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Recently, a second view of the change calendar was added, in which potential conflicting tasks of workflows are hidden from view. This allows change managers to get an easier overview of all the open workflows....
Category: Change Management
For many organizations the summer holiday period is approaching and that means that delegates will be appointed more often to take over approval tasks. If an approval delegate was selected in an out of office...
Recurring processes in 4me can be set up quite flexibly. Repeats can be set to daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly and depending on that cycle the recurrence may be defined for one or multiple months,...
The change calendar provides a graphical overview of the tasks that are scheduled to be completed in the near future, as well as the tasks that were recently completed. When two tasks overlap in the...
Earlier this year, it has become possible to send an email from a request. That email becomes a note, as well, and replies to it also turn into notes within that request. Not long after...
It is now possible to create custom views on workflows. This enables organizations to expose all (or a filtered subset) of the account’s workflows to their users through a UI extension. One specific use case...
When a task of a workflow cannot be completed - for example when an approval task is rejected - the workflow comes to a stop, with its status set to ‘Progress Halted’. Using automation rules,...
At some point a task in a workflow either fails, or succeeds. When it succeeds, the workflow continues. When it fails, the status of the workflow changes to 'Progress Halted', and the workflow is often...
When a request (or problem) is related to a workflow, the assignment is automatically set to the manager of that workflow. This makes sense in many cases, but in other cases, for example where the...
Changes and change-related concepts in 4me are now renamed to workflows and workflow-related concepts. This means that the 'Changes' section of the Records console is now called 'Workflows', and 'Change templates' are now 'Workflow templates',...
It has been possible for a while now to cause a task within a change workflow to generate a new request based on a request template from a different internal or external provider. This can...
When a request is linked to a change, it is possible to close the request before all the tasks related to that change have been completed. In most cases, such requests should not be completed...
When work on a task should not start before a specific date and time, the change or project manager specifies this start moment in the Start no earlier than field. This ensures that when the...
When people are looking at an agile board, they are now able to see which items are in the status 'Waiting for…' or 'Waiting for Customer'. A small 'sleep' icon is now displayed for each...
When change managers start to register a new change, they are prompted to select a change template. In the past, a dropdown field would allow them to select the appropriate template for the change they...
Every team can prepare an agile board so their members can pick up work from this board. Request and problems could already be placed on an agile board. Now tasks that are part of a...
Many customers have asked to make it possible for requesters to track the progress of their requests, even when they are linked to a change. Such requests would only show the requester that the status...
The ‘Reports’ section of 4me’s Analytics console already offers organizations well over 300 standard reports that people can filter and group to meet their specific needs. Now 3 deceptively simple-looking metric reports have been added...
Thanks to the suggestion of one of 4me’s larger enterprise customers, a new hidden field called ‘Rejection count’ has been added to change approval tasks. This field counts the number of times a change task...
There are a few reports that make it easy for service provider organizations to see if there are any requests from customers on which they are spending an exceptional amount of time. These reports are:...
The unique ability that allows 4me customers to link up their 4me accounts with the 4me accounts of their managed service providers (MSPs) can be found in the ‘Account Trusts’ section of the Settings console. ...
An exciting new feature has been added to 4me's change management functionality. This was one of the features that this year's customer advisory board (CAB) members decided to assign a high priority to. The objective...
Many of the actions available in the 4me toolbar and in the Actions menu can now be used to update multiple records at the same time. This extension of 4me’s mass update functionality can significantly...
The Forward button in the 4me toolbar has always made it easy for people to pass a request, problem or task to a different member of their team. Now this button can also be used...
The change views in the Records console and the change reports in the Analytics console can now be filtered by 'requester organization'. The requester organization of a change is defined as the organization of the...
There were already quite a few reports that visualize a breakdown of completed work in a pie chart. A typical example is the report 'Completed Requests by Category'. But customers have asked for similar reports...
After a project task has been assigned to someone, this person can open the project task in 4me Self Service or in the 4me App, even if this person does not have the Specialist role. ...
