settings-image-10-4_epipa5.png)

If you then go back to the **Request types** menu, you will be able to filed your request types by the grouping that you have added.

![filtered example](https://res.cloudinary.com/xenos-design/image/upload/v1735563621/JSM/project-settings/project-settings-image-10-5_tyj7wx.png)

### Access

In this section we look at the Access management options that a JSM Project Admin can see in the Project Settings. These are not the only options available and the next article in this series will look at the options available to an Organisational Admin in the Atlassian settings menu.

#### People and access

![People and settings](https://res.cloudinary.com/xenos-design/image/upload/v1735566618/JSM/project-settings/project-settings-image-11-1_ivlzg7.png)

The **People and access** screen is where users of the JSM project can be managed. From this screen you can

- Add users to the project by
  - Clicking on the **Add people** button
  - adding the email of the users you want to give access to OR add from Google, Slack or Microsoft
  - Choose the role that you want them to have
  - Click on **Add**

![Add users](https://res.cloudinary.com/xenos-design/image/upload/v1735566619/JSM/project-settings/project-settings-image-11-2_tytvoi.png)

- Remove users
- View users by file using the **Roles** filter
- Search for specific users in the **Search roles** field

#### Project permissions

![Project permissions](https://res.cloudinary.com/xenos-design/image/upload/v1735567227/JSM/project-settings/project-settings-image-12-1_ntabbz.png)

The **Project permissions** page shows all of the permissions available in JSM and what has been assigned to which **Project Roles** in your instance.

These can be adjusted to meet your organisational and security policy requirements. Click on the **Actions** button and select **Edit permissions**. The following screen will appear, from which you can Update or Remove assigned permissions.

*Note: caution should exercised with this to ensure you don’t accidentally break your service desk operation*

![Edit permissions](https://res.cloudinary.com/xenos-design/image/upload/v1735567228/JSM/project-settings/project-settings-image-12-2_qgqrzb.png)

Alternatively you can copy permissions from another project, that you have access to, by simply by clicking on the **Actions** button and select **Use a different schema**. The following screen will appear, from which you can Update or Remove assigned permissions. 

The following screen appears. Just select the project whose schema you want to copy and click on **Associate**.

![Copy schema](https://res.cloudinary.com/xenos-design/image/upload/v1735567934/JSM/project-settings/project-settings-image-12-3_ohkotq.png)

#### Customer permissions

![Customer permissions](https://res.cloudinary.com/xenos-design/image/upload/v1735568102/JSM/project-settings/project-settings-image-12-4_ddll34.png)

The **Customer permissions** functionality lets you set the level at which customers can search for other customers. This is set to three levels

- only search within own organisation (default)
- only search within own organisation or enter the email of a specific customer (if known)
- search within the project or own organisation

You can also determine whether the JSM projects portal is restricted to customers that can login or open to anyone who has the URL. The default is to have access restricted. I do not recommend changing this.

![Portal visibility](https://res.cloudinary.com/xenos-design/image/upload/v1735568101/JSM/project-settings/project-settings-image-12-5_zgsjle.png)

#### Issue security

![Issue security](https://res.cloudinary.com/xenos-design/image/upload/v1735569008/JSM/project-settings/project-settings-image-12-6_y6izul.png)

This function requires a Premium or Enterprise plan, as such it is out of scope for this article. By using this functionality you are enabling  security permissions schema that will be applied to your issues. This can be useful for

- Segregation of roles
- Implementing a Security Incident and Event Management process

## Conclusion

We have come to the end of the first article in this series relating to the **Project Settings**. We have explored what JSM is, gone through some of the **Project Settings** feature.

In the next article we will continue to go through the **Project settings** options to discover just how versatile JSM can be.

Hopefully this has been useful to you and I wish you well on your ITSM journey…


Greetings!

Welcome to a new series of articles in which we will look at Atlassian’s JIRA Service Management (JSM) product and I will explain how to set it up so that you can make the most of the products capabilities.

## So what is JSM?
JSM is a service / support desk tool that provides businesses with that capability to quickly implement one or more service *projects* to cater for a range of business function use cases. Under the hood it is essentially JIRA Software, so any organisation that uses JIRA for developing products will find it all quite familiar. 
In my opinion using both modules together is a good basis for implementing a highly integrated support and development model. 

Out of the box it provides an enough basic functionality to engage with customers and log & track issues and requests. However, with the available extensions and integrations, it has the potential to become the beating heart of an enterprise scale IT operation.

In this initial article we will focus on the initial setup of JSM and getting a basic instance up and running. Then, in subsequent articles, we will be going into the various capabilities in greater depth and looking at the options currently available.

## JSM Design Thinking 
While not wholly necessary, if you are an experienced JIRA administrator, I highly recommend creating a design of some sort prior to creating and configuring a JSM instance.

