Enterprise Service Management Glossary of Terms

Overview

The University of Alaska Enterprise Service Management (ESM) system uses a variety of terms throughout its interface. This article list those terms and definitions for reference.

ESM Glossary of Terms
Term Definition
Account Attributes Custom Attributes specific to Acct/Depts.
Acct/Dept The Acct/Dept field represents the University of Alaska department for which the ticket, project, or asset is associated with.
Alternate Manager Within the Project & Portfolio Management (PPM) module this is the second manager on a project. The Primary Manager has the ability to change the project manager while the Alternate Manager cannot perform that function.
Announcement Project wide communications to the project's resources, stakeholders, and/or contacts.
Analysis Provides tools to generate reports and analyzing information. The data is pulled directly from projects, tickets, requests, and resources throughout the ESM suite.
App Admin A role assigned to 1-5 individuals affiliated with a specific ESM Application (e.g. Ticketing App) that are responsible for the day-to-day maintenance, form creation, department user training, etc.
Application Menu The route to opening applications within TDNext.
Article A specific entry within the Knowledge Base.
Article Owner The group who manages a Knowledge Base article, and is notified of feedback (depending on the Notify Owner of Feedback setting).
Articles Awaiting Review An area within the Knowledge Base dedicated to all articles which have been Submitted and are in need of review to be Approved and Published.
Asset An asset is any hardware, software, vehicle, or other item within an environment. Assets of a service provider include anything that could contribute to the delivery of a service.
Asset Attributes Custom Attributes specific to Assets.
Assets/CI Allows authorized individuals to easily add and categorize assets, configuration items, vendors, contracts, and locations allowing an institution to track and maintain assets such as hardware, software, vehicles, etc., as well as configuration items, cost-effectively.
Blackout Windows Times during which changes cannot be scheduled or performed.
Briefcase Repository of files related to a project, organized into folders.
Client A person whom can authenticate to TDClient and access areas such as the Service Catalog, Knowledge Base, and their requests.
Configuration Item Attributes Custom Attributes specific to Configuration Items.
Configuration Item Components of an infrastructure that currently is, or soon will be under configuration management. CIs include both Assets of the environment and Services that are provided.
Contact A record of contact information (name, phone, email, etc.) of an individual, nothing can be associated to a Contact, nor can they authenticate to the environment.
Contacts People associated with a project. Automatically includes any listed project resources and stakeholders.
Contract Attributes Custom Attributes specific to Contracts.
Contracts Documentation of a Contract (e.g. service agreements, warranty) that is associated with an Asset.
Creator The individual whom created the item (e.g. ticket, project request, asset, etc.) It is possible fro the requestor to also be the creator.
Custom Attributes Custom attributes provide the ability to create fields for data capture.
Customer A People record of a person that should be included within communication associated with a ticket, or project. A Customer cannot login and access the ESM system.
Description The full details of a request, including any appropriate circumstances or supplementary information that may aid in completing it.
Desktop A collection of reports that give a snapshot view of current activity within the ESM environment.
Enterprise Admins A group of individuals affiliated with Major Administrative Units (MAUs) central IT departments responsible for the overall ESM system. Facilitates on boarding new departments into the platform, and serves as a point of escalation for App Admins.
Evaluator A specific person that reviews, process, and analyze a project request.
Event An activity that occurs within a specific project on a certain time and date, this is similar to a calendar entry.
Expense Account (Expense Type)  
Feed An audit trail, with time and date, of all activity on the entry (ticket, project, issue, asset, etc.) The Feed also supports comments to communicate with resources on the entry.
File Cabinet

