The City of San Jose is an economic, cultural, and political center of Silicon Valley and the largest city in Northern California. With an estimated 2017 population of 1,035,317, it is the third most populous city in California and the tenth most populous in United States. The City of San Jose joined the One Call ticket management center, USA North in 1989 when the underground service alert law became mandatory. The City needed to replace an antiquated 21 year old computer based One Call ticket Management system for Damage Prevention with a modern solution that could better manage their ever increasing demand of service from underground marker and locate crews while providing customized management information to track time, funding sources and ensure compliance with regulations. After comparing several available solutions in the market and doing their due diligence, the City chose BOSS811 for its one call ticket management. BOSS811 helped position the City to be more efficient and in compliance with regulations. The powerful workflow capabilities of BOSS811 and features like auto close resulted in reduced labor costs, increased compliance, a better user experience, and improved morale. The customized reporting reduced staff hours and the implementation of GEO Location mapping instead of printed map books resulted in significant cost savings. Brent Erkel, Construction Manager with the City of San Jose is extremely pleased with the move to BOSS811. In his words, “BOSS811 it's been an absolute incredible fit and resulted in significant cost and time savings. Everybody that's dealt with BOSS has just been floored with how easy BOSS has been to deal with and what good customer service they have so much so BOSS has raised the bar for our other vendors" View Brent's webinar on Driving Compliance with One Call Ticket Management to learn how they saved millions by implementing BOSS811: The City of San Jose is required to provide locate and marking services for many underground facilities including traffic signals, street lighting, communications, recycled water lines, portable water lines, irrigation, pressurized storm, and sanitary sewers. In 2017 the City processed over 57,000 tickets and projected demand continued to show significant increases. The City was looking to replace its antiquated system with a modern and user friendly solution and BOSS811 exceeded its expectations with the its modern, easy to navigate UI and powerful features. Following the implementation of BOSS811 the City saved over a Million dollars and benefited significantly due to: The process reductions and efficiency Improvements in the workflow for new/remark tickets resulted in a saving of 4 minutes per ticket The ability to Auto Close no-remark/extension tickets resulted in a saving of 1.25 minutes per ticket The ability to standardize on documentation through drop-down menus and toggle boxes combined with the ability to create custom screens to track funding sources, and track time saved significant amount of staff hours Implementation of GEO Location mapping instead of using printed systems map books saved significant dollars. Other benefits include data reliability, the ability to balance and redistribute the work of locate staff, improved morale and increased compliance with regulations.

The global consulting company Pink Elephant has determined that 2018 is the “Year of Integrated Service Management” and highlighted the opportunity for real synergy between best practices, well configured tools and properly organized and motivated people. BOSS Solutions agrees with this direction. Our company specializes in integrated service management solutions, incorporates best practices, and provides customers the best level of support to achieve business value. Forward thinking IT organizations have adopted this strategy to provide their clients with an exceptional level of service and process improvements. If your IT organization is struggling with fragmented insights, silos of automation or broken processes , Integrated Service Management solutions can help address these issues across the entire organization. BOSSDesk Integrated Service Management One way that this can be easily accomplished is by creating service catalogs that are integrated with other system resources. Services and requests can be automated and offered selectively from a single portal and no coding skills are needed to construct workflows; be they simple or complex. Service Catalogs can be integrated with routing rules, calendars, schedulers and other available resources to provide users with improved workflows. Many IT organizations provide their client departments with process improvements across a wide range of applications from providing Onboarding applications for Human Resources to simplifying Equipment Return requests for Operations, and scheduling Facility Requests for Public Service departments. These enhancements have generated proven results for the client organizations by reducing the time and cost of delivering services while greatly improving the user experience. BOSS Solutions offers such integrated service management capability with BOSSDesk an ITIL Service Desk on the cloud. The system lets you manage, track and keep control of your IT environment and its capabilities include Incident, Problem & Change Management that provides Help/Service Desk functionality and complete Asset Management capability. In addition the advanced Service Catalog provides full flexibility in creating custom forms and makes it extremely easy for users to enter, monitor and if appropriate approve service requests. Service catalogs can be integrated with routing rules, calendars, schedulers and other available resources to provide users with improved workflows. Reporting capabilities include a comprehensive array of standard reports and charts. Customizable widgets allow Dashboards to be modified to meet the needs of all technicians using the system. Mobile apps for iOS and Android allow for remote access for all capabilities. To find out more watch our short video:

