Service Center Upgrade 2

[ChipHiebler]

Our organization is currently running Peregrine Service Center 4.05 and is planning on upgrading to 5.0. Anyone done this upgrade that can reveal the pitfalls or the pros and cons of upgrading from our current version?

Thanks in advance

Chip

 

[umbwebwe]

We migrated from 4.05 to 5.0.1 in October 2002. There are many bugs (specifically in Change Control) that we have identified and are awaiting fixes for. We have 6 open tickets pending SCR. If you have Page list turned off, you will need to turn it back on prior to upgrade. Be careful with macros as even though version 5 rids us of the problem database, macros still require it around. Be careful with notifications--there is a bug in that the body of the text goes in both the title line and body unless an entry is placed on a new tab within the notification engine to override it. Sending approvals into service center from a text pager does not update the approval within change. We had about 20 tickets aside from those still open that we needed Peregrine to help us fix after the upgrade.

My suggestion would be to wait for 5.1 in May/June timeframe.

 

[ChipHiebler]

Thanks. This is a great start. Did your organization perform the upgrade or did you have a contractor perform it? How has Peregrine's recent financial situation affected your service? Is there any projected date for the release to fix your open tickets? How confident are you about the projected release date for 5.1? As you can see, I've got quite a few questions. Any help or additional insight is truly appreciated. Thanks.

 

[umbwebwe]

We have always done our own upgrades. We have used very little contractor support in our organization for the development of ServiceCenter. I was a team of one for 3-3-1/2 years. Beginning in Jan 2002, we have had 2 full time ServiceCenter Admins. In May, we will be adding a third. The financial situation of Peregrine has been a stumbling block. We have just completed the RFI process (forced by the CFO due to Peregrine financial status) looking at 5 other vendors. We will choose the best fit and seal the envelope only to be used in the event Peregrine does not come out of their financial woes. We are told that the fixes for our tickets will be encompassed in the 5.1 release which is still due out in May 2003. Support during this time has not changed. We have the Bronze Support package yet I believe we get Silver or better service. The techs on the support line have been helpful and responsive. We reviewed MAGIC, IMPACT, CA-ServiceIT, HP-ServiceDesk and BMC-Remedy. If I had to make a decision today, I would choose Remedy as it is the best fit and cross over from Peregrine ServiceCenter. I am honestly, a very satisfied Peregrine customer--even in the current state of affairs. Their product is viable, open and very customizable. IMPACT needs more development, MAGIC is good but for smaller organizations, HP was nice but looked too much like Microsoft Access and other than HP tools, I didn't see that it would link to Candle, What's up Gold, and other monitoring tools. CA's tool, what can I say--Clinical at best. Their tool is cold and flat--not very user comfortable.
Basically, I am a very happy Peregrine customer and have no desire to switch to another product, unless I have to. I have been working with ServiceCenter since 1997 so I am pretty comfortable.