Allows individuals to post and access project knowledge cataloged in the File Cabinet. Individuals may search the File Cabinet according to custom file classifications as defined by the university. In addition to posting and accessing data, the dashboard gives individuals a profile of activity within the File Cabinet.
File Cabinet Attributes Custom Attributes specific to the File Cabinet.
Finance Generate invoices based upon billable time and expenses tracked in the Time & Expenses. The Finance application allows managers to create invoices and integrate them with an accounting system.
Functional Roles Define the primary and secondary job duties that a user performs. After defining a set of Functional Roles, individuals will need to be assigned these values as this will help project managers assign individuals based on their capabilities.
Groups A collection of people, groups serve the purpose of assigning responsibility, content sharing, and content visibility/permissions.
ID Unique identifier of an item that is a numeric ID, i.e. "123456." This number does not change as modification are made to the item.
Impact A factor in determining the priority of a ticket. It is the measure of the effect of an incident on business processes. Criteria to calculate impact include, amount of potential financial losses and amount of affected people.
Industries Industries are tied Acct/Dept to help with organizational grouping of departments to their parent Major Administrative Unit (MAU). 
Incident An unplanned interruption to a service or reduction in the quality of a service. In other words, something is broken and needs to be fixed. For example, a university computer being unable to start, or a multi-function device being unable to scan-to-email. Incidents are usually unplanned, have a limited effect on one customer or service, and need more immediate resolution.
Incident Management The process responsible for managing the lifecycle of all Incidents. The primary objective of Incident Management is to return the service to customers as quickly as possible.
Incident Record Record containing the details of an Incident. Each Incident record documents the lifecycle of a single Incident.
Issue Issues are problems, gaps, inconsistencies, or conflicts that occur unexpectedly in the lifecycle of a project.
Issue Attribute A version of Custom Attributes specific to project issues.
Knowledge Base The Knowledge Base is the Enterprise Service Management solution for Knowledge Management. According to ITIL, Knowledge Management aims to gather, analyze, store, and share knowledge and information within an organization. The primary purpose of Knowledge Management is to improve efficiency by reducing the need to rediscover knowledge.
Knowledge Base Category In the Knowledge Base, a category is a grouping that organizes articles.
Licensed User A licensed user refers to a person who has a paid ESM license associated to their account. These individuals can access TDNext.
Location The reference to a place, often a building, of which an asset is located, or is associated with a service request/incident ticket.
Location Room The reference to the specific room within a Location of which an asset is located, or is associated with a service request/incident ticket.
Long Description A comprehensive description of a Service.
Maintenance Schedules Period of time designated in advance by the technical staff, during which preventive maintenance that could cause disruption of service, may be performed.
Major Incident A significant disruption to the university business. 
My Accomplishments Section within My Work application that lists the authenticated person's completed tasks, tickets, and issues.
My Approvals Section within My Work application that lists approvals for resource requests, tie reports, project requests, and service requests assigned to the authenticated person.
My Articles An area within Knowledge Base dedicated to all articles the authenticated person is the owner of.
My Assignments Section within My Work application that lists what has been assigned to the authenticated person.
My Schedule Section within My Work application that lists the hours the authenticated person is scheduled for on a project or workspace.
My Work A comprehensive application built for Licensed Users. Individuals can easily see the tickets, tasks, and issues to which they are assigned, make updates, track time, manage projects (when applicable) and access briefcase files.
Order A means to sort the entry by order value when displayed.
People A part of the ESM system that manages all People records that can be used for the purposes of work tracking (i.e. Tickets), Asset Management, and Projects (e.g. stakeholders project team members, etc.) All active UA students, staff, and faculty are automatically provisioned within the ESM system.
Person Attribute A version of Custom Attributes specific to People records.
Primary Manager A project can have two managers, Primary Manager and Alternate Manager. The Primary Manager has the ability to change the project manager while the Alternate Manager cannot perform that function.
Primary Responsibility The person or group that is listed as responsible for the completion of the ticket.
Priority Based on impact and urgency, and is used to identify required time s for actions to be taken.
Portfolio Planning Manage project requests through request workflows additionally analyze project request alongside other requests and existing projects to allow for planning and what-if scenarios.
Portfolios Allows individuals to manage and view portfolios.
Product Model Attributes A version of Custom Attributes specific to Asset Product Models.
Product Models A listing of the specific model of an Asset.
Product Types Classify Asset product models into types such as "Laptop."
Project Attribute A version of Custom Attributes specific to Projects.
Project Attribute Sections A section used to organize Project Attributes into on section, likely because the attributes are related in some manner.
Project Name The project name is the title to identify this project.
Project Requests Allows users to submit project requests into the Portfolio Planning application from the service portal (i.e. Client Portal).
Project Request Status: Approved  
Project Request Status: Declined  
Project Request Status: Not Submitted  
Project Request Status: Other Status  
Project Request Status: Submitted  
Project Templates Predefined elements (announcements, briefcase, calendar, contacts, issues, links, risks, plans) that can be applied to an existing project. Allows authorized individuals to create templates for projects which can than be applied to new or in-process projects.
Project Type A project type is a main (and required) component of a project and is meant to classify the nature of the project.
Project Type Categories Used for organization and for reporting (if desired), it is a grouping of alike Project Types.
Related Articles Relationships to other Knowledge Base articles that display when individuals view the article.
Related Processes Identify which processes would be impacted if this project were to occur.
Relationship Types A descriptor of the type of relationship between two Assets/Configuration Items. Each Relationship Type has a 'reverse description', for example "is ran on" and "runs."
Request Form The custom form associated with a service that the requestor will complete on the Service Portal.
Requestor The individual that is asking for service to be preformed.
Resource A person whom is added as a member of a project to add value by completing tasks and/or managing the project.
Resource Management Allows individuals to review and manage resource requests and overall resource allocation.
Resource Pools Typically classified by functional area or by Resource Management area responsible for assigning resources to projects.
Response Template Used to populate the comments field when updating the status of a ticket.
Response Template Categories Used for organization within a ticketing application by grouping like Response Templates.
Responsible Group The group of people that is primary responsible for the completion of a ticket.
Reviewer A person who can be notified when a ticket comes in; however, they are not made responsible for the ticket. Tickets that one is a review for can be found in the Awaiting My Review section in the ticketing application.
Role Forecasts Identify the skill sets and amount of estimated hours needed to achieve a project. A named human resource will not be assigned until the project request has been graduated to a project.
Score Card To accurately assess multiple project requests compare them against the same metrics. The score card will generate a score for the project request committee to utilize in prioritizing projects.
Service The specific offering or activity performed that achieves outcomes for the customer without the ownership of the costs and risks. Services in ESM all resides in the Service Catalog on the Service Portal.
Service Offering A Service Offering is a component of a Service, which includes their own details, form, settings, and configuration item and relationships. Each service can be directly requestable, or have one or more service offerings.
Services The Services section of the Service Portal that allows individuals to browser the contents of the Service Catalog.
Service Catalog The list of all internal, and external Services that are offered by the organization.
Service Catalog Category In the Service Catalog, a category is a grouping that organizes services.
Service Level Agreement (SLA) Contract between a service provider (either internal or external) and the client that defines the level of service expected from the service provider. Configured to achieve Respond By and Resolve By metrics in defined time amounts.
Service Manager The individual or group who is primary responsible for maintaining and updating the service as appropriate.
Short Description An abbreviated description of the service, limited to 1,000 characters. It is seen in grey text under the service name when browsing the service catalog.
Source An indication of where the ticket request is coming from (e.g. Service Portal, email, phone, etc.)
Sponsor A key resource that assist with project matters such as funding, scope clarification, progress monitoring, and assumes responsibility for the request.
Standard Reports Found in many of the applications, most notably Analysis, these are delivered/out-of-the-box ESM reports.
Status

