New Version of Numara FootPrints Introduces Unprecedented Levels of Service Desk Efficiency
Significant Usability Enhancements Drive New User Experience, Out-of-the-Box IT Asset Management Integration and Deeper Best Practice Support
Tampa, Fla. (November 10, 2009) –
Numara® Software, Inc., a leader in service management and asset management solutions for IT professionals, today announced the release of Numara® FootPrints® 9.5, the latest version of its award-winning Numara FootPrints service desk management solution. With a more flexible design and simplified interface, Numara FootPrints 9.5 streamlines cumbersome workflow and tasks while increasing time to productivity. The solution’s alignment with industry best practices and use of modern technologies allows organizations to effectively automate a variety of service processes and deliver world-class customer support, all at an extremely low cost of ownership.
To deliver these new features, Numara Software partnered with a leading usability research firm to better understand how customers use Numara FootPrints, and to study their “movements” throughout their service delivery and problem lifecycle processes to uncover ways to streamline their tasks and workflows. Together they conducted deep task analysis with numerous customers in order to shape the user interface and navigation around the way agents work today, and significantly increase performance, productivity and integration. In addition, a large group of current and potential customers participated in extensive beta testing to validate the design and usability of the solution.
“One of the benefits of having such a large and global customer base is that we’re able to work closely with organizations of all sizes, industries and IT maturity to determine their varying service and asset management needs,” said Matt Dircks, vice president of product strategy for Numara Software. “We took feedback from our customers that are working with Numara FootPrints every day to improve the overall usability of the solution. Working with our customers also helped validate our strategy of creating meaningful, seamless integration between the IT service management and IT asset management processes.”
“We’ve been using Numara FootPrints for IT service management and ITIL for over five years, and we’re really excited about the extensive usability enhancements in the new version,” said Beth Richwine, administrator at Red Gold. “Being a part of the customer usability study was a great experience for us, and really reinforced the company’s dedication to its customers. Already, Numara FootPrints has allowed us to reduce inefficiencies and unnecessary costs, increase communication and present our value to the organization in ways that we couldn’t before. The enhancements in Numara FootPrints 9.5 align with our work processes – especially the new ‘quick fill’ feature and color coding for priorities – which will save us a lot of time and give our agents an even bigger productivity boost than before.”
The newly optimized user interface – with quick in-line editing, easy-to-access icons and priority item coloring – shaves minutes off of the tasks service desks agents perform most frequently, such as updating tickets and monitoring hot issues. In addition, tighter integration with IT asset management and desktop management tools improves visibility and control of the IT environment, while enhanced Change Management, Configuration Management and Service Catalog functionality lets customers increase alignment with industry best practices and improve overall support. Lastly, Numara FootPrints 9.5 offers 64-bit installs for Windows and Linux so it integrates seamlessly with modern and evolving business environments.
“Ease of implementation, integration and configuration of their IT service tool has become increasingly important for IT organizations,” states David Coyle, Gartner research vice president. “IT organizations want quicker implementations due to limited budgets and a need to prove quicker return on investment (ROI), but also because they want to follow industry (ITIL) best practices and don’t want to customize.”
Key new features in Numara FootPrints 9.5, include:
Enhanced Experience
* Highly Intuitive, Accessible Interface: New home screen and customizable toolbar – with a layout that “thinks the way users do” – provides easy access to the most frequently used options, resulting in quicker resolution, better results and improved customer satisfaction.
* Enhanced Usability: New usability features help agents and customers alike accomplish more tasks, faster. Easy-to-access icons, varied font colors to highlight priorities and in-line editing enables users to input, update and act on information more efficiently.
* Efficient and Flexible Workflow: A redesigned user interface allows users to complete the most common tasks without leaving the main screen, and customization capabilities allow them to design and change their workflow quickly. Role-based policies provide more control, prevent unnecessary requests and simplify security enforcement.
Improved Workflow Integration
* Comprehensive Change Management: Expanded workflow options and simplified change request distribution improves change process support and streamlines change management.
* Tighter Service Level Management: Role-based service level field permissions and customizable Service Level Agreements (SLA) schedules ensure optimal service desk quality with improved SLA management.
* Streamlined Configuration Management: Automatic Configuration Item (CI) linking and the ability to include CI information in email notices anticipate the information needed and help distribute it to the appropriate stakeholders.
* Integration with the Numara Asset Management Platform (NAMP): Lets usersdynamically populate vital information about assets in incidents, problems and change requests for deeper incident and problem resolution.
Updated Technology
* New 64-bit Support: Allows organizations to stay current as the new standard for x64 servers becomes the preferred hardware for Windows and Linux servers.
* Inclusion of Ajax Controls: Improves usability and performance.
Designed for mid-sized to large organizations, Numara FootPrints is the market leader for real-world, practical IT service management, delivering unparalleled value with a highly flexible workflow platform for managing the service desk and other business processes. The solution not only allows organizations to centralize IT business processes, but also supports advanced technology options and industry best practices, including ITIL v3, and is a certified toolset that has been verified by Pink Elephant through its PinkVERIFY(TM) Program. Numara FootPrints 9.5 has also been assessed and verified for Incident, Problem, Change, Configuration, Service Catalog and Knowledge Management, along with Request Fulfillment. The ITIL functionality is designed directly into the solution, which tightly integrates all of the ITIL processes. The uncomplicated, cost-effective design of Numara FootPrints 9.5 doesn’t require complex programming or third party-consultants to get up and running, increasing time to productivity and lowering total cost of ownership.
For more information about Numara FootPrints 9.5, including a webinar on the new features or a product overview, please visit: www.numarasoftware.com.
###
Contact:
Liz Boal
Greenough Communications
617.275.6522
lboal@greenoughcom.com
About Numara Software
With more than 55,000 customer sites worldwide, Numara Software is a global leader in delivering practical, flexible solutions that allow IT organizations to improve service to their end-users. Our integrated IT service management and IT asset management software platforms enable organizations to efficiently automate a wide variety of IT related tasks and processes using interoperable solutions from a single, proven vendor. Widely known for our dedicated focus on ease of use and affordability for our customers, our IT solutions deliver fast time-to-value, increased control, and reduced risk for small businesses to large companies. For more information, visit: www.numarasoftware.com.
Source: Numara