1. Service Manager for MSPs
4/1/2017 8:00 AM
Service Manager for MSPs
Travis Wright
Senior Program Manager Lead
Microsoft Corporation
© 2007 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Microsoft, Windows, Windows Vista and other product names are or may be registered trademarks and/or trademarks in the U.S. and/or other countries.
The information herein is for informational purposes only and represents the current view of Microsoft Corporation as of the date of this presentation. Because Microsoft must respond to changing market conditions, it should not be interpreted to be a commitment on the part of Microsoft, and Microsoft cannot guarantee the accuracy of any information provided after the date of this presentation. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.

2. Overview
Service Manager is not specifically designed for Managed Service Providers (MSPs)
However….
You can make it work depending on
your requirements
how much effort you want to put into it

3. What is an MSP?
An MSP is an organization who provides a service to many different customers
MSPs are typically one company providing the service to other customer companies
The same principles often apply to one organization inside a company providing a service to other ‘customer’ organizations inside the same company

4. Common Requirements Separate access to view/edit data by customer
Allow customers to access their data over an untrusted network connection (i.e. Internet)
Allow non-AD users access
Keep track of assets and work items by customer
MSPs want to be able to manage data across customers

5. Terminology & Concepts

6. CI Groups Groups can be heterogeneous or homogenous collections of CIs
Groups are used for:
Security boundaries, report parameters, notification subscription criteria and view criteria
Groups can be dynamic, static, or both
Dynamic example: All computers where domain property contains 'Redmond'
Static example: twrightlaptop.redmond.microsoft.com
Groups can contain groups
Any CI can be a member of multiple groups

7. Queues Conceptually queues are work item groups
A given queue contains work items of only one class – Incident, Change Request, or Problem
Queues are used for:
Security boundaries, view criteria, notification subscription criteria and report parameters
A queue has dynamic membership criteria only
Example: All incidents where Classification = Office Applications and Priority < 3

8. Lists
A List is a set of defined values from which the user must select
You can create new Lists or edit Lists provided out of the box
Lists can be hierarchical or flat
Class: Computer, Property: Location
List Values:
United States
Washington State
Seattle
Europe
Dublin
Groups/Queues can be created using these property values as dynamic criteria
'All Seattle Computers' group is defined as all computers where Location = Seattle
Any given property of a class can have a data type of ‘enum’
When a property is of ‘enum’ data type it must be bound to a List

9. User Roles Operations are the actions that can be taken
Scopes define boundaries within which users have permission to perform operations. Scope types are:
Group [Security], Queue [Security] and Class/Property [Security]
Task [Presentation] and View [Presentation]
User Role Profile – define available set of operations
End User, Read Only Operator, Operator, Advanced Operator, Author, Administrator
User Role = User Role Profile + Scope
Example: ‘Tier 1 Operators’ user role is defined as Operator user role profile + global CI group scope, Tier 1 incidents queue scope
AD Users or User Groups are assigned to User Roles, a user can be a member of more than one user role

10. Reports Base Reports are reports with lots of parameters
Example: Incident Report has parameters like:
Created Date
Last Modified Date
Priority
Etc.
Linked Reports are Base Reports with some parameter values pre-defined
Example: 'Incidents Created This Week' is a linked report which uses the Incident Report base report and sets the parameter Created Date to ThisWeek()

11. Management Group
A management group is the term we use to describe a single installation of Service Manager
A management group consists of:
Configuration Management Database (CMDB)
1 or more 'Management Servers'
API Layer (called 'SDK Service')
Workflow Host
Web sites
Linking/Connector Framework
Data Warehouse
SQL Reporting Services Server
These components can be installed on the same server or separate servers

12. Deployed Architecture

13. MSP Scenario #1
We have multiple customers but they don’t need to interact with Service Manager at all.
Customers initiate new incidents over the phone or .
We simply need a way to tag an incident, change request, CI, etc. to a particular customer
Views and reports should be filterable, sortable by customer

14. MSP Scenario #1 Solution
Create a new List for ‘Customers’
Add a new enum data type ‘Customer’ property to classes like Computer, CI, Incident, Change Request, etc. and bind it to the ‘Customers’ list
Add the ‘Customer’ property to the appropriate forms using the Form Designer tool (to be provided in future)
Use this new ‘Customer’ property to filter and sort in views and reports
Optionally create queues and groups based on the ‘Customer’ property

