Sunrise Sostenuto 4.9 Report · PDF fileSunrise Sostenuto 4.9 Report A Broadband-Testing...

Sunrise Sostenuto 4.9 Report

A Broadband-Testing Report By Steve Broadhead, Founder & Director, BB-T

Sostenuto Report

ii© Broadband-Testing 1995-2014

First published November 2014 (V1.0)

Published by Broadband-Testing A division of Connexio-Informatica 2007, Andorra Tel : +376 633010 E-mail : [email protected] Internet : HTTP://www.broadband-testing.co.uk @2014 Broadband-Testing All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, photocopied, stored on a retrieval system, or transmitted without the express written consent of the authors. Please note that access to or use of this Report is conditioned on the following: 1. The information in this Report is subject to change by Broadband-Testing without notice. 2. The information in this Report, at publication date, is believed by Broadband-Testing to be accurate and reliable, but is not guaranteed. All use of and reliance on

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Sostenuto Report

© Broadband-Testing 1995-2014 1

TABLE OF CONTENTS

TABLE OF CONTENTS ........................................................................................ 1

BROADBAND-TESTING ..................................................................................... 2

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ...................................................................................... 3

INTRODUCTION: TAKING THE IT TALK OUT OF IT SOFTWARE INTERFACES ..... 4

SUNRISE SOSTENUTO - PRODUCT OVERVIEW .................................................. 6

What's New In 4.9 .................................................................................... 7

SUNRISE SOSTENUTO 4.9 IN PRACTICE: HANDS ON EXPERIENCE ................... 9

Making Life Easier .......................................................................... 9 Platform Approach ....................................................................... 10 Architectural Change .................................................................... 10 Dashboard .................................................................................. 11 Services...................................................................................... 11 Gamification ................................................................................ 12 Mobility ...................................................................................... 13 Reporting .................................................................................... 15

SUMMARY & CONCLUSIONS ........................................................................... 15

Figure 1 – Traditional Interface Versus Social Networking .......................................................................................................4

Figure 2 – Sostenuto ITSM Dashboard ..................................................................................................................................6

Figure 3 – Sostenuto ITSM Wallboard Example .................................................................................................................... 11

Figure 4 – Gamification: Leaderboard ................................................................................................................................. 12

Figure 5 – Gamification: Badges ........................................................................................................................................ 13

Figure 6 – Sunrise Mobile .................................................................................................................................................. 14

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2© Broadband-Testing 1995-2014

BROADBAND-TESTING

Broadband-Testing is Europe’s foremost independent network testing facility and consultancy organisation for broadband and network infrastructure products. Based in Andorra, Broadband-Testing provides extensive test demo facilities. From this base, Broadband-Testing provides a range of specialist IT, networking and development services to vendors and end-user organisations throughout Europe, SEAP and the United States.

Broadband-Testing is an associate of the following: Limbo Creatives (bespoke software development)

Broadband-Testing Laboratories are available to vendors and end-users for fully independent testing of networking, communications and security hardware and software.

Broadband-Testing Laboratories operates an Approvals scheme which enables products to be short-listed for purchase by end-users, based on their successful approval. Output from the labs, including detailed research reports, articles and white papers on the latest network-related technologies, are made available free of charge on our web site at HTTP://www.broadband-testing.co.uk

Broadband-Testing Consultancy Services offers a range of network consultancy services including network design, strategy planning, Internet connectivity and product development assistance.

Sostenuto Report


EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Traditional enterprise application interfaces are essentially past their sell-by date

as the "Facebook generation" of users begins to take over.

For too long, users have been forced to adapt to the designs of the ISV - the

application controlling the user, rather than the other way around.

But it doesn't have to be like this - an enterprise application can reflect the

modern social networking wave in terms of its appearance and usability, without

impacting at all on features, functionality and capabilities.

Sostenuto from Sunrise is the platform which underpins all of products Sunrise

offers. These include Sunrise ITSM – the focus of our report here – as well as

Sunrise CRM, Sunrise HRCM and Sunrise MSP.

With version 4.9 of Sostenuto, Sunrise is looking to lessen the steep learning

curve associated with classic ITSM software.

The contemporary interface also lends itself perfectly to the smartphone/tablet

era, where users are controlling networks from anywhere, using anything.

Sunrise has also introduced concepts that will be new to many people in the ITSM

world, such as a gamification, in an attempt to pull the old "Helpdesk" world into

the 21st century, with contemporary methodologies for getting the best of out a

modern workforce.

A platform-based approach to Sostenuto means that the technology can readily

be offered as a cloud-based service, as well as in more traditional formats, or

indeed mixed and matched across an enterprise solution.

