Service Demand Detection
Service bookings are usually created when users order new services from Matrix42 Service Catalog. They are used to track all required information, such as:
- from when the users are receiving specific services,
- which payment conditions have been applied,
- which target has been applied and so on.
As all orders require an approval before the actual service provisioning, those service bookings which were created from orders can be considered as desired state.
However, there are several scenarios in which users are consuming services that have never been ordered via Matrix42 Service Catalog. For example, if the customer has just started implementing the Service Catalog or added new services to the catalog.
The following example is a simple introduction into the detection of missing service bookings.
A customer has just created a new service Internet Access. He plans to use the membership of the existing AD group Internet Users for actual service provisioning. So he will configure the service to use the appropriate provisioning workflow Assign AD Group with the mentioned AD group.
After he has published the service, the users will be able to order and consume this service. For each of them, the business login to the Service Catalog will create a specific service booking.
Now, the customer faces a problem. As the applied AD group was already in use before creation of this service, there are other AD accounts that are members of this group. The persons that are assigned to these accounts can, of course, consume the Internet Access service too. But they neither see the service that is assigned to them nor can they return the service later. Furthermore, the consumption by these users cannot be cross-charged to the related cost centers. Bringing this to the point, there are several scenarios in which the desired service consumption differs from the actual consumption.
As Matrix42 Service and Software Asset Management already has relevant information about actual consumption, further methods will be offered that will create valid service bookings from this information. When the service bookings are available, the desired and actual states are matching and all further processes can be applied as usual.
Similar to missing service bookings, available service bookings can also be obsolete. It can happen when, for example, a user account is deleted, group membership no longer exists, or software is uninstalled. In such cases uninstallation bookings should be created automatically.
Demand Detection Use Cases
There are several ways to detect actual service demand, create missing service bookings, and detect obsolete service bookings. As of now, Matrix42 Service and Software Asset Management supports the following use cases:
1. Revenue/Loss Analysis
Demand detection can be initiated for a previously selected service within the search page or the properties dialog of this service. The user performs the Revenue/Loss Analysis action, and the system collects information about all current bookings of this service. In addition, the system collects information about actual demand from the services detection method and about obsolete service bookings. The results are presented in a report, showing the revenue of correctly booked demand vs. the loss of not booked actual demand. Besides, the report shows the obsolete service bookings that no longer match the demand.
2. Manual Demand Detection for a Selected Service Including Creation of Service Bookings
Demand detection can be initiated for a previously selected service within the search page or the properties dialog of this service. The user performs the Detect Demand action, and the system collects information about the actual demand of this service. The user can now select for which of these instances they want to create the missing bookings and the uninstallation bookings. While creating new service bookings, this action considers the catalog audiences, catalog ranking, and eventual catalog-specific prices of the service. This action also collects the obsolete bookings that no longer apply to the conditions. To allow automatic creation of uninstallation bookings, select the corresponding option on the Demand Detection dialog page of the service properties dialog.
3. Automatic Detection for Multiple Services Including Creation of Service Bookings
A scheduled engine collects information about actual demand of all services that are configured for automatic detection. If the engine is able to map a detected demand to a specific service, it will collect all required information to create a service booking for it. For this, information from the service itself, e.g., price, service ID, etc., and information from the target and recipient is collected. If all required information is available, the engine will create the respective service booking. If creation of uninstallation bookings is configured and the conditions already apply to the demand, the engine additionally checks all available service bookings (without uninstallation bookings). If the conditions do not apply, the engine creates a corresponding uninstallation booking.
4. Automatic Creation of Uninstallation Bookings
If the demand is no longer valid, it is possible to allow automatic creation of uninstallation bookings. As a result, first the system checks if all created service bookings (without uninstallation booking) from this demand detection are already valid, and if not, the system creates an uninstallation booking. After that the system searches for a new demand.
To allow automatic creation of uninstallation bookings, select the corresponding option on the Demand Detection dialog page of the service properties dialog. By selecting further options, you can consider the uninstallation costs during creation of uninstallation bookings and also notify the cost center manager and the service recipients that such bookings have been created.
Demand detection methods
Actual demand can be detected in several ways, depending on provisioning of a service. Matrix42 Service and Software Asset Management will be able to detect the demand for the services with the following provisioning: