Q: Does Marval offer a subscription-based pricing model, such as Software As A Service (SaaS)?
A: Marval offers a cloud based “Pay as You Go” offering (SaaS). This can either be delivered in the customers own private cloud or can be supplied fully hosted by Marval itself via it’s hosting partners. "Pay as You Go" usage can also be supplied for on premise solutions where customers want to run solutions on their own infrastructure, but gain the benefit of paying for the system from Operational Expenditure (OPEX) budgets rather than Capital Expenditure ones (CAPEX).
Q: How long does it take to log a quick call, for example a 'password reset'?
A: MSM provides a quick call function, which can record standard calls and major incident requests in around 5 to 10 seconds. How we achieve this is simple: you pre-configure how you want the call to be handled, and MSM simply takes over and logs it, while at the same time placing it into a 'closed state'. It also updates all the internal service clocks and classifications.
Q: How many calls and assets can I store in MSM?
A: There are no hardcoded limits within the MSM system and the system is only limited by the Relational database management system (RDBMS) itself. Marval has customers with millions of requests and similar numbers of contacts and assets.
Q: I am an outsource IT service supplier, what are the benefits of my company using MSM software?
A: Because of extensive and thoughtful database development, you can manage all of your customer contracts and service offerings in one tool. You can present your customers with a web view of their own service requests without the need to purchase additional resources. Once your service or maintenance contract is in place you can feel confident that your staff will be free to get on with managing the service that your customers demand.
Q: I am just starting out and in the short-term, I only want to set up a Service Desk to look after my customers. Can I use the Marval tool just for this function?
A: Yes, MSM is modular in nature and individual processes support can be “switched on”, as and when they are needed. This allows customers starting on their journey to begin with the logging of incidents, service requests, SLA monitoring and basic asset management. Once the customer matures (or is ready) and decides to expand product usage into areas such as change and release, capacity, business continuity, etc - they can simply enable this processes within the same tool. The main benefits are that all existing data is retained and the customer can simply start exploiting the new functionality that they are now ready to use. With MSM you have a product for life, one that grows with you business and NOT one that you grow out of.
Q: I am replacing my current help desk system, but I want to retain some of the information stored in it, for example: our customer details, classifications, priorities of some solutions, etc. How can you help with this?
A: Marval provide extensive bulk import, export, and update utilities for getting data in and out of the MSM system. As long as you have a database schema definition of the source data i.e. where data is and what it is called, we can transfer it between systems quickly and easily by mapping the fields between systems.
Q: Can I use my own reporting tool rather than use MSM’s built in reporting and dashboarding?
A: A number of options exist. For customers who have their own preferred corporate reporting tool e.g crystal reports, Business Objects, etc, they can carry on using this as Marval provide a full Entity Relationship Model (ERM) showing where all the key data is stored in the RDBMS. However, Marval has its own powerful reporting and real-time dashboard feature called Xtraction. Xtraction has an easy to use, drag and drop style interface, which allows reports that historically took hours to generate to be created in minutes. In addition to this, MSM is also shipped with a set of industry standard ITSM reports for monitoring standard metrics.
Q: I have HP OpenView for monitoring my network and disks, where all events go to several consoles. Can I import these into MSM easily?
A: Yes. MSM supports and integrates to a large number of system management, automation, and security tools, whose prime functions are to monitor various aspects of your computer infrastructure (eg. computers, networks, applications, and security access). Upon an event being identified, many of these tools can generate an alert, which can automatically be registered and updated in MSM, while at the same time notifying support staff or third party support organizations.
Q: I have just purchased Microsoft SCCM/SCOM for collecting asset information. Can I import this data into MSM?
A: Yes. Once you have decided what operational information you want to pull into MSM you can map this data to be automatically transferred over. In fact, MSM can be interfaced to ALL asset discovery tools that store their data in a non-proprietary database format. E.g. LAN Sweeper, SNOW, Tivoli, etc.
Q: I know to get my service working properly I need to implement Incident, Problem, Asset and Config, but I don't have the resources or funds to do it all at once. Can I implement them over time?
A: Yes, and we would normally recommend that our customers adopt a phased approach. You can rest assured in the knowledge that when ready to implement, all the components will work seamlessly together in a single integrated environment.
Q: Is MSM a web application?
A: MSM a 100% web based system. Unlike many other ITSM systems that offer reduced functionality in their WEB variants, MSM offers ALL features on a browser agnostic platform. No downloads or Active X components are needed. The application is delivered with 3 main interfaces: Support Agent, Customer Self Service and a native mobile interface for both end users and support agents.
Q: Is MSM ITIL® compliant?
A: Marval's integrated IT Service Management (ITSM) software solution, MSM has been successfully certified as ITIL process compliant under the Axelos Swirl ITIL Software Scheme. It was the first product in the market to achieve accreditation for all 16 processes.
Q: Our biggest customer complaint is that we don't keep them informed. How can the Marval solution help?
A: This is an important area where MSM can really help you. MSM provides extensive and easy-to-use functions for automatically keeping both support staff and the customer informed via e-mail (or other communication platforms, including RSS, Twitter, etc). This can be done automatically throughout the lifecycle of the request, for example: when a request is first logged, when an engineer has been called out, when a change request or task has been scheduled, when the request is completed, etc. In fact, at any stage when you feel the customer needs to be kept informed, you can trigger a custom notification.
Q: Why use MSM over the many other ITSM products that are available?
A: Designed from the ground up for Service Management, MSM is installed complete with pre-configured, customisable templates and ITIL/Best Practice workflows as standard; so that your ITIL journey to service excellence can begin immediately. Whilst many other tools offer you a toolkit platform that can be developed over time to meet any customer’s needs, this approach makes some assumptions:
- The customer has the knowledge of what best ITSM practices they should be adopting
- They have the people/resources to conduct the work (even more costs if this has to be outsourced back to the supplier)
- They have the time to develop the system to a satisfactory "Phase 1" and are prepared to endure the continued lack of ITSM tooling until this is done.
Of course, in reality customers look for products because they have a problem today, they are looking to a vendor to provide best practice guidance and have limited time and resources to expend to get there.
MSM is that "ITSM Experience in a box", allowing customers to get live using "canned best practices" in the shortest possible times.