Overall, Sunrise is definitely moving ITSM properly into the contemporary world

of cloud-based, virtualised computing, ensuring that it has a fully portable and

mobile solution designed to cope with the enormous changes currently ongoing in

IT.

Sostenuto is the flexible, 100% browser-based platform, underpinning each of

Sunrise’s solutions: Sunrise ITSM for IT Service Management, Sunrise CSM for

Customer Service Management, Sunrise HRCM for HR Case Management, and

Sunrise MSP for Service Providers.

Sostenuto Report


INTRODUCTION: TAKING THE IT TALK OUT OF IT

SOFTWARE INTERFACES

Why is it that business software - i.e. applications that you use at work - has to be so

different to those you use in the home - social networking apps, for example?

For years, users have been conditioned into the "this is the way it is" way of thinking. So,

that their ITSM or network auditing application, for example, is far more technical and

complex to use than - say - Facebook, is something they have learned to accept. But it

doesn't have to be this way. Moreover, the new generation of users - those brought up on

social media and smartphone/tablet interfaces - do not have the same pre-conceptions as

to what business software looks and feels like.

Figure 1 – Traditional Interface versus Social Networking

Sostenuto Report


So why is it that, for so long, enterprise software has effectively been designed by IT

professionals for IT professionals to use? While this, in truth, has never been truly

acceptable, the problem is now exacerbated by the new generation of users who are both

more computer-literate than their predecessors and more engrained in a particular style

of user interface, one that's a million miles away from a traditional enterprise application

from the 90's.

So, with the latest version of Sostenuto (the underpinning platform for Sunrise Software’s

products) - version 4.9 - Sunrise is focusing on creating business software that the

"Facebook" generation of users understand - something that resembles the social

networking applications they use at home, focusing on a combination of flexibility and

ease of use. That is not to say there has been any kind of "dumbing down" approach

taken - it is essential that an ITSM product remains complete with no feature short-cuts

taken - simply that it is looking to remove the learning curve traditionally associated with

enterprise software.

Sunrise in the Cloud

Cloud technology is changing the way that organisations access and consume both

applications and data. Business units are no longer tied to a specific IT strategy that may

not be aligned with their individual requirements, and they need no longer be distracted

from core business activities by having to focus on deploying and managing IT.

For this reason, Sunrise has also engineered its Sostenuto offering as a cloud service,

designed to be a scalable, secure, highly available and reliable enterprise-class service

with no costly hardware and upfront licence fees. In turn, logic dictates that this leads to

a more predictable overall cost model. With Sunrise Software’s Sostenuto cloud offering

you have no need to worry about the provisioning and on-going maintenance of

hardware, and there is no large upfront capital expenditure distorting cash-flow, leaving

you to focus on your business and not the technology.

All customers of the Sostenuto cloud solution receive their own mysostenuto.com access

URL featuring SSL encryption, with each having their own secure database for

configuration and service desk data, ensuring there is no co-mingling with other

customer’s information. Additionally each database is backed up in case for disaster

recovery purposes.

Sunrise continually and pro-actively monitors each customers cloud solution to deliver the

“always on” certainty that business’ need. Maintenance patches are automatically applied

ensuring organisations are always up-to-date and on the latest version.

Sostenuto Report


SUNRISE SOSTENUTO - PLATFORM OVERVIEW

Since Broadband-Testing's first report on Sostenuto, way back in 2003, Sunrise has

endeavoured to continually advance the software, both in terms of feature set and in

terms of more fundamental architectural and usability aspects.

From version 4.5, released towards the end of 2013, the key addition is a brand new User

Interface (UI) that connects via the Internet to any device at any location.

Another major addition is gamification functionality to improve and reward exceptional

team performance.

Sunrise believes that Sostenuto 4.5 onwards (4.9 as tested) represents a major software

upgrade, even by its own standards, with the User Interface the most significant

enhancement to the core platform. Sostenuto’s new UI is designed to support desktop

browsers such as Microsoft Internet Explorer, Firefox, Google Chrome and Safari, as well

as the latest tablet devices such as the Apple iPad and Google Android to guarantee

round-the-clock access to Sostenuto, independent of device or location.

The multi-document and tabbed UI improves support staff productivity by ensuring

everyone can access important information quickly and makes switching between multiple

incidents or associated records easy. The distinctive and individual colouring of tabs

means that users always know where they are within the system and makes navigation

simple.

Figure 2 – Sunrise ITSM Dashboard

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Other notable highlights of Sostenuto include:

Full support for the latest tablet devices, such as Apple iPad and Google Android

to ensure mobility at all times; there is also a complementary browser based

interface specifically designed for smartphones, so all device bases are covered.