Such a document should consider the following.

* License requirements e.g. how many users and of what type, this includes
  * JSM (inc upgrades for Asset Management)
  * Confluence 
  * Atlassian Guard
* Access management and role based controls e.g. how you want to manage user access and to what level 
* Scope of the Service Desk that will be using the project. Processes, form design, workflows, and required outputs should all be considered 
* What Service Level Agreements need to be tracked and monitored in the tool
* How will users engage with the Service Desk e.g. portal, email, chat, voice etc How your support teams work and what views they require 
* What standards need to be adhered to and therefore what process controls need to be in place e.g. ISE/IEC 20000-1, ISO/IEC 27001, HIPAA, COBIT etc
* Reporting and dashboard needs should be considered
* Integration with other tools, such as
  * Slack or Teams
  * Enterprise Monitoring tools e.g. DataDog, AWS Cloud Watch or Azure Monitor 
  * Email integration 

Creating a document that describes what you will be deploying helps focus the minds of all stakeholders and provides an auditable baseline of what you intended and agreed to do.

## Initial Setup
The first thing you will need to do, assuming you do not already have an Atlassian account, is to register an account with Atlassian and say that you want to use JSM.
Once registered you will be presented with the below choices. Your selection is obviously dependent on what your business driver is for implementing JSM. This series of articles looks specifically at the **IT Support** use case.

![Project Types](https://res.cloudinary.com/xenos-design/image/upload/v1734982362/JSM/initial/Initial-Setup-Image-6_lp6lwh.png)

This selection	takes you to the **Projects** screen. This where you can create and manage all the JSM projects that your business requires.

![Create a project](https://res.cloudinary.com/xenos-design/image/upload/v1734982362/JSM/initial/Initial-Setup-Image-2_sj0q6o.png)

Select *Customer service management* from the next screen.

![Selection](https://res.cloudinary.com/xenos-design/image/upload/v1734982363/JSM/initial/Initial-Setup-Image-3_ksljg1.png)

The next screen tells you to select a Customer Service Management template.

![Template](https://res.cloudinary.com/xenos-design/image/upload/v1734982362/JSM/initial/Initial-Setup-Image-4_zg71fe.png)

We are now at the point where specific information about the project needs to be provided (most of these can be changed later if needed).

- Name - what you want the project to be called
- Key - this will be automatically populated from the name, but you can override it. This code must be unique within your Atlassian account as it is used as a prefix for tickets and is part of the URL for your project and external facing portal
- Team type - select based on your business use case. I am selecting Information Technology (IT)
- Channel access - defaults to Open, which means anyone with your portal URL can submit a request or raise an Incident. I always start with *Restricted* and open up access when the project is launched
- Template - you can select another template type or just with a blank project

![Project info](https://res.cloudinary.com/xenos-design/image/upload/v1734982362/JSM/initial/Initial-Setup-Image-5_xalbtu.png)

Once you click on *Create Project* you are presented with the Service Request types that come with the template. I recommend investigating these and choosing those appropriate to your business use case. To get the most out of these you may need to switch on specific functionality for IT Service Management (ITSM) specific processes e.g. Incident Management, which come with pre-defined workflows.

![Request types](https://res.cloudinary.com/xenos-design/image/upload/v1734982362/JSM/initial/Initial-Setup-Image-6_lp6lwh.png)

Once you have you completed your selection (you can always revise later) click on *Continue to project*. You will see the projects *Get Started* screen. 

![Getting Started](https://res.cloudinary.com/xenos-design/image/upload/v1734982363/JSM/initial/Initial-Setup-Image-7_sg0tvl.png)

## Getting Started
In this section we will go through the specifics of the *Getting Started* screen.

![Let’s get started!](https://res.cloudinary.com/xenos-design/image/upload/v1735036967/JSM/getting-started/Getting-Started-Image-1_fnteyl.png)

The first section of this allows you to walkthrough raising a request, prioritising it using the queues available in JSM and then resolving it. It is quite intuitive so I will not being going through this.

The second section allows you to review essential project configuration data, and consists of three sections.
- Enable customers to raise requests - these are your engagement channels
- Collect relevant information with request types - here you can review your request types and add/remove fields so that the data collected matches your business requirements and data model
- Manage work with your queues and board - this section allows you to review the views that you have for managing requests and Incidents

The third and final section provides links to Atlassian guides, tutorials, community and support pages. These are generally quite good, the ones that I have used at least, so well worth exploring.

Now we will look at the middle section in greater details and discover what the possibilities are.

### Enable customers to raise requests
![Engagement channels](https://res.cloudinary.com/xenos-design/image/upload/v1735038440/JSM/getting-started/Getting-Started-Image-2_o4lndt.png)

This section covers three modes of communication that your customers can engage through. First is the Portal, which a web front end where your customers / users can raise Incidents, requests and search knowledge articles. If we click on the *Customise Settings* button we are taken to a section or the **Project Settings** that is specific to the Portal. This section has two tabs where choices can be made.