Represents the state the entity (ticket, project, issue, etc.) is in. Each ticketing app includes seven (7) default ticket status which  can be customized to meet a group's unique business needs.

The default statuses are:

  • New - Indicates that the ticket has been received but has not been assigned to an individual person.
  • Open - Indicates that an incident has been assigned to a group, or individual.
  • In Process - Indicates that a ticket has been assigned to a group, or individual, and is in the process of being worked but has not yet been resolved.
  • Resolved - Indicates that the individual working the ticket has confirmed the request/issue has been resolved.
  • Closed - Indicates that the client has acknowledged that the ticket has been fulfilled/resolved to their satisfaction.
  • Canceled - Indicates that a ticket has been canceled and no further action needs to be taken.
  • On Hold - Indicates that a ticket requires some information, or response, from the customer or a third party. The ticket is placed on hold so that SLA response deadlines are not exceeded while waiting for a response.
Status Class

Represents a collection of similar statuses each represents a different state of ticket progress. There are five (5) status classes available, these are:

  • New - Indicates that work on a ticket has not been started, or has not been accepted
  • In Process - Indicates that a ticket has been accepted, but work on it has not been completed. This counts as an SLA response.
  • Completed - Indicates that wok on a ticket has been completed. This counts as both an SLA response, and resolution.
  • Cancelled - Indicates that work on a ticket has been cancelled.
  • On Hold - Indicates that work on a ticket has been suspended but may continue later.