Customisable ‘My Sostenuto’ dashboards that allow greater visualisation of

Service Desk Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and highlight potential issues or

trends before they become major problems;

Advanced, integrated reporting capabilities;

Gamification elements to recognise and reward employee and team performance

Sunrise believes that encouraging gamification in the Service Desk creates a positive

culture that continually rewards exceptional performance and ultimately drives tangible

improvements in IT and customer service delivery. Gamification is already recognised as

an efficient and cost-effective alternative to traditional incentive programmes and its goal

is to make it an intrinsic part of the Service Desk - see more in next section.

Sostenuto 4.9 continues to support all of Sunrise’s existing products and features such as

the smartphone interface for mobile devices and Self-Service portal. Additionally the

Sostenuto platform continues to support integration using both SOAP and REST Application

Programming Interfaces (APIs).

Note: Sostenuto 4.9 will be available free of charge to all Sunrise Software customers

with existing support and maintenance contracts.

What's New In 4.9

Sostenuto 4.9 includes new administrative functionality so that customers can manage

their day-to-day housekeeping activities within the HTML5 user interface, rather than

having to resort to the applet.

Specifically Sostenuto 4.9 includes:

Grouping of Configuration Areas

Manage Accounts

Manage Groups

Manage Security

Optimistic/Pessimistic Security Inheritance

Manage List/Sublist Entries

Manage Preset Solutions

Restyled Service Grouping

Sostenuto Report


Reordering Services

Inserting Images into Large Text Fields

Public/Private Attachments

Sunrise Mobile Restyled

Other minor changes and UI tweaks

Looking at some of these features in more detail:

Grouping of Configuration Areas

In order to provide a more logical display of a growing number of configuration area,

Sostenuto now groups various configuration areas together. Some areas, such as

Gamification (see later) and Reports, no longer have individual tabs within a single icon,

but now have a specific icon for each distinct area. This grouping will allow future

configuration options to be slotted into the UI more easily and makes it more obvious to

the user where to go to perform their various administration or configuration activities.

Manage Accounts, Groups and Security

Sostenuto 4.9 now allows Accounts and Groups to be more easily managed. When

viewing an Account or Group its properties can be changed, such as their language, locale

and time-zone, as well as set their authentication properties. It’s even possible to simply

add them to another group (or even quickly add a new group or invite a new user). It’s

also now possible to directly edit the security for all areas of Sostenuto when viewing the

account or group details. The idea is that a tiny change can have a significant impact, so

it’s now possible to see exactly where an Account or Group is inheriting its security from;

ideal for troubleshooting security related configuration issues. Administrators can also do

the exact same from a dedicated security management area.

Manage Lists/Sub-list Entries

Sostenuto 4.9 significantly overhauls the administration of list and sub-list entries with a

simpler, cleaner user interface in comparison to the applet equivalent. This is designed to

make it easier and more intuitive when managing complex five-tier sub-list fields, for

example.

Preset Solutions

The configuration and administration of Preset Solutions has been brought into the HTML5

user interface so there’s no need at all to venture into the old applet as was the case

before. You can now add, delete and edit Preset Solutions as well as manage specific

Preset Solution entries. There’s also the ability to decide whether or not to display a field

within the preset solution

Sostenuto Report


Reordering Services

Sostenuto 4.9 includes the ability for users to drag and drop their available Services

within the top Service header bar and into the overflow area (which has also been

restyled). In this way Users are able to have their more commonly used Services more

easily accessible on the top header bar. Additionally, all Accounts are now able to control

their own according to their own preferences.

Public/Private Attachments

Uploading attachments to records within Sostenuto is now far more secure. Using

public/private attachment functionality it’s now possible to “hide” uploaded attachments

from Accounts in other Account Profiles. It’s also possible to specify a default security, i.e.

public or private, for all attachments uploaded by Accounts within a specific Account

Profile. For example a Service Desk User might always upload attachments as “Private”

which will be hidden from Accounts in the Contacts Account Profile, i.e. the end-users via

the self-service portal. Accounts within the Contact Account Profile however, will upload

their attachments as “Public”. There is also a Global Operation which can be granted

access to allowing an Account to toggle security between Public/Private.

SUNRISE SOSTENUTO 4.9 IN PRACTICE: HANDS ON

EXPERIENCE

Since we have evaluated Sostenuto in various guises in the past and the feature set - as

described in previous section - is well documented, we will concentrate here on the new

elements of Sostenuto in 4.9 format.

