The more I work with customers and teach our Asset Management course, the more I come across useful little tidbits related to asset management that I believe many organizations can use. Because most of these tasks need to be performed by System Administrators, they are not explicitly covered in the Asset Management course.
With Knowledge 14 coming up at the end of the month, I thought it would be a good opportunity to share these items. In the week leading up to K14, I will post some videos and blog posts with these different tips. The fun starts on Monday, April 21 some discussion about asset tags and moves through other tips related to asset management. Join me then on the Community site and watch for notifications of the posts on Twitter and the ServiceNow Community on Google+ with the hashtag #RoadToKnowledge.
In the meantime, have you put together your K14 schedule yet? With so many great sessions and labs to select from, it can be difficult to determine what sessions are going to be the most beneficial. Alas, it is impossible to attend all sessions.
(Thanks to rfedoruk for the meme)
I have gone through the possible sessions and labs with a focus on asset management and put together my recommendations to help you plan your schedule. These are my thoughts on topics and why. I hope you find this useful. I listed the labs and sessions in an order that would allow you to attend many of the ones I recommend. Some are offered multiple times or as self-paced and are indicated as such.
Top 5 Asset-related Labs
All labs this year use the upcoming Eureka release, so you not only learn, but you can get a preview of some great upcoming capabilities. My recommendations here are based on a review of these labs.
- Asset 101: Cover Your Assets (and Configuration Items!) - Tuesday, April 29, 1:20 - 3:20 pm or Thursday, May 1, 10:10 am - 12:10 pm
- I will admit to bias on this suggestion. I am leading this lab with Bryan Boyle, the director of Asset Management Development. We cover how assets and configuration items (and not just IT assets and CIs) relate to one another and work in conjuction in ServiceNow and how contract management fits in to asset management.
- I will admit to bias on this suggestion. I am leading this lab with Bryan Boyle, the director of Asset Management Development. We cover how assets and configuration items (and not just IT assets and CIs) relate to one another and work in conjuction in ServiceNow and how contract management fits in to asset management.
- Field Normalization: Provide Better Data Consistency - Tuesday, April 29, 3:40 - 5:40 pm or as a self-paced lab
- Do you trust your data? Did you know the ServiceNow platform provides the ability to normalize and transform data to ensure better consistency, which gets you better reports? Learn how to leverage it in this session with Steve Bandow and Aleck Lin.
- Do you trust your data? Did you know the ServiceNow platform provides the ability to normalize and transform data to ensure better consistency, which gets you better reports? Learn how to leverage it in this session with Steve Bandow and Aleck Lin.
- Vendor Performance Management: Assess Vendors Objectively - Wednesday, April 30, 10:10 am - 12:10 pm
- At the most basic level, vendor management might mean simply identifying what items you purchase from the vendors you deal with, but true vendor management goes well beyond that. From contracts to satisfaction with the vendor. Mike Zachary and Lisa Henderson take you through the new Vendor Performance Management capabilities originally made available in the Dublin release in this hands-on lab.
- At the most basic level, vendor management might mean simply identifying what items you purchase from the vendors you deal with, but true vendor management goes well beyond that. From contracts to satisfaction with the vendor. Mike Zachary and Lisa Henderson take you through the new Vendor Performance Management capabilities originally made available in the Dublin release in this hands-on lab.
- IT Cost Management: Measure, Allocate, and Report IT Spend - Wednesday, April 30, 4:00 - 6:00 pm
- Asset management is invariably linked with financial management. Dave Knight and Giora "GT" Tamir take you through how to roll expenses up for your business services and tie them into a budget.
- Asset management is invariably linked with financial management. Dave Knight and Giora "GT" Tamir take you through how to roll expenses up for your business services and tie them into a budget.
- Asset 102: Track Licenses with Software Asset Management - Thursday, May 1, 12:40 - 2:40 pm or Tuesday, April 29, 3:40 - 5:40 pm
- Another biased suggestion, but if you are a software asset manager, this is a must attend session. Not only do you learn how to manage software licenses in ServiceNow, but Bryan Boyle and I introduce you to some of the new capabilities in Eureka that help you better manage your licenses and compliance.