Following a comprehensive beta trial program, BOSS is happy to announce the general availability of the new BOSS Support Central. The product is designed to ITIL standards, incorporates advanced capabilities, has an award-winning user-friendly interface, and is closely aligned with BOSSDesk the company’s Service Desk on the cloud. Capabilities include a comprehensive Help Desk for Ticket Management, a Self Service Portal to allow easy access for users to request services, Asset Management for total control of the lifecycle of all assets, and comprehensive Dashboards & Reporting for effective management. All of the existing BOSS Support Central customers can upgrade to the new version at no cost. Maha Mahadevan CEO of BOSS Solutions stated “Our new BOSS Support Central is thoughtfully designed to incorporate advanced features and capabilities that are required to implement best practices in on-premise service management” Click for more information.

Following a comprehensive Beta Trial program BOSS Solutions announced the General Availability of the new BOSS Support Central which takes on-premise IT Service Management to a new level and allows organizations to manage, track and keep control of their IT environment. The product is designed to ITIL standards, incorporates advanced capabilities, has an award winning user-friendly interface, and is closely aligned with BOSSDesk the company’s Service Desk on the cloud. The product has undergone a major upgrade to incorporate the latest technologies and major capabilities include advanced Help Desk Ticket Management and complete Asset Management capability. Reporting capabilities include a comprehensive array of standard reports and charts. The self-service web portal is easy to use and when combined with the Knowledge Base and Custom Forms can significantly improve efficiency of IT service delivery. Customizable widgets allow Dashboards to be modified to meet the need of all technicians using the system, and Mobile apps for iOS and Android allow for remote access. BOSS has invested significantly in this new development to make sure that customers get good value. All existing BOSS Support Central customers can upgrade to the new version at no cost as the upgrade will be covered by current subscription terms. Additional services for configuration and customization can also be purchased from BOSS Professional Services. “Our new BOSS Support Central is thoughtfully designed to incorporate advanced features and capabilities that are required to implement best practices in on–premise service management” said Maha Mahadevan CEO and President of BOSS Solutions. “We have always been committed to ensure that our customers are provided with the latest technology and we are pleased to say that all of our on-premise customers can upgrade to the latest version at no cost.”

In the modern era, the Service Catalog has redefined the way services are offered and delivered within an organization. The Service Catalog provides an easy means to improve operational efficiency and help keep service delivery costs low. All service offerings are delivered and managed using a single portal and this dramatically improves service delivery and user satisfaction. An ITIL based Service Catalog offers the ability to manage critical information in a central repository accessible by both the IT department and the business. The information contained within the Service Catalog relates to all Services provided by the IT department to the Business. The Service Catalog can be applied across all platforms, environments or geographical locations of any organization. ITIL V3 standards advocate service catalogs as a best practice requirement for service management. Service Catalogs offer a customer facing view of all the service and product offerings for all the departments within an organization. They enable organizations to promote these offerings in a structured and easily navigable manner. A user friendly service catalog encourages and enhances customer self service .It allows you to empower your customers with Self-Service. Multiple services on a single portal A well thought out and managed service catalog provides a great self-service opportunity for customers. It offers a single portal to present all service and product offerings of the organization and a standardized approach to complete all requests . Services and requests can be offered selectively and efficiently from one portal. It allows customer expectations to be managed to ensure high levels of customer satisfaction. The first step in developing an IT service catalog for an organization is to put together an inventory of all the services critical to the business. This includes incorporating services beyond IT like Employee Onboarding or Citizens Portals . A flow chart or documentation outlining current manual processes will help define how to automate various processes for effective service delivery. Other critical elements in defining the Service process like the number of players involved in the process ,the mutiple steps required in the completion of the task, listing the hierarchcy and people to be notifed on task completion are all essential to put together a catalog for each process. Once the catalog is created it needs to be managed through its lifecycle. Workflow and automation processes need to be incorporated for effective service delivery. Routing Rules are extremely important and are at the heart of the workflow process. The order of the routing rules is important to allow the technicians to view, at a glance, when they should be performing their tasks. Use of tags, folders and workflows to organize, prioritize and route conversations will help ensure appropriate, timely follow-up. The BOSSDesk Service Catalog is structured in accordance with ITIL guidelines and provides information about all available IT services. The service catalog contains information about two types of IT services: customer-facing services that are visible to the business; and supporting services required by the service provider to deliver customer-facing services. The BOSSDesk Service Catalog makes it very easy for users to launch service requests. Access to vital information speeds up ticket creation and minimizes errors. The Service Catalog can create fully customizable forms to meet the needs of each category of users. Each user group will be presented the forms that are appropriate for them and different forms can be presented to different user groups based on their department or Active Directory security group. Technicians and Administrators have the ability to customize the BOSSDesk service catalog by creating various custom forms via a drag and drop interface that can be fully integrated with routing rules to generate appropriate tasks. The process is simple and user friendly and no coding experience is necessary.The need to have requests routed for approvals or to approval boards or expenses boards can be selected when creating the custom form. With the BOSSDesk Service Catalog: Services and requests can be offered selectively and efficiently from one portal Create easy to use forms to enter new requests or track your requests, improve user satisfaction and drive down costs Creating a new service catalog is a breeze – just a few drags and drops and no coding is required Workflows and approvals can be automated To view how easy it is to create a Service Catalog in BOSSDesk and how one of our customers has built a Service Catalog, watch the recording of the webinar Service Catalog - A Modern Way to Deliver IT Services:

