Finally, the new edition of ARCAD-Customer, which will be released in September, has been completely redesigned to conform 100% to all the principles outlined in ITIL. All ITIL terminology and best practices were considered and integrated. 

We will focus on several particular points in this newsletter:

• We will discuss the various links between ITIL and ISO 20000. If you plan to certify your organization at one time or another, you must consider this aspect. A major feature of ITIL is that it is not a certification.
• We will also discuss an ITIL service that plays a special role: the service desk.
• Finally, we will talk about the new version of ARCAD-Customer, which is decidedly “Service Desk” oriented.

Let me take this opportunity to remind those of you who are already our customers to mark the date of September 25 on your calendar. It is the date of the next users’ forum in Annecy, combined with the opening of our new office. We expect many of you to be there!

Happy reading

Sincerely,

Philippe MAGNE

ITIL comprehensively addresses all aspects of managing an IT department. It can sometimes be difficult, once you get under way, to know where to begin. An initial audit will help you identify the points in your organization that are the weakest. They are the ones that you should start with because they have a very visible impact on your quality of service. Of all the services described in ITIL, one plays a special role: it is the support service that consists of implementing a single point of contact with all users, more commonly known as SPOC for "single point of contact."

Read>>

ISO 20000 certification, a guarantee of “quality of service”?

In this article, we will present the ISO 20000 standard, based on the ITIL framework. Then, we will shed light on the concepts of "Service" and "Quality of Service.” Next, we will look at the requirements and benefits of a certification approach. Finally, we give you our opinion on the answer to this thorny question!

Read>>

It is in the set of Best Practices that is ITIL that one finds the terminology of "Service Desk." Based on the older concepts of "Call Center" or "Help-Desk,” the Service Desk goes beyond mere technical support by proposing an approach based on two fundamental principles:

1. To offer an approach that is much more focused on the user in trying to restore the services that may be deficient as quickly as possible.
2. To focus on the business, the services that the company needs to move forward rather than on technology.

Today companies are aware of the need to equip their support service,  but using a Notes form or an Open Source Bug Tracking application are not sufficient to meet user and market expectations.
With our new version of ARCAD-Customer, we firmly stressed a software solution that will enable companies to adopt the best of ITIL without the overhead inherent in some Help-Desk ERP solutions.

Read>>

This section is dedicated to the users of ARCAD products, to give you little tips and tricks to make your life easier in your daily tasks. In this issue, some information on:

Optimizing file transfer
Do you know that since version 08.07.00, the parameter RPLDTAFIL of the command TFROBJ accepts a new value: *OPTIMIZE?
This value is used to optimize the transfer of large files in particular using CHGPF, CHGLF, ALTER TABLE…  If the type of change does not allow these commands, ARCAD will re-execute the command automatically in default mode: *COPY.

Archiving of versions
Archiving will allow the system to delete the version library, but the version (sources and/or objects) will be 'archived' in the ARCAD DB. The versions thus archived will be visually marked with an 'A,' an archive date will be filled in, and retrieving archived sources will still be possible, including retrieval into a release if necessary!