Abstract: Beware of this product. It may not be a good fit for your logical environment, consuming more work than manual entry for similar data-your mileage may vary.
Full Disclosure: We are implementing and fielding ARS7x/ITSM7y/CMDB2.z via an architecture previously described at length by Dr. Christopher Strauss. The ITSM Data Management Tool (DMT) was exercised and following observations were developed. - workstation portion of DMT is a collection of spreadsheets and conversion macros-translation: must run on machine with Microsoft Office (not on any of my servers, be design!!!). Text files in *.csv format are then transferred to server for usage by batchfile-driven importcmd.exe. - Foundation data handling is straightforward for companies, locations, organizations, support groups, business times, holidays. Next, the fine print--CAUTION: - Conversion macro caused individual data values to be enclosed in quotation marks within the csv, with other attendant string-handling issues, all inconsistently. Behavior was prevalent whenever "&" and "/" were used within data, but data containing those were NOT the only quoted strings, and were not always quoted themselves (Excel behavior, not peculiar to DMT) - Conversion macros created duplicate records in the csv from a single xls row, also inconsistently, and rows with above-mentioned characters were generally not the offenders. Data-and conversion-inconsistencies disappeared with renaming of groups/organizations to remove the two offending characters. - Support Staff creation pose further cautions. Designation of a user as 'support staff' is only justified by user's efforts in a support group, not presence in a particular organization/department, at least in our environment-and this tool proved extremely awkward trying to handle our particular relationship structure. - Candidate support staff records are created by template only (design of DMT), with said template overriding any other information keyed to the staff record itself - Support-staff template must also be unique for role-to-privilege-to-org/department combination (note-neither support group nor company accesses are even mentioned, and mechanism for granting multiple group memberships to one individual is cumbersome) (finally---end of CAUTION, from above) The last two points combine for implication: this DMT topology (for support staff) might be useful for large numbers of staff in small number of support groups (beware, though-a workstation running Excel must gracefully sort and convert that large spreadsheet to multiple csv-files in one operation-and fifteen separate pages are involved!!). Our environment is approx 300 support staff in 93 support groups, and would require over 200 distinct templates. Further, the functions of our support groups are both distinct and disjoint, while sharing common members. Yes, that means many support staffers provide more than one support-staff function, not unusual for an educational environment. Example: one particular company employs eleven support staff who monitor eight activities; each activity is sufficiently unique to qualify for separate 'support group' status; and, each individual asserts a unique combination of groups monitored. Therefore, my support-staff effort would require eleven templates just for that one company-one template per person, and twenty other operating companies to go. I cannot see the value of creating numerous templates which will be used one time only, versus creating staffers directly-the DMT effectively multiplies(not reduces!) workload of CREATING support staff. The support staff paradigm herein described *might* make sense if template-uniqueness were tied to support-group combinations, not departments. Finally, the DMT may/may not exhibit aforementioned misbehaviors in other environments. Our usage of this DMT will probably be limited to data in first bullet above only. Customer-CTM:People records are created/maintained by a customized importation with daily updates, so the DMT People capability is not applicable to this University, *except* for support staff, and this DMT will therefore not be used for people. What a shame-support-staff management was our initial motivation for examining this product at all!! Don W. McClure, P.E. Data Administrator & System Engineer University of North Texas Computing & IT Center dwmac_at_unt.edu 940.565.3287 _______________________________________________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE or access ARSlist Archives at www.arslist.org Platinum Sponsor: www.rmsportal.com ARSlist: "Where the Answers Are"