It has been a while since skill pools were introduced. A skill pool is a group of people who share a specific capability. Project managers have been assigning tasks to skill pools when they are...
Several new reports have been added to the 'Reports' section of the Analytics console to help organizations generate an overview of the records that are in danger of not meeting their target. The following two...
4me's SCIM provisioning capabilities have been extended to make it possible for organizations to automatically include a link for starting a Microsoft Teams chat session in each 4me person record. Using SCIM, it is possible...
The minimum planned effort for the completion of a task that is part of a change or project was one minute. But because more and more tasks are executed automatically, it is now possible to...
To allow organizations to track the success of their change and project management processes more easily, two reports have been added to the 'Reports' section of the Analytics console. These reports track the following KPIs:...
The time entry export files are special because many organizations rely on the data in these files as input for their automated internal chargeback or billing process. To make it easier to include information about...
A small usability improvement now causes the status of related service instances to be displayed when a task template, change template, task or change is opened in View mode. This additional piece of information can...
Organizations that are using release records to group some of their changes are now able to filter the views and reports for changes and tasks by release. This can be useful for release managers if...
A few more date range filters have become available. These new filters have become available for the views and reports of the following record types: Requests Next target Problems Analysis target Releases, Changes, Tasks, Projects...
Another unique collaboration feature has been added to 4me. This new feature makes it possible to include tasks in a change workflow that automatically register a request as soon as their predecessors have been completed. ...
Two reports have been added to the 'Reports' section of the Analytics console. These report can be used to see how often specific types of changes or change tasks are created: Changes by Template Tasks...
The filters available in the change task views and reports are now also available in the change calendar. This makes it possible for change managers to focus on specific types of changes or tasks that...
A few more filters have been added to make it possible to reduce a list of change tasks to those that are part of a change that matches specific attributes. Specifically, the following filters have...
Project managers have always been able to add a set of new tasks to an existing project by going to the project’s Gantt chart and applying a project template. All the task templates which are...
It has become very easy to look up all the task templates that are part of a specific change template or project template. The filter 'Change template' is now available in the task templates views...
Three new change management reports have been added to the 'Reports' section of the Analytics console. These three new reports are: Registered Changes by Type Open Changes by Type Completed Changes by Type Because organizations...
When someone has entered a value in the Time spent field of a request, problem or task and this person subsequently presses the Save button, then a new time entry gets generated for the amount...
The Time spent field of a request, problem, change task or project task now becomes required whenever text has been entered in the Note field. Some organizations, however, require a note that justifies the effort...
The rules that determine when the Time spent field of a request, problem, change task or project task becomes required have been adjusted. The objective of this adjustment is to ensure that people do not...
Two new filters have become available for the change views in the Records console and for the change reports in the Analytics console. These two extra filters are: Manager organization Service provider
There were already several reports on SLA performance, but all of those horizontal bar charts and pie charts show the performance for a single date range that the user can specify. Because it might also...
When a specialist sets the status of a request to 'Completed', the Note field becomes required. The same thing happens, for example, when the status is set to 'Waiting for...' in a problem or task....
When people are planning to be unavailable to work on assignments, they are now able to specify this in 4me. They can do this by opening their profile in 4me Self Service, in the 4me...
When a view is opened in the Records console and a record is selected in this view, it is now possible to open the Change Calendar. This can be done by pressing the Actions button...
A system note now gets added whenever someone marks an assignment as urgent. The system note is inserted in the right sequential order in the Notes section of the request, problem, change task or project...
The 'History' section of the Configuration Item form now provides a bit more information. When this section is expanded, it now displays the status of every request, problem or task that is linked to the...
Two special reports have been added to the 'Reports' section of the Analytics console. These reports are intended to provide organizations the ability to quickly find the changes that are likely to go, or have...
It has become possible to link a request template to a change template, even when the change template is not linked to a service. This allows the same change template to be used for multiple...
Change managers may be happy to hear that the options that are available in the Type field of changes and change templates are now fully customizable. Historically, the options that the Type field provided were: Application...