15. MSP Scenario #2
Same as Scenario #1 but we need to send reports to our customer

16. MSP Scenario #2 Solution
Do everything in Scenario #1 Solution
Create a Linked Report for each customer where you set the Customer parameter to a particular customer
Set up a schedule to automatically generate the report and put it on a SharePoint site, file share, or it to your customer in .pdf, .xlsx, or .html format

17. MSP Scenario #3
We want end users at our customers’ sites to be able to use the self-service portal

18. MSP Scenario #3 Solution
Set up permissions
Give each customer an AD user account to log in with
Put each customer user account in an AD user group
Put that AD user group in at least one user role (not the End User user role)
Trusted Connection (VPN)
Users must VPN into your network

19. MSP Scenario #4
We want people at our customer’s site to be able to view (not create or edit) their own work items, CIs, etc.
We want keep the data separated by customer so that customers only see their own data
We want to be able to see combined views of all customers’ data

20. MSP Scenario #4 Solution
Do the same as Scenario #1 solution
Create CI groups which logically represent each customers CIs
Create queues which logically represent each customers WIs
Create views for each customer using the groups and queues as criteria
Create user roles based on Operator user role profile for each customer and scope them to the groups and queues and grant them only the views corresponding to them

21. MSP Scenario #4 Challenges
List Items cannot be scoped
Don’t put sensitive information in list item values that customers can see
Report data is not scoped at all
Don’t put customer users in a user role based on the Report User profile
No web console in plans right now
This solution requires a trusted connection (VPN) + AD user account since the main console is required for this

22. MSP Scenario #5
Not only do we want users to be able to view CIs and WIs we want them to be able to edit, and create new ones
We want our customers to have more control and allow them to manage their own List Items, Queues, Groups, User Roles, Templates, etc.
We still want to have a cross-customer view

23. MSP Scenario #5 Solution
Create one management group per customer
Use VMs to reduce hardware costs
Use a central DW for all management groups to consolidate data into one place

24. Scenario #5 Challenges No web console in plans right now
This solution requires a trusted connection (VPN) + AD user account since the main console is required
No real time views across management groups
Only near-real time reports from the DW can show you cross-management group data
No ability to see/edit/create CIs/WIs in multiple management groups from a single place
Only up to 5 source management groups are supported for each data warehouse

25. Scenario #6
We use SCE to manage our customers’ sites. We want to bring the alerts and inventory data from SCE into Service Manager.
We have a “top-tier” SCCM site in the same network as Service Manager that manages computers at customer sites over the Internet

26. Scenario #6 Solution
Use Remote Operation Manager to consolidate data from multiple SCE installations into a single, central Ops Mgr
Connect Svc Mgr to the Ops Mgr installation
Connect Svc Mgr to the “top tier” SCCM site

27. Conclusion There are many different variations on the six scenarios
There is a lot of flexibility in the Service Manager product, but there are some impassable problems which may limit what you can do without extra effort/cost
Service Manager v1 is not specifically designed for MSPs, but…
we want to work with you to see what we can do to help you meet your requirements in the future

28. 4/1/2017 8:00 AM
© 2009 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Microsoft, Windows, Windows Vista and other product names are or may be registered trademarks and/or trademarks in the U.S. and/or other countries.
The information herein is for informational purposes only and represents the current view of Microsoft Corporation as of the date of this presentation. Because Microsoft must respond to changing market conditions, it should not be interpreted to be a commitment on the part of Microsoft, and Microsoft cannot guarantee the accuracy of any information provided after the date of this presentation. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.
© 2007 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Microsoft, Windows, Windows Vista and other product names are or may be registered trademarks and/or trademarks in the U.S. and/or other countries.
The information herein is for informational purposes only and represents the current view of Microsoft Corporation as of the date of this presentation. Because Microsoft must respond to changing market conditions, it should not be interpreted to be a commitment on the part of Microsoft, and Microsoft cannot guarantee the accuracy of any information provided after the date of this presentation. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.