Aldon Goes 64-Bit with Service Desk Software

Published: May 4, 2010

by Alex Woodie

Aldon this week unveiled a new release of Community Manager, it's all-in-one application for managing IT assets and tasks from business, technical, and operational point-of-views. With CM version 9.5, Aldon introduces the capability to run the software as a 64-bit application, which will bring performance benefits on today's X64 servers. Aldon also streamlined CM's workflow, tightened up its service level management, and made other enhancements.

Community Manager is a Windows application designed to help the IT departments of medium-size and large companies automate their activities within a single, industry-standard framework. In addition to providing an automated workflow to streamline common help desk tasks like reporting bugs in applications or resetting forgotten passwords, the software, with its integrated configuration management database (CMDB), helps IT pros to manage projects and licensing issues, and define and adhere to standard operating procedures (SOP) and service level agreements (SLAs).

Aldon is providing expanded workflow options with version 9.5. With this release, when a user is asked to approve, deny, or defer a request, that user is able to add comments that will be logged in the workflow system.

The distribution of change request information is another improvement in the new release. The vendor says that users will now be able to disseminate change request information to all stakeholders via reports and e-mail notifications. Additionally, CM users will be able to get custom reports that contain all of the change approval information. Users will also be able to more easily see detailed information about the state of change requests.

Aldon also touts tighter SLA management with version 9.5. Specifically, the new release brings new role-based service level field permissions, as well as customizable SLA schedules, which should help to drive optimal help desk service and improve adherence to SLAs.

Better configuration management is another area of improvement with the new release. Aldon says the new capability to link configuration items, or CIs, and distribute this information via e-mail will help stakeholders anticipate information required during software configurations.

The GUI has also been improved with this release. The new home screen in CM 9.5 has been optimized to provide quicker access to the most frequently used options, resulting in quicker resolution and the capability to complete tasks without leaving the home screen, Aldon says.

Other timesaving features added to the GUI with this release include features like "quick edit" and the one-click access for current date and time. New automatic checking for assignees and a new rich text editor also improve usability, Aldon says.

CM is an integrated component of Aldon's Application Lifecycle Manager (ALM) suite, and therefore works directly with Aldon's change management solution for IBM i/OS, called Lifecycle Manager (IBM i Edition), or LMi.

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