#### Portal
##### Portal Configuration

![Portal settings](https://res.cloudinary.com/xenos-design/image/upload/v1735038726/JSM/getting-started/Getting-Started-Image-3_jqwvux.png)

- Portal URL - this is the link to your external facing portal for your service desk
- Service project information
  - Portal name - a mandatory title for your service desk project, this is visible internally and externally
  - Introduction text - the text that customers / users will see under the service desk project (Portal) name
  - Logo - allows you to add a logo to the portal which will sit beside the portal name
- Channel access - clicking of *Edit customer permissions* opens a new page where you can
  - Decide who has access to the portal, and other engagement routes, e.g. Restricted to users who have been given access or Open to anyone who has the link
  - Decide what customers can see within the project. This very much depends on whether your service desk project supports multiple customers or just one and the data privacy regulations that you need to comply with

![Channel Access](https://res.cloudinary.com/xenos-design/image/upload/v1735040287/JSM/getting-started/Getting-Started-Image-5_zhcbzf.png)

- Announcements - controls who can add banner announcement messages to the portal e.g. notifying users of an upcoming service outage or major Incident

##### Portal groups

![Portal groups](https://res.cloudinary.com/xenos-design/image/upload/v1735040889/JSM/getting-started/Getting-Started-Image-6_lrwxht.png)

This tab allows you to add sections to your portal to enable a logical grouping of request types e.g. Incidents, Requests, Changes etc. By default it comes with the General group populated with 7 request types, assuming you have that many in your project. The groups can be re-ordered by clicking on the top left of a group tile and dragging around the page

##### Final View

Once you have configured your portal you can use the Portal URL to see what it looks like. I recommend making changes incrementally and checking the portal after each change so you can see the results in real time.

Below is a simplistic view of where your changes will be visible.

![Portal after customisation](https://res.cloudinary.com/xenos-design/image/upload/v1735041252/JSM/getting-started/Getting-Started-Image-7_dexplf.png)

If you look at the top righthand corner you will see me logged in as a user, a search icon and a Customer button, the latter only being available to those with permissions to add announcements.

#### Email

![Email settings](https://res.cloudinary.com/xenos-design/image/upload/v1735059290/JSM/getting-started/Getting-Started-Image-8_xcltez.png)

The Email section provides the capability to manage the email addresses that customers / users can use to report issues and request services.

The default email address is *support@[your-account-name].atlassian.net*. However, this can be amended by clicking the ellipsis, under the **Actions** heading, and selecting **Edit**. This opens the following pop-up from which the email address name can be amended and the Request type that will automatically be created upon receipt.

You will notice that the Request types in the drop down field represent the full list of Request types that were created earlier in this article.

![Manage email popup](https://res.cloudinary.com/xenos-design/image/upload/v1735059290/JSM/getting-started/Getting-Started-Image-9_iqhkjs.png)

If you want to create multiple email addresses then click on the **Create Atlassian email** button which opens the same pop-up form.

It is also possible to link external emails to your project, useful if you want to keep a corporate “feel” to the service desk. Simply click on the **Add external email** button, select the option that fits your use case and follow the instructions to connect to your email provider.

![Email integration](https://res.cloudinary.com/xenos-design/image/upload/v1735060223/JSM/getting-started/Getting-Started-Image-10_d4fszs.png)

#### Chat

The chat options of JSM are shown as four streams.

- Integration - with Slack or Teams to give a more integrated feel to the customer experience, crucial in a world where Experience Level Agreements (XLAs) are ever pushing their way into the foreground of CIO thinking
- Workflows - seamless fulfilment of requests within the chat
- Chat to Request - including triggers within a chat to allow agents to generate request records from a chat message
- Virtual Agent - the ever ubiquitous use of AI and Machine Learning to support customers through automation and knowledge bases

![Chat options](https://res.cloudinary.com/xenos-design/image/upload/v1735060739/JSM/getting-started/Getting-Started-Image-11_jhf0wg.png)

### Collect Relevant information with request types

![Request type fields](https://res.cloudinary.com/xenos-design/image/upload/v1735061960/JSM/getting-started/Getting-Started-Image-12_xlm1lj.png)

This section of the Getting Started page is really just a prompt for you to think about what information you want to capture in the forms for the various request types. Clicking on the **View all request types** button takes you to the *Request types* section of *Project settings*.

I will be covering all of the options in **Project settings** in the next JSM article, so we will move on to the next section.