On October 31st, 2017 at the FUSION 17 Conference & Expo in Orlando, BOSS Solutions announced a new significantly enhanced version of BOSS Support Central its popular on-premise ITSM software. The product is designed to ITIL standards, incorporates advanced capabilities, has an award-winning user-friendly interface, and is closely aligned with BOSSDesk the company’s Service Desk on the cloud. The new BOSS Support Central incorporates advanced ITSM capabilities including a comprehensive Help Desk for Ticket Management, a Self Service Portal to allow easy access for users to request services, Asset Management for total control of the lifecycle of all assets, and comprehensive Dashboards & Reporting for effective management. All of the existing BOSS Support Central customers can upgrade to the new version at no cost. Click to view Press Release.

BOSS Solutions is excited to announce that we have been named as a Top 20 Most User-Friendly Help Desk by Capterra, an affiliate of Gartner. The report provides a look at the most user-friendly help desk systems based on their usability, customer services provided, and customer reviews. Earlier in the year Capterra also named BOSS Solutions as a Top 20 Most Affordable ITSM Software provider. Help Desk /Service Desk ITSM software is a must for any IT team handling service requests for an organization. The requests may range from simple ones like resetting passwords to managing critical issues like major server outages that may end up paralyzing the operations. The Help Desk evaluation was scored on the following criteria and BOSS Solutions scored in the top group in every category. USABILITY 30/50 Task completion time Clicks to complete task System Usability Score (SUS)* * SUS - a questionnaire that measures perceived ease of use. CUSTOMER SERVICE 29/30 Implementation (configuration options offered) Training (resources offered) Support (services offered) REVIEWS 18/20 Ease of Use Customer Service * Review scores gathered from across all Gartner Digital Markets (Capterra, GetApp, SoftwareAdvice). The following tasks were tested to determine user-friendliness. Add an end user Create a ticket Resolve and close the ticket Add a knowledge base article Generate a report * These 5 common tasks were tested for usability testing. Founded in 1991, BOSS Solutions provides innovative software solutions to meet the needs of customers in IT Service Management (ITSM). BOSS has built a committed customer base through incorporating ITIL best practices in automating the service management process, combined with a unique commitment to customer support. Our major products are BOSSDesk that provides IT Service Management on the Cloud, BOSS Support Central – that provides IT Service Management On-Premise, and BOSS811 a one call ticket management solution for the damage prevention industry. For more information visit www.boss-solutions.com or call +1 678.684.1200.

Winter Park is a suburban city in Orange County, Florida, United States. Winter Park was founded as a resort community in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Located just three miles north of Orlando , the city is nine-square miles with over 28,000 residents. Winter Park is known for its Old World charm, elegant homes, quaint bricked streets, first-class shopping and dining experiences. The City of Winter Park, FL has been streamlining interactions and transforming productivity not only in IT but in other areas like HR and Purchasing with the help of BOSