Remedyforce Consulting: 15 reasons to upgrade to BMC Remedyforce Winter 15

By Kedar Zavar, Senior Consultant, Cloudaction


BMC Remedyforce is the fastest-growing “ITSM in the cloud” solution, and the BMC Remedyforce team continues to push the envelope, innovating and reaching new heights with every release. Remedyforce Winter 15 Release is no exception to the rule. As an integral part of the Remedyforce consulting ecosystem, we at Cloudaction can’t wait to share the news with our communities.

With Winter 15 we see the BMC Remedyforce team continue its winning streak by providing solid reaffirmation of its total commitment to making the solution the most complete and feature-rich cloud-based help desk solution in the world.

While there is much to admire about the new release, here are my top 15 reasons for upgrading to Winter 15.

  1. SLA calculation based on different time zones. Key benefit: This gives you the ability to calculate Service Level Agreements based on different business hours. This allows clients to be able to track SLAs on accounts that have different business hours.
  2. Introduction of the dashboard and QuickViews from Remedyforce console tab. Key benefits: First, staff members can use their dashboards and team dashboards to see a list of records assigned to them or their teams. This applies to my incidents, tasks, change requests and specific queue incidents. Second, CMDB Dashboard’s superb out-of-box reporting is now available for Configuration items. E.g., you can run a report on top 5 CIS by incidents, problems, or the top 5 Configuration items related to Incident, Problems and Changes. You can also run a report by configuration item classes.
  3. Ability to migrate Remedyforce data between Salesforce environments using Pentaho. Key benefit: Admins will surely have a piece of mind as they do not have manually repeat configuration on multiple environments. By using Pentaho packages you can move categories, service requests, templates SLAs, Status, impact urgency, priority and quick views.
  4. Remedyforce Chat. Key benefit: The chat functionality is integrated for staff and end users. This improves you support channels by having instant communication that can be documented and shared. It is simple and available right out of the box.
  5. The ability to apply filters on Service Request input fields. Key benefit: BMC Service request is already a powerful module. This takes the Request Definition design flexibility to the next level. You can restrict the data that customers see’s in the Service Request.
  6. Salesforce1 mobile. Key enhancements include:
    • Search knowledge articles before saving the record
    • Service targets icon
    • Agents can create and update tasks
    • Enhanced user interface for views and dashboards
    • View action history on incidents and tasks
  7. Ability to have more than one “from address” for email conversations. Key benefit: Staff can now select different from addresses. E.g., ITsupport@yourcompanyname.com or hrsupport@yourcompanyname.com. This gives your help desk team the ability to brand their departments support with clear communication.
  8. Licensing reports out of box. Key benefit: You can track the licenses through reports such as License Metric Report.
  9. Ability to create/add “Clients” from Incident form. Key benefit: This new feature offers more flexibility for the staff with the ability to add client records from the Incident form without going to workspaces.
  10. Better Incident matching with parent and child linking options. Key benefit: Staff can link parent records to child, or child records to the parent.
  11. Enhance search options on consoles. Key benefits: First, the user tab gives you the flexibility to search on look up fields and as well the ability to search on filtered list view records. Next, the administrative tab provides easy navigation to get the configuration you are looking for, which is very beneficial for administrators.
  12. Web API calls with BMC Remedyforce. Key benefit: External web services can be called using Remedyforce. Web API configuration is now located on Remedyforce administration tab. Take Remedyforce to next level with simple integrations.
  13. Look up filters on self-service. Key benefit: This feature gives you the ability to restrict the data being shown to users.
  14. Ability to sort pick lists in Service Request creation. Key benefit: When creating a pick list within Service Request you have the ability to sort the values after creation.
  15. Paused duration of cancelled service targets consideration in SLA calculation. Key benefit: Paused duration of a cancelled service target can now be used to calculate the elapsed time of a new service target applied to each of those records.

At Cloudaction, our goal is to help you get maximum value from your Remedyforce experience. We welcome your comments and suggestions. Please don’t hesitate to contact us at 1-844-2CLOUDA (1-844-225-6832) or via Ask Us NOW!, a complimentary service from Cloudaction to provide expert answers to your product capability, functionality, and implementation questions. We promise to respond to your inquiry or question within 24 hours.