### Manage work with your queues and board

![Queues and board](https://res.cloudinary.com/xenos-design/image/upload/v1735062796/JSM/getting-started/Getting-Started-Image-13_yf7yuv.png)

Both Queues and Boards (now known as Views) are basically ways of view the different tickets yours service desk has open. These can be cut numerous ways depending on how you want to see the information. Both of these take you to the relevant project sections where, assuming you have Admin permissions, you can manage the queues and views.

I will be covering both of these in the third JSM article.

## Conclusion

We have come to the end of the first article in this series. We have explored what JSM is, how to initiate a project and gone through the basic options in the **Getting Started** feature.

In the next article we will be going through all of the **Project settings** options to discover just how versatile JSM can be.

Hopefully this has been useful to you and I wish you well on your ITSM journey…


AI Governance

Greetings!

Governance of how an organisation uses AI will be a key factor in how much value/benefit can be realised in the future.

As AI becomes increasingly present in our everyday lives, both at work and at home, more domestic and international governments will attempt to exert control through legislation and regulatory standards.

This will naturally lead to organisations needing to understand, in-depth, how they are using AI and what data sources/structures are being used so they can monitor, manage and maintain compliance with all of the applicable statutes and industry best practices.

Areas that will need careful consideration include the following.

Business case/usage

A clear idea of what AI can and cannot be used for should be established. This should establish firm use cases and decision trees that teams within the organisation can follow if they want to implement AI to tackle specific scenarios.

Intellectual property

An organisations IP must be protected to ensure that, through the use of AI, whether public platform or internet connected private platform, it isn’t exposed to the threat of theft or loss.

Legislative compliance

The introduction of new legislation, such as the EU AI Act, organisations have new statutory obligations to meet or face significant fines and damage to their reputation.

Organisational culture/Skills evolution

At this stage, AI introduces new and exciting, tools that are lauded as being able to improve an organisation’s productivity by percentages that have not been achieved since the Industrial Revolution. However, picking up a spanner doesn’t automatically make me a mechanic! Therefore, an organisation needs to define, implement and continually refresh its culture to ensure that its resources make effective use of these new tools and that the expected Return On Investment is achieved.

An organisations ITSM capability will need to be at the core of this, ensuring that the appropriate strategies and plans are in place to enable business AI agility whilst robustly managing the associated risks.

“But how?!”, I hear you cry…. Well here are some of my thoughts on the subject.

Robust enterprise architecture to provide

architectural patterns and reusable technology stacks, that evolve with business needs and technology improvements

enterprise management solutions that can manage, monitor, alert, and report on the organisations AI solutions

automated and integrated tracking of key data assets that underpin an organisations AI implementation e.g. Large Language Models

Adhere through the use of policy and process controls designed to meet the regulatory requirements of the geographies that the organisation operates in.

Effective audit and reporting capabilities that can analyse information, in real-time, and facilitate escalations, as appropriate, within the organisation so that risks can be managed. The more this can be automated, possibly with the use of AI for analysis, the more robust this will be.

Enforce policies, at the operational and technology levels, to control

usage (appropriate and inappropriate)

data separation to safeguard company intellectual property

user access controls

Invest in the skills of your team, and encourage experimentation with new technologies. AI is growing at an unprecedented pace and so organisations must adapt quickly to meet business demands.

In summary, ITSM capabilities must embrace the organisations use of AI and provide guidance and guardrails. How fast they can evolve with business needs will have a significant impact on the organisations ability to manage risks and realise value from AI.

Hopefully this has been useful to you and I wish you well on your ITSM journey…

Config Management Database (CMDB)

Greetings!

In this weeks article I will be talking about the concept of a Configuration Management Database (CMDB) and whether it is still relevant in today’s fast paced I.T. world.

## What is a CMDB?

A CMDB is, in essence, the main tool that the Service Asset & Configuration Management function uses to track the state of “stuff”. In the context of an I.T. service “stuff” is anything that the services needs to manage and control the state of in order to be able meet its obligations e.g. levels of service, compliance requirements etc.

Commonly each instance of “stuff” is referred to as a Configuration Item (CI), at least in the world of ITIL&reg;, and has a number of attributes against which pertinent information is stored. For example, the CI record, in a CMDB, for a laptop may hold the following information; 

- Make
- Model
- Warranty Status
- Operating System
- Assigned Owner
- Related Cost Centre
- Previous Incidents
- etc

This information can all be useful to various roles and functions within an I.T. service, for example;

- Operating System - can be used by Technical Management to know which devices to patch with what updates
- Related Cost Centre - can be used by Financial Management for cross charging
- Previous Incidents - may be useful to the Service Desk when trying to diagnose a  reported issue

Now all of this information is undoubtedly useful, but does it all need to be kept in (and typically manually replicated into) a monolithic CMDB?

## Is there a better way?

Better, in a sense of being more efficient, and less prone to human error? Absolutely! In the following sections I will expand upon this and describe the options in a toolset agnostic way.