Making Life Easier

So the basic aim here was to take the product and make it easier to use, simplify the

functionality and interface, but without losing any of the functionality - adding to it, in

truth. So it's a case of all the functionality being intact but now expressed in a lighter way

From a flexibility perspective, the aim was to make the product more applicable for

different sizes of company and budget.

It has also been designed to make it easier for customers to build their own systems,

accelerate the productivity, the setup time and all cost-related matters. With the new

release of Sostenuto, Sunrise wants customers to be able to really engage in developing

systems beyond ITSM and into other operational areas, with no requirement to go out

and find other solutions in addition.

The interface is a key element now, with the mass use of smartphone and tablet format

screens - so a smaller viewing area and a different way of interacting with the application

itself.

The bottom line is the ability to use Sostenuto on any device, anytime and anywhere.

Sostenuto Report


Platform Approach

As we've detailed in previous reports, Sostenuto is more than an ITSM tool but a fully-

blown application platform. As such, in addition to the ITSM tool – Sunrise ITSM - Sunrise

has released different products to market including, Sunrise CSM for Customer Service

and Sunrise HRCM for Human Resources Case Management. You can expect to see

further configurations for other scenarios, such as IT risk management, and other IT

compliance scenarios in the near future

Often referred to as the platform approach, diverse departments such as IT Service Desk,

HR/Payroll, Customer Service, Facilities, use the same software, tailored to their

individual requirements so that each has a solution that meets their needs, while being

part of an organisation-wide system.

Sunrise believes the benefits of taking the platform approach are many and varied,

depending on the type of business as demonstrated above. However, there are several

common themes, these include:

Economies of scale – one system means one license, one set of support infrastructure

and just one system to learn for IT and users alike.

Ease of management and support – as well as being easier to support there are fewer

integration issues.

Single version of the truth – data integrity is maintained as information is held once

only.

Visibility – subject to security controls and permissions, data can be viewed

organisation-wide, rather than residing in numerous silos where it is difficult to access.

Traceability – information stored in spreadsheets and circulated via email is often

impossible to demonstrate provenance. Tracking the same data and process within a

single platform ensures an audited history.

Comprehensive reporting – organisation-wide reporting supports better and more

informed business decisions.

Real-time displays - consolidated views of dashboards/wallboards can be supplied

across the business.

Consistency and efficiency – operations are streamlined, processes standardised, and

the elimination of duplicate handling of data saves considerable time.

Collaboration – staff are trained on the same system enabling closer collaboration

between departments and operational units.

Architectural Change

Originally the platform was built around CORBA, an architecture this is renowned for its

scalability and durability, but it is complicated and CPU intensive. So now Sostenuto has

been rebuilt with native JAVA calls between components with Apache Tomcat supporting

Sostenuto Report


multiple instances of the application across load balanced servers. This improves

transactional performance, memory footprint is reduced, and scalability is maintained.

Realistically you can now host dozens of instances of Sostenuto on a pair of load-balanced

servers - so combining redundancy and performance without enormous deployment costs,

depending on the exact configuration specified.

Dashboard

The combination of ease of use and comprehensive feature set is exemplified by the

dashboard. This is now ‘drag-n-drop’ enabled, so windows can be moved around and the

dashboard can be fully customised, starting with a set of pre-defined layout templates.

A large choice of charts and filter options are available so it's very easy to see the current

status via whichever indicators you choose to display on any number of wallboards. There

is also a standard service desk dashboard, as well as a wallboard option - see below.

Figure 3 – Sunrise ITSM Wallboard Example

Services

The flexibility is shown further in that the interface is very much now a multi-document,

multi-task interface. While this might be confusing, navigation is very simple - a one-click

option takes you back to the screen/record you are interested in. With the new version of

Sostenuto there are now View and Edit modes, so allowing for further, per-user

customisation.

The interface is more tabular in nature, again easing navigation. Information can be

tagged for easy access and smart typing has been enabled - for example, when

dynamically searching across Sostenuto, the application intercepts the request as you are

typing and starts bringing up all relevant information such as information from the

knowledge base or list of outstanding problems - the type of feature that the "smartphone

generation" are familiar with.Again, all access can be customised, so each user only gets

Sostenuto Report


to see what they are allowed to. A side effect of this is to de-clutter the interface.

Tagging, meantime, extends knowledge types across the entire application, rather than

per service, making it far more usable and quicker to access all the linked information.

Gamification

One slightly more controversial addition to the Sostenuto platform is gamification.