When a request template is placed in Edit mode, it used to be possible to link it to a change template which Justification field is empty. This would lead to a situation where the request...
The Gantt charts of changes and projects that are managed in 4me offer a helpful graphical overview of the tasks, the order in which they should be completed, as well as their timing. To provide an...
Another set of time spent reports has become available in 4me’s Analytics console. These reports have been added to make it easier for service provider organizations to identify requests that their specialists have spent a significant...
4me’s Service Navigator could already be opened from requests, problems, changes, releases, projects and SLA reports. Now it is also possible to open the Service Navigator from change tasks and project tasks. To do this, simply...
Gradually more and more advanced functionality is being added to 4me for resource planning. It has recently become possible to plan changes and projects more precisely because managers are now able to specify the planned...
At the bottom of the ‘My Inbox’ section, the 4me App and 4me Self Service used to list the change tasks and the project tasks that were assigned to the user and are already finished....
Every person was already able to specify his or her language in 4me. This ensures that 4me’s user interfaces are presented in the user’s preferred language. Now 4me can automatically translate any note that is...
Another useful filter has become available to help support organizations analyze their data more effectively. All change reports and views in 4me can now be filtered by change template. This filter can be especially valuable...
Two more reports have been added to the 'Reports' section of the Analytics console for the change and project management processes. These new reports are: Registered and Finished Tasks Registered and Finished Project Tasks These...
The Planned duration and Planned effort fields used to provide the ability to enter a number of hours. But since resource planning is becoming more important in many organizations, more precise planning is needed. To...
Many customers will be pleased to hear that it is now possible to define automation rules that are automatically applied to each request, change task or configuration item. It was already possible to define automation...
A subtle usability feature has been added to the 'My Inbox' view. When this view is placed in the new multi-line layout, the value of the Team field is now displayed for each item that...
The report ‘Completed Changes by Completion Reason‘ has been added to the 'Reports' section of the Analytics console. It is not terribly special, but it should help organizations when they review their completed changes. Especially...
The 'Copy note to change' option was introduced a few years ago. It is a helpful feature for specialists to inform the manager of a change about the information they are entering in the Note...
Change managers now have two more options at their disposal in the Completion reason field of their completed changes. The options 'Failed' and 'Disruptive' have been added. These additional completion reasons fill a gap in...
The Reference feature has become available in the Note fields of requests, problems, releases, changes, change tasks, projects and project tasks. This is an important usability feature that makes it possible for specialists to include...
Another filter has become available for the request views in the Records console and for the request reports in the 'Reports' section of the Analytics console. This filter is called 'Member'. The 'Team' filter was already...
The views of 4me’s Inbox console have undergone a major makeover. When specialists open their 4me inbox, they will initially not notice a major change. Their inbox still presents the assignments in a table layout....
A new filter has been added to the change management reports that can be found in the 'Reports' section of the Analytics console. This new filter makes it possible to filter these reports by team....
A minor feature has been added to the REST API for changes. This API now allows the manager of the change to be set when a new change is created. In the past, the API...
People who have the Project Manager role are now able to see the time entries that their colleagues added to the tasks of the projects they manage. Similarly, change managers are able to see the...
It is now possible to use the Automation Rules to copy an entire note, including its attachments, inline images, mentions and formatting, from one 4me record and add it as a new note to another...
The status option 'Being Created' has been added for change records. Change managers will see this status only briefly whenever they save a new change. As soon as all the tasks of a new change...
The 'Reports' section of 4me's Analytics console contains a large number of basic reports, such as 'Open Requests by Service'. Most of these reports become interesting only after some filters have been applied. Continue reading
Two more Change Management reports have been released. They can be found in the 'Reports' section of the Analytics console. Continue reading
The option 'Work hours are 24x7' has been added to all change tasks and project tasks. Change and project managers can use this option to apply a 24x7 work hours calendar (without any holidays) for...
Some good news for the people who have been administering automation rules for changes and projects. They will be happy to hear that, from now on, their rules are duplicated when a template is duplicated. Continue...