### Federation

![Federated CMDB!](https://res.cloudinary.com/xenos-design/image/upload/v1689867576/ITSM/CMDB_Federation_zybvzx.png)

The federation model is where the base minimum of data is held in the CMDB to enable ITSM processes but, when further information is required, it points to the single source of truth for that data type. 

The guiding principle is here “Right data, right place and only accessible by those who need it, when they need it”.

This model is my preference when there is a complex service environment spanning multiple delivery models and architectures.

### Integration

![Integrated CMDB!](https://res.cloudinary.com/xenos-design/image/upload/v1689867576/ITSM/CMDB_Integration_p9lipe.png)

The integration model is where the various primary data sources,  that underpin delivery of your service(s), feed into your central CMDB (typically within your ITSM toolset).

Automation is the underpinning point here. This approach can work well where integrations have been proven to work, and most leading ITSM tools will come with standard integration with other leading tools, but I am always conscious that anything new requires time and will undoubtedly need iteration to get it right.

## Conclusion

The CMDB still has an important part to play in delivering and controlling services to ensure consistency and quality.

However, the days of the CMDB being deployed as a single entity, and source of truth for everything, should be reconciled to the past.  Instead consideration should be given to who really needs the information and how that information visibility requirement should be met.

Hopefully this has been useful to you and I wish you well on your ITSM journey…

Inside an XLA


Greetings!

This week we will be diving deeper into what an XLA (eXperience Level Agreement) should be and look at some examples.

If you are not familiar with XLAs then my previous article XLAs - avoiding watermelons give a useful introduction.

An XLA is a combination of objective and subjective measures that give you a balanced measurement of the impact of the service, with a weighting towards how the “users” experience the service. So let’s look at some examples of what that means in reality.

Balanced Measurement

Objective and Subjective

An objective measure is based on data derived, usually, from the systems or toolsets that are used to manage either ITSM processes, e.g. Incident Management tools, or IT systems, e.g. Application Performance Management.

The objective measures, that help to make up an XLA, are important because they bring context and meaning to the subjective measures.

For example, if you have an XLA that is measuring user satisfaction with your Service Desk, then objectively measuring the number of contacts with the Service Desk gives context.

The context is important because if your subjective result shows 50 negative responses then this sounds, on the face of it, to be a bad thing. Now this result is never a “good” thing but, when taken into the context of 20,000 contacts in the Service Desk in a measurement period, thus meaning a 0.25% negative response, it doesn’t sound so bad.

But, is this really an accurate measure?

Again the answer revolves around context. If 20,000 contacts result in 20,000 survey responses, your subjective source, then this could well be a valid measurement. However, this is unlikely to be the case.

So, another objective measure would be the number of survey responses received in your measurement period. For the sake of novelty let’s say you get 420 completed surveys. Now this changes your perspective quite significantly.

Your original 0.25% becomes 11.9%, which is quite a dramatic change and suddenly things don’t seem quite so good.

However, what cannot be emphasised enough is that XLAs are for driving improvement in areas that are important to the business to that the service(s) are being delivered.

An XLA is neither a carrot to reward a service provider, nor is it a stick with which to beat one. An XLA is a point on the horizon that both customer and supplier are walking towards together. The measurement points are simply there to identify whether they are walking forwards, standing still or are walking backwards.

Source: Steven Godson

So, what we have, so far, is a number of objective measurements, which are as follows.

Total contacts to a Service Desk

Total number of survey results and as a % of total contacts

Total number of positive/negative survey responses and their respective percentages

So, what’s next? Well, the next thing is to define what good” actually looks like in your context and ensure balance in your results.

What is “good” anyway?

What good means, in the context of XLAs, will greatly depend on what you are using XLA measurements to achieve.

However, it is true to say that whatever it is there needs to be acknowledgement that the target chosen should be realistic and is a target to be worked towards rather than there being an expectation that it will be achieved from day one.

It is also sensible to apply a balanced approach to reporting the measures that combine to give the overall XLA measure. A pragmatic way to do this is to apply weighting to each of the component measures based on their importance/significance. The weighting is a % split across the number of measures you are using to calculate your XLA score.

For example, if you are working towards users adopting self-service and digital channels, your XLA measurement may look like this.

Weighting % - this weighting allows you to apply a balanced, business-focused, view whilst maintaining transparency

Metric - the objective and subjective numbers captured in the reporting periods

eXperience Performance Indicator - the XPIs expressed as a % of the relevant total

XLA Score - the weighting applied to the XPI

XLA achievement - the figure that you would be reporting for the given measurement period

The examples of what an XLA could be used to measure are;

Gauging the impact of a new supplier or service, so that improvements can be identified

Measuring the end-user experience (UX) for one or more applications, as long as there is a subjective element to the measurement

Impact of a change program

Summary

In this article, I have talked about what makes up an XLA, and the mindset required, and provided a real-life example. Hopefully, this article has been of some use and has given you a good idea of the types of areas that need to be addressed.

