FrontRange announced the latest release of its cloud-based ITSM platform, HEAT Cloud 2012.3 which features significant enhancements in three primary areas: social IT, global and local support, and cloud infrastructure improvements.

HEAT Cloud 2012.3 is designed to support critical workflow-based service management tasks that range from service desk operations to more complex and configurable service management operations built on industry standard best practices.

To foster collaboration, improve productivity and better handle service management tasks as a team, HEAT Cloud 2012.3 introduces a new process known as Social Service Management. By bringing social collaboration concepts together with service management best practices, Social Service Management transcends traditional Social IT by dramatically improving communications between service desks, team members, and customers. Through the use of real-time feeds and activity streams containing important updates, service desks analysts and customers are notified in real-time about key issues and updates to help improve service desk efficiency and improve customer satisfaction. This team approach provides peer-to-peer support with access to shared knowledge to dramatically improve productivity and provide the most cost-effective service delivery process.

“It is vital that modern social media concepts be adopted within IT service management processes in order for teams to stay informed and collaborate efficiently,” said Jarod Green, Research Analyst with Gartner, Inc. “By merging social collaboration and service management functions, customers and their support teams can stay up to date in terms of knowledge, alerts and notifications without using a separate system of record. This is a key capability customers should look for in any ITSM solution.”

Specific features to HEAT Cloud 2012.3 Social Service Management include:

- Social Board: a central location for agents or customers to post, receive and comment on messages.

- Self-service Portal: users have up-to-date information at their fingertips to solve their own issues, reduce the volume of service tickets, and reduce email and phone traffic for the service desk.

- Integrated Knowledge Management: provides a centralized location for previously submitted posts and messages containing useful knowledge.

- Integrated Incident Management Processes: service agents can create new incident reports based on social feeds directly from the social board.

- Publish Release and Change Request Information: enables customers or employees to receive change or release information so they can stay informed of the service delivery process.

“By offering customers the ability to service and empower themselves with real-time knowledge capture and sharing through social collaboration while providing service desk team members the opportunity to actively communicate with each other, the velocity and cost of service delivery can improved dramatically,” said Kevin J. Smith, Vice President and General Manager, Cloud Business Unit with FrontRange. “By tightly integrating ‘social collaboration’ into the platform, we’re extending the reach and impact of service management best practices. In addition, we’re ensuring our customers have the most secure and configurable cloud-capable ITSM platform on the market.”