A set of 31 additional reports has become available in the 'Reports' section of the Settings console. This is the greatest number of new reports included in a single release. Continue reading
Specialists of a trusted account can review a change when it includes a task that is assigned to a team of this trusted account. To avoid the unintentional sharing of the notes and attachments of...
The order in which the requests that are linked to a change are presented within that change has improved. In the past, the requests would be sorted by their ID. Now they are sorted first...
It is now possible to use Automation Rules functionality of 4me to set or update the Planned effort field value in change and project tasks. Continue reading
The ‘Attachments’ and ‘Notes’ sections of a change are no longer available to specialists, unless they have the Specialist or Auditor role of the account in which the change is registered. Continue reading
Last week the reports 'Open Changes by Category' and 'Completed Changes by Category' were added. This week the 'Open Changes by Justification' and 'Completed Changes by Justification' reports became available. Continue reading
The 4me Self Service interface already provided an inbox for specialists, but not yet for end users. When an approval task for a change was assigned to an end user, it had to be picked...
Two more reports have been added for change managers. These are the reports 'Open Changes by Category' and 'Completed Changes by Category'. Continue reading
The Notification Center, which became available for support specialists in 4me's full UI last week, has been made available in Self Service. This means that end users are now able to benefit from the Notification...
The Notification Center is where specialists can now find the notifications that 4me has always been sending them by email. To access the Notification Center, click on the Notifications icon in the toolbar. Continue reading
An approval task of a change, as well as any project task, can be assigned to multiple people. For each approver or assignee, a small record is linked to the task. Such records contain information...
A new feature has been added to the automation rules. This feature makes it possible to perform a lookup in 4me to check whether a specific record exists. For example, a lookup can be performed...
A new type of update action has been added to the Automation Rules functionality. It is the 'Add' action. Rather than being able to set a field to a new value, this new action makes it...
Automation rules can now be added directly to task templates. In the past, it was only possible to add automation rules to task templates that belong to a specific change or project template. Continue reading
A start has been made with a new overview that shows the workload of all members of a team. The new view can be found in the 'Resource Planning' section of the Analytics console. There,...
The Planned effort field, which was already available in project tasks, has now also become available for change tasks. The planned effort can be specified in task templates to ensure that change managers do not...
New reports continue to be added to the 'Reports' section of 4me's Analytics console. Continue reading
The ability to filter reports was only recently introduced. It appears to be quite popular. Customers have already submitted requests for additional filters, which helps us to decide which filters are important to have. The...
The PDF design field has been added for approval tasks of changes and projects. This field is also available in change and project task templates when their category is ‘Approval’. Continue reading
Change managers are going to appreciate this usability improvement. When someone starts to register a new change and selects a change template, 4me is now going to remember this selection. The benefit is that the...
An extra option has been added to the Trigger field of automation rules. It is the option ‘After delay’. Continue reading
When you open a change or project in View mode and you click on a task within the small Gantt chart that is presented at the bottom of the screen, this task is presented in...
To ensure that change managers do not unintentionally affect a change template when they update a task template, they are now warned when this could happen. A warning is displayed when a change manager opens...
Change managers have provided some useful feedback that has helped us perfect the Gantt Chart interface they use to plan their changes. The results are the following 3 usability improvements: Continue reading
The interface that change managers use to manage their changes has drastically improved. With this new interface, change managers can plan a change using a graphical representation (a Gantt chart) of the implementation plan. Continue...
Any person who has the Account Designer or Account Administrator role can add automation rules to the tasks of the changes or projects they manage. What's probably more important is that they can also add...
When you receive an automated email notification from 4me, for example because a request has been registered for you, you can reply to this email. Your reply then gets added to the request as a...
4me's Change Calendar has been improved again. These enhancements were introduced specifically for organizations that implement hundreds of changes each week. When they open their Change Calendar without any filtering, the sheer number of planned...