I wish you well on your ITSM journey…

Adding Latest posts…


Greetings!

In this post we will be building on the site created in the first two articles, and demonstrating the benefit of having re-usable components, to add your latest *Posts* to your home page.

## Steps 1 - Get the correct data

Open your *./pages/index.js* file and add the following to the end of the file.

```jsx
export async function getStaticProps() {
	// fetches all the post data from your published article folder
    const webpackContext = require.context('../posts', true, /\.\/.*\.md$/);
    // console.log('webpackContext', webpackContext.keys())

    // the list of file names contained inside the "posts" directory
    const keys = webpackContext.keys();

	// reverse the array of posts so the newest one is first
    const reverseKeys = keys.reverse();
    // console.log('keys', keys)

    const values = reverseKeys.map(webpackContext);
    // console.log('values', values)

    // getting the post data from the files contained in the "posts" folder
    const posts = reverseKeys.map((key, index) => {
        // dynamically creating the post slug from the file name
        const slug = key
            .replace(/^.*[\\\/]/, '')
            .split('.')
            .slice(0, -1)
            .join('.');

        // console.log('slug', slug)
        // getting the .md file value associated with the current file name
        const value = values[index];
        // console.log('value', value)

        // parsing the YAML metadata and markdown body contained in the .md file
        const document = matter(value.default);
        // console.log('document', document.data)

        return {
            frontmatter: document.data,
            markdownBody: document.content,
            slug,
        };
    });
    // console.log('posts', posts);

	// cut the list of posts down to the first 4 in the array e.g. the latest 4 
    const topPosts = posts.slice(0, 4);
    // console.log('topPosts', topPosts)

	// export the data for the 4 latest posts
    return {
        props: {
            latestPosts: topPosts,
        },
    };
}
```

If you encounter issues I recommend using the console logs, already written in, to see where the issues are.

Assuming there are no errors you are now ready to move on to Step 2.

## Step 2 - Use the data

Now that you have the data for the posts, that you want displayed, it can be used to display on your home page.

There are only a few changes required to do this which are shown in the following code.

```jsx
import Head from 'next/head';
import Image from 'next/image';
import Layout from '../components/Layout';
import Introduction from '../components/Introduction';
import AnimatedSplash from '../components/AnimatedSplash';
// Change 1 - import the BlogList component, if not already done
import BlogList from '../components/BlogList';
import Contact from '../components/Contact';
import styles from '@/styles/Home.module.css';
// Change 2 - import grey-matter
import matter from 'gray-matter';

// Change 3 - change "props" to "latestPosts" to directly access the export data from Step 1
export default function Home({ latestPosts }) {
    return (
        <Layout>
            <Introduction />
            <AnimatedSplash />
			// Change 4 - add the BlogList component and pass in latestPosts
			// consider adding a heading before the component
            <BlogList allBlogs={latestPosts} />
            <Contact />
        </Layout>
    );
}
```

## Step 3 - View the data

Now that we have got the correct data, and passed it into the correct component, we are ready to see the result.

- Navigate to the *root* folder of your project
- Run `npm run dev`
- Now go to [http://localhost:3000](http://localhost:3000) in your browser

You should now see something like the following.

![Latest Posts!](https://res.cloudinary.com/xenos-design/image/upload/v1690470282/Post_Content/nextjs-md-latestPosts/latestPosts_kmlyxv.png)

And that’s it for now… you have now updated your blogging site, using Next’s and Markdown, and enhanced the experience of your readers. Hopefully, you found this article useful and will continue your journey.

Thanks for stopping by…

ITSM and DevOps

Greetings!

In this week's article, I will be talking about how ITSM can co-exist with DevOps so that the ITSM teams are not seen as blockers and the DevOps team(s) are not seen as “chaos monkeys”.

This can be achieved through two fronts;

1. Culture
2. Understanding and agreeing on the touch points

## Culture

It is easy to say that a good working culture, within an organisation, leads to better interworking between departments and the teams within them. But what does that mean in practical terms when you are aspiring to get ITSM and DevOps working together?

In my experience, this means addressing the following areas, in a program of change that is sponsored from the top but driven from the bottom up.

- Open and respectful dialogue - so that issues can be raised and ideas discussed
- Willingness to change - adopting a one-team approach
- Continual improvement mindset - striving to do better

## Touchpoints

The below diagram is my view on where the key touch points are between ITSM and DevOps as models. I have deliberately used ITIL terminology for the ITSM side, mainly because it is widely used around the globe.