Honorable mention: Work Management: Power Mobile Worker Productivity with Geolocation - Wednesday, April 30, 10:10 am - 12:10 pm - If you have a field services team, you may want to skip the Vendor Performance Management session and instead attend this. Ben Hollifield and Melissa Moghaddam take you through how to effectively manage field services with geolocation and the ITSM and asset capabilities in the ServiceNow platform.
Sessions
You can learn a lot in the labs, but customers are doing great things, and Knowledge is about sharing. Customers deliver 90% of the sessions at Knowledge and there are some great topics to learn from what others are doing. I have collected them below with my thoughts on why they are important. Some of these do overlap with labs, so you will need to make some tough decisions still.
- Innovating Healthcare Technology Management - Tuesday, April 29, 9:50 am - 10:40 am
- I saw Chris Bailey from ProHealth Care and Tommy Lee from ServiceNow present this solution at the Wisconsin User Group meeting earlier this year. I love this presentation because it shows how to manage non-IT devices in ServiceNow, integrates with an external source for healthcare technology to get not only model information, but recall and support information, and leverages a lot of the ServiceNow platform in the process. This is a must-attend for healthcare providers, and I even recommend it for non-healthcare providers who manage asset and configuration in their environments.
- The ITAM Journey - How to Navigate Your Path to ITAM Success - Tuesday, April 29, 1:20 - 2:10 pm (overlaps with the first offering of Asset 101 lab)
- Shabaab Mazhar and Matthew Stroop from Cardinal Health share how they implemented their asset management lifecycle in ServiceNow. This is a great opportunity to see how they applied their processes in the platform.
- Data Driven Asset Management - Best Practice Approach - Tuesday, April 29, 3:40 - 4:30 pm (overlaps with Field Normalization lab)
- Rick Piatak from Cardinal Health and Jim Uomini from the University of San Francisco share their experiences and insights with ServiceNow and the importance of normalized data, particularly as it pertains to software asset management. In Cardinal's case, Rick also covers the work they did with BDNA to get normalized software data.
- IT Asset Management Best Practices - Tuesday, April 29, 4:50 - 5:40 pm (overlaps with Field Normalization lab)
- While this is not a customer session, Martin Thompson, founder of The ITAM Review, shares his insights from work with organizations around the world.
- Eliminating Blind Spots with Asset Management - Wednesday, April 30, 2:50 - 3:40 pm
- Abercrombie & Fitch has over 1000 stores worldwide with assets and consumables to manage in each. Dennis Kelly shares how A&F integrated their existing systems and BDNA to provide a robust asset management solution.
- Using Mobile Scanners to Improve IT Asset Data Accuracy - Wednesday, April 30, 4:00 - 4:50 pm (overlaps with IT Cost Management lab)
- One of the most common questions I have seen lately is "How do I effectively use barcode scanners with Asset Management in ServiceNow?" Robert Little from Santander Consumer USA shares how they did this.
- Top 5 Tips to Solve Your Software Asset Management Challenge - Thursday, May 1, 10:10 - 11:00 am (overlaps with second offering of Asset 101)
- Software asset management is a key aspect of an overall asset management practice. Ruben Ricalde from Delphi Corporation shares how they took control of over 14 million software installs with the proper people and processes.
- Automating and Integrating IT Procurement - Thursday, May 1, 1:50 - 2:40 pm (overlaps with second offering of Asset 102)
- Integration of asset management to request and procurement processes provides your organization with significant benefits, including better automation and simplified reporting and receiving. United Surgical Partners International moved from a SharePoint-based process for this to ServiceNow. Rodney Betts and Dustin Spain share how they did this in one of the final sessions of the conference.
Honorable mention: If you work with Ariba, you may be interested in the KPMG session Bridging the Gap Between Procurement and Asset Management. It runs on Tuesday, April 29 from 9:50 - 10:40 am, the same time as another session listed above.
I hope these suggestions help you plan a successful Knowledge14 adventure! See you there!