Figure 4 – Gamification: Leaderboard

Gamification uses game theory to introduce a competitive element to work operations

that use social capital, self-esteem and fun to appeal to the workforce. Gamification can

be used to design collaborative or competitive games that maximise business outcomes,

thereby recognising everyone to some degree, rather than rewarding just a few top

performers. Employee performance feedback goes from being a top-down, periodic event

– often once a year at an annual appraisal – to being social, peer-based and real-time.

Understanding how gamification works is one thing, making it a viable option that works

in a real-life business environment is something quite different. The key appears to be to

not go too far too quickly, so wait until everyone is familiar with gamification before

introducing more complex, longer-term goals and rewards.

Sunrise recommends that you start with simple challenges and rewards that encourage

healthy competition between players such as ‘highest weekly customer satisfaction

rating’, ‘lowest service level agreement stats’, ‘lowest number of re-opened incidents’ or

‘highest number of approved knowledge base articles submitted in a month’.

Being "fair" is critical to the success of gamification - decision criteria for determining

winners should be based on measurable statistics such as being ‘rated 5 out of 5 by a

customer’ rather than just ‘closing 10 incidents a day’. Attainability of rewards is essential

in order to keep new players motivated, as is the ability to continue to advance and

sustain that motivation.

Sostenuto Report


Figure 5 – Gamification: Badges

Another key point is to align gaming scenarios with business objectives to keep them real

and meaningful – after all, gamification is all about supporting the business, nothing more

nothing less...

Mobility

The whole BYOD - Bring Your Own Device - movement has taken IT by storm and service

desks are no exception.

Moreover, these are typically high-pressure situations, both time-sensitive and bound by

SLAs (Service Level Agreements) and the user expectation levels that these SLAs raise.

So, the ability to respond immediately, anywhere, anytime, from a mobile device, be it a

smartphone or a tablet, is fundamental to the ongoing nature of ITSM.

For this reason, Sunrise introduced a dedicated Mobile interface as part of its solution -

allowing users to take their Sostenuto implementation with them wherever they go, using

their favourite device, whether Blackberry RIM, Microsoft Windows Phone, Google Android

or Apple IOS based.

Sostenuto Report


Figure 6 – Sunrise Mobile

Here's what Sunrise provides with Sunrise Mobile:

Available for both SaaS and On-Premise installations.

Convenient and easy-to-use interface across all popular smartphones.

Compatible with your organisations existing devices meaning no new investment

in IT equipment.

Comprehensive access to all Services available within Sostenuto, including

Incidents, Problems, Changes, Contacts, Departments, Knowledge, Items,

Contracts, Third Parties, Service Levels, Service Catalogue and Service Contracts.

Live searching of information across the filters and services available to each

user.

Add, edit, and update any record, including reassigning, resolving and closing

Incidents and Service Requests, and more.

Fully integrated with existing Sostenuto user security and business rules.

Extensible and adaptable for custom Sostenuto installations.

Interface can be rebranded to reflect corporate branding.

Sostenuto Report


Sunrise rightly argues that the benefits of a mobile service desk are many and varied,

providing a convenient and easy to use interface across all popular smartphones and

tablets. This, in turn, should improve staff productivity - roving support staff can easily

search critical service desk information at any time of day or night. It also provides a

highly customisable solution for specific technical and business requirements.

Reporting

Report options are many and varied - new ones can be created and existing ones edited

as required. Some are also very extensive, so these can be generated in the background

while getting on with other tasks. The user is notified once they are ready for distribution.

SUMMARY & CONCLUSIONS

ITSM has long been regarded as a very traditional IT practise and thus has been reflected

on the conservative nature of the product offerings from most vendors.

With Sostenuto, however, Sunirse has recognised that traditional enterprise application

interfaces are essentially past their sell-by date as the "Facebook generation" of users

begins to take over and created an interface and level of usability that reflects this,

without skimping on functionality.

Moreover, it has increased the feature set, incorporating new - to ITSM - concepts such

as gamification, in an attempt to pull the old "Helpdesk" world into the 21st century, with

contemporary methodologies for getting the best of out a modern workforce.

So, with v4.9 of Sostenuto, Sunrise has looked to take the sting out of adapting to classic

ITSM software. The contemporary interface also lends itself perfectly to the

smartphone/tablet era, where users are controlling networks from anywhere, using

anything.

A platform-based approach to Sostenuto means that the technology can readily be

offered as a cloud-based service, as well as in more traditional formats, or indeed mixed

and matched across an enterprise solution.

Overall, Sunrise is definitely moving ITSM properly into the contemporary world of cloud-

based, virtualised computing, ensuring that it has a fully portable and mobile solution

designed to cope with the enormous changes currently ongoing in IT.

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