![DevOps and ITSM!](https://res.cloudinary.com/xenos-design/image/upload/v1687544857/ITSM/ITSM_and_DevOps_Interaction_n60p55.png)

### Ticket Creation / Update / Resolve

- The resolution of an Incident or Problem may require the DevOps team so, unless it is critical, it would need to be cross logged onto the appropriate Product Backlog
- A Service Request could be a conduit for “asks” being raised onto a Product Backlog
- Depending on how rigorously the deployment of Release Packages to the production environments is controlled, the DevOps team will be raising Operational Request for Changes (RFCs) to get approval to deploy. This can be seen as a bottleneck that restricts business agility, so consideration must be given to;
	- Agreement on what can be automatically approved based on specific criteria being met i.e. tests passing
	- Pre-agreed windows for deployment

### Authorisation

The Operational Change Management process will provide authorisation to deploy based on what criteria is either defined in the Change Management policy document or as agreed operationally for each Product. 

The key to this is finding the appropriate balance between the business's needs;
	- frequency and rapidity of change
	- ensuring that users / customers, depending on your business environment, do not suffer from change fatigue
	- maintaining the required levels of service availability
	- minimising risks

### Pre/Post Baseline Report

The SACM (Service Asset and Configuration Management) team is responsible for ensuring that there is accuracy in the configuration of the service(s). 

The DevOps team relies on this information to;

- know what *good* looks like, so they can restore the service back to its baseline configurations in the event of an Incident
- identify what might be impacted as a result of planned changes

The typical advice, which I broadly agree with, is to use a CMDB (Configuration Management Database)  to hold this data. 

My view on this is that a CMDB should be seen as a collection of federated data / information repositories that are specific to the type of data / information that is being managed e.g. a Software Configuration Manager tool (CICD pipeline or Github etc) or Wiki / Knowledge Articles (ITSM tool, Gitbook, Confluence).

### Knowledge Share

This touchpoint is important to ensure that changes to the service(s) are understood by the Service Desk, and other support tiers, so that they know what to do when an Incident occurs or a user phones up to query something.

It is also important from a user perspective so that they;

- know what has changed and what, if anything, that change means to them
- can access self-service knowledge to resolve issues themselves

The DevOps team also needs a flow of knowledge not them so that they can understand;

- whether the knowledge that they are providing is actually of use
- how users are reacting to the visible changes that are being made

## Summary
In this article, I have described the key touchpoints between ITSM and DevOps and why they are important. Hopefully, this article has been of some use and has given you a good idea of the types of areas that need to be addressed.

I wish you well on your ITSM journey…

Service Design Package

Greetings!

In this article I will be exploring the concept of the Service Design Package, what it should be and what should be included within its scope.

## What is a Service Design Package?
Service Design Package, abbreviated to SDP, is a term that initially appeared in ITL&reg; v3 which was first published in 2007, is a collection (the package part) of documents and artefacts that describes;  

- Scope - what a service is
- Users / Location - who it can be consumed by
- Compliance - the business, regulatory and statutory constraints that it has to exist within
- Requirements - the warranty, utility, quality and satisfaction characteristics that it has to meet
- Processes - that will be used to manage the service on a day to day basis
- Products - the tools that will be used to deliver the service. This includes everything from SaaS solutions through to bespoke applications
- Partners - the sub-contractors you use to deliver parts of the service
- People - the individual roles and functions that will govern and manage all of the above

> “Good service starts, and ends, with having great people..”. Source: me

## What should it be?
An SDP should be the definitive source of information for anyone requiring an understanding on what a service should deliver and how it delivers that service.

It should provide different views so that it can be used by different stakeholders with different perspectives.

It should be useable, accessible and written in plain English (or whichever language is relevant).

It should be a number of complimentary, and not over lapping, documents that are regularly reviewed and maintained to ensure currency.

## What should be included within an SDP?
The following is based on my years of experience of designing and building ITSM solutions as part of a Managed Services provider. 

Depending on your situation e.g. internal servicer provider (“The IT department”) or a Managed Service provider (external organisation to the one buying the services), you may consider some of these to not be relevant.

And, depending on your situation, you may be correct. However, all of the following areas should at least be considered when creating an SDP.

### Service Description - the what and the when…

A Service Description is the shiny document that, depending on your scenario, your customers and / or users will read to understand what the service is that they are consuming / paying for.

The common scenarios under which these tend to exist are;

- Contractual Service Description - part of a customer / supplier legal agreement where what is being delivered needs to be concise
- Service Catalogue (Public) - part of your businesses website / marketing collateral where you describe the services you offer
- Service Catalogue (Internal) - the portal where your internal IT department lists the services that users get as standard or that can be ordered

However, there is a common set of information, described below, that a Service Description should cover.

SCOPE - this is where you clearly describe what the service is and what it will, and as importantly will not (exclusions), delivers.