A few useful features have been added to the 4me Change Calendar. These improvements were added to ensure that very large support organizations, which manage hundreds of services, are still able to make effective use...
A minor, but useful, enhancement has been made available for change managers. When you open a change in View mode, you will notice that the graphical workflow representation no longer shows the start of the...
4me makes it possible to mark assignments as urgent. This can be useful in situations where a request, problem or task requires immediate attention. When a support organization knows that certain types of requests or...
The Duplicate functionality has been extended to all templates. Service desk managers are now able to select an existing request template and use its information to create a new one. This can be useful when...
If you were at InfraVision's 4me Customer Event today, you would already know about the new Mentions feature. This exciting new feature allows you to 'mention' someone when you are adding a note to, for...
One of the unique features of 4me is that it allows two companies that both use 4me to establish a trust relation. Among other things, a trust relation makes it possible for one or both...
To ensure that end-users provide all information necessary to complete a specific type of request, support organizations add UI extensions to their request templates. These UI extensions deliver the fields that need to be filled...
A while ago, the Waiting until field was added to the Request form. This field makes it possible to tell 4me when you would like to be reminded to continue working on a request. Now...
Yes, the UI extension functionality has been extended again. This time we concentrated on making it possible to add custom fields to the Task form. When you want to add some fields to a specific...
The Instructions section is now also available in tasks. It can be used to provide instructions for the task's assignee(s), just like the Instructions section of requests. The information in the Instructions section can be...
Sometimes it is important that a change does not get implemented before a certain date. Change managers can use the 'Start no earlier than' field of implementation tasks to specify the moment at which the...
The experience has become a little different for change managers when they edit a change. When they click on one of the change's tasks, this task no longer opens inside the change form. Instead, it...
The Service Hierarchy Browser (SHB) provides information that could be relevant for the request that you are working on. For example, it lists the child service instances and configuration items (CIs) that the service instance...
Since your Inbox console now provides real-time information, we were able to introduce another useful feature. This feature shows you a warning whenever you are working in the Inbox console on a request, problem or...
Over the past weeks we have been extending the infrastructure of the 4me service. A major component has been added that delivers real-time updates in your inbox. It makes sure that when a request, problem or...
Approvers are now able to review all the requests that are linked to the changes they have been asked to approve. The requests can be opened directly from their approval tasks in 4me Mobile or...
A new view has been added to the Records console for changes. It is the 'Changes for My Team's Services' view. When you open this view, it lists the changes that are linked to a...
For a while now, it has been possible to assign an approval task to multiple approvers. When the minimum number of approvals have been given, or when one of the approvers rejects the task, the...
Most tasks are generated automatically from a task template and do not get updated by the change manager. The context for the work that someone is asked to perform is typically provided by the related...
End-users are now able to use their smartphones to submit and track their requests. Their managers are also able to approve changes. And all users can review the broadcast messages that are targeted at them....
Organizations that include a user acceptance testing step in their application change management workflow are now able to let their customers attach the test results to their approval tasks. This works for approvers who use...
Organizations can save themselves a lot of frustration, time and money when they do not try to register the technical attributes of their configuration items in their CMDB (see Afraid of the CMDB?). It is...
More and more, organizations are using UI extensions to ask their users to define their requirements by filling out some required fields. That can dramatically improve the efficiency with which standard service requests get processed....
Approval tasks are included in automated workflows to obtain digital sign off on changes from the necessary approvers. A new feature has just been added that dramatically increases the flexibility of an organization's approval process....
Companies with IT departments in multiple countries typically have one 4me account for each IT department. In such environments, the end-users of each country are registered in the 4me account of their local IT department....
Task templates are used extensively to define standard workflows for the Change Management and Request Fulfilment processes. To make these workflows more dynamic, three assignment options have been added for task templates. The first is...
If you want to take a look at the changes that are currently progressing through the change management process, you can go to the Records console and open the "All Changes" view. This view can...
The workflow of a change can consist of many tasks. Some of these may ask for information that is relevant for other tasks later on. For example, during the risk and impact analysis a specialist...