Any number of statuses can be created on a per ticketing app level to make it easier for department employees, as well as customers to process tickets and understand at which stage a ticket is current in.

Completed and Cancelled status classes can be set to "Do Not Reopen" by App Admins. This setting prevents the system from automatically updating the status on these tickets, and should be used for a "final" status that you do not expect to change.

On Hold statues can be set to "Requires Goes Off Hold" by App Admins. This setting makes the system prompt the department ticketing user for the time when the ticket will be automatically be taken off hold, at which time it will revert to its previous status. If a Goes Off Hold value is supplied it should be noted that the processor which handles bringing tickets off hold runs at 15 minute intervals. This means it is entirely possible for a ticket to drop off hold on the designated date up to ~15 minutes later than the specific configured time, depending on where that ticket falls within a given processing sweep.
Survey A questionnaire to be sent to the requestor following the completion of a project or ticket.
Systems Affected Identify which systems would be impacted if this project were to occur.
Tags Labels attached to a service, article, or ticket for the means of identification or improving search results.
Task Template Predefined list of tasks that are in order and may include predecessors, that can be applied to an existing ticket.
TDAdmin Administrative setup interface used to configure ESM.
TDClient Client/end-user interface accessible by all individuals. Also commonly refereed to as Client Portal, or Service Portal.
TDMobile An interface designed for devices that cannot access TDClient or TDNext. It provides basic and responsive access to some parts of ESM.
TDNext TDNext is a foundational application suite upon which most other ESM applications run, allowing authorized individuals to work more effectively and report on data.
TeamDynamix The Software as a Service (SaaS) system used to power the university's ESM platform. Also commonly referenced as TDX.
Ticket A specific request for service, report an issue, or project request.
Ticket Application Ticketing applications allows departments to track transactions about services an area provides. Choose to track tickets of applicable Ticket Classifications.
Ticket Classification The indication of the kind of ticket. There are six Ticket Classifications: Incident, Major Incident, Problem, Change, Release, and Service Request. Each Ticket Application can select the specific combination of classifications that suite their business processes.
Ticket ID Unique numerical identifier (e.g. "123456") of a ticket that does not change even if the ticket classification changes.
Ticket Requests Allows individuals to submit tickets into a Ticket Application from the Service Portal
Ticket Type The type field is sued to identify the nature of the work being done on a ticket.
Ticket Type Categories Used for organization and for reporting (if desired), if is a grouping of alike Ticket Types.
Ticket Attributes A version of Custom Attributes specific to Ticket Application.
Time Account (Time Type) The classification of a time entry, this can range from very high level (.e.g ticket time), to a very granular (e.g. research, etc.)
Time & Expense Time & Expense is the route to account for a person's time and expenses on tickets and/or projects. Time & Expenses allows for manager approval or rejection of user submitted time and expense entries.
Title A short description or name to explain the nature of the request.
Update Action to fill in the current condition of the ticket, project, or issue in ESM.
Urgency A factor in determining the priority of a ticket. The time to it takes for an incident to have a significant impact on the department or organization.
User A person record in the system which can authenticate into the ESM system, depending on the level of access the person can access TDNext and/or TDClient.
Vendor The business that serves as the Manufacturer, Supplier, and/or Contract Provider of an Asset.
Vendor Attributes A version of Custom Attributes specific to Vendors.
Workspace A collaborative space that provdes the ability to track initiatives that are similar but not quite a project. Workspaces can have resources assigned and scheduled, time can be tracked against them, and they can even have specific ticket types associated with them.

Need additional help or have issues

For support, requests may be submitted anytime using the appropriate Enterprise Service Management form. Requests generate a Ticket which will be worked in order received and urgency by IT Employees with the knowledge and permissions to assist with the request.

For immediate assistance please review the Contact Us page for the appropriate support group.

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