SERVICE LEVELS & PATTERNS - this is the level of service that a consumer should expect to receive and when the service will be available to them.

GOVERNANCE - how the service will be governed, who the key points of escalation are and what the measurement periods will be.

CHARGES - inescapable, but possibly less relevant in an internal IT department setting, how much the customer will pay for the service(s) that you are describing is important.

### Service Management Design - the how and tho who…

A Service Management Design (or Architecture or Blueprint or…) is the document where you describe how the service is going to be put together to deliver the service.

It covers the various building blocks needed, and how they interact, to deliver the service(s) covered by the SDP.

Typically, in no particular order, this includes;

SCOPE - this is where you clearly describe what the service is and what it will, and as importantly will not (exclusions), delivers.

RCTM - the Requirements Capture and Traceability Matrix where all the requirements that the service(s) need to meet are captured.

COMPLIANCE - the legislative, regulatory and industry standards that the service(s) need to comply with. Examples include ISO20k, ISO27001, Payment Card Industry (PCI) etc

UTILITY / WARRANTY - what the service(s) provide functionally, the *utility*, and when the customer / user can expect the service to be available to them, the *warranty* or Service Levels.

PROCESSES - the ITSM processes that need to be used for the service(s), whether there is any “localisation” needed or whether bespoke processes are needed.

TOOLSETS - the shiny toys that the service and support functions will use to underpin the ITSM process and technical activities required to manage the service. Given the availability or relatively mature and emergent technologies, the following should be considered;

- Integration
- Robotic Process Automation
- Artificial Intelligence
- Augmented and Virtual Reality
- Smart Locker / Vending solutions
- Self-healing systems

DATA MAP - crucial to both understanding where the data that will feed into your billing and performance measurement of the service, as well as helping you to understand your position as it relates to data residency and access legislation / regulations.

> Data is like garbage. You’d better know what you are going to do with it before you collect it. - Mark Twain

ROLES & FUNCTIONS - the individual roles and functions, within your organisation, that will perform day to day management or technical support functions to support the service(s). Examples are Service Desk, Security Operations Centre, Service Delivery Manager or Release Management.

PARTNERS / SUPPLIER MANAGEMENT - the third parties, and how they will be managed / governed, they will deliver aspects of the service(s). Thought needs to be given as to how Service Levels will be flowed down to them.

INFORMATION SECURITY - either described separately, or interwoven into all of the above, a description of how Information Security will be managed against the defined Information Security Management System (ISMS).

> It takes 20 years to build a reputation and few minutes of cyber-incident to ruin it. - Stephane Nappo

RAID - the identified Risks, Assumptions, Issues and Dependencies of the service(s), both for the transition to live and ongoing.

TECHNICAL REFERENCE DOCUMENTS - such as…
- Enterprise Architecture
- High Level Designs for Networks, Applications, Infrastructure, Integrations, Enterprise Management, Data Management
- ISMS, Role Based Access Controls etc
- Disaster Recovery, Backup, Recovery and Data Retention 

### Ops Policies, Processes and Procedures

A service can be described beautifully and designed to within an inch of its life but, when the brown and sticky hits the spinning blades, it is the operational processes and procedures, based on well thought out policies, run by well trained people that will see you through. Consideration should be given to…

- Incident, Problem and Event
- Call Handling, Knowledge Articles and escalation management
- Major Incident Management
- Change (Normal, Standard and Emergency), Release, Knowledge and SACM
- Information Security, SIEM, Access Control etc
- Applications Management, Agile and DevOps
- Capacity and Availability
- IT Service Continuity
- Technical Management, Patch Management, On Premise vs Hybrid vs Cloud and Technical Refresh
- Request Catalogue and Fulfilment
- Management Information, Billing and Invoice to Cash
- Continual Service Improvement

## Things to avoid…

Based on my, not inconsiderable experience, try to avoid the following.

- Trying to fit all of the above into a single document, it doesn’t work and creates a monolithic document that no-one, other than insomniacs, will want to read
- Re-inventing the wheel, re-use is awesome and helps to create consistency (as long as it is consistently good!)
- Repetition, say it once and cross reference, where practical. Adopting a Document as Code approach can greatly help with this 

> In our company, we all have 2 jobs: 1) to do our job and 2) to improve it - Toyota

## A final word…

Ultimately the SDP scope you use has to meet the needs of the business environment that you are working in. Hopefully this article has been of some use and has given you a good idea of the types of areas that need to be addressed.

I wish you well on your ITSM journey…

Checkout my latest posts...

JIRA Service Management

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JIRA Service Management

JIRA Service Management

AI Governance

Config Management Database (CMDB)

Inside an XLA

Adding Latest posts…

ITSM and DevOps

Service Design Package

StevenGodson.com