Cherwell Software announced the general availability of the newest version of Cherwell Service Management software that enables IT to quickly and easily adapt to today’s ever-changing business landscape. With the power to more easily configure and customize Cherwell Service Management implementation, IT organizations can enhance the user experience while increasing productivity to better utilize scarce resources.

“We are excited to provide customers with the means to design their own Cherwell experience,” said Josh Caid, VP of Cherwell Product Management. “We heard from our customers that they need to more easily customize their Cherwell Service Management environment, thus our focus in this release on the self-service portal and theme editor. We want our customers to be in a position to drive better utilization, from both IT and the business.”

According to Gartner, “IT self-service can address close to half of contacts made to the IT service desk (such as technical support, IT equipment ordering and password reset requests). Currently, 34% of IT organizations provide IT self-service, and an additional 40% are planning to implement it over the next 18 months. Analyst inquiries on IT self-service and IT service support topics indicate that no more than half will successfully complete these activities. By 2017, half of IT organizations will offer IT self-service to business users as an alternative method of contact to phone and email, up from a third in 2014.”

“It is critical to co-create the self-service offering with your business leaders (who pay for the service) and the business user community (who use the service). Timing is crucial when it comes to gathering feedback; often this is left until the user acceptance testing phase of IT self-service rollout, which is far too late to make any significant changes in design or usability,” wrote Chris Matchett, research director at Gartner, et al. “Directly involve key members of your end-user community in any tool selection and portal design process.”

The latest version of Cherwell Service Management software delivers the following features and capabilities:

New Look and Feel and Ease of Use:

- The Self-Service Portal and Service Catalog have been updated with an open, modern design for easy access and ease of use. The polished user experience makes data more accessible and helps users better visualize and interpret information in dashboards.

- The One-Step Visual Workflow designer has a new graphical interface, which allows users to build One-Step actions to customize workflows and automate tasks. Users can simply drag and drop action items into workflows.

- The browser client has been updated for a sleeker appearance and more robust support structure.

Higher Levels of Customization to Address Usability:

- The new Theme Editor/Engine improvements provide rich editing capabilities, which allow users to customize the Cherwell Service Management solution to match their corporate brand for a seamless client experience without the help of scarce development resources.

- A new user-friendly SDK package utility helps users configure interfaces to other systems without the need for extensive programming experience.

Compliance and Controls to Strengthen Data Security:

- All algorithms in use, including SAML, now meet FIPS compliance standards, which better enable customers to better protect their networks, certification and accreditation process.

Improved Scalability and Performance:

- Added functionality to the Server Manager to configure and setup server farms to improve scalability.

- Improved Load Balancing and Scheduler Enhancements to continuously manage tasks between different time zones, and different servers based on business hours.

The new release also includes improvements to out-of-the-box best practices and reporting capabilities, in direct response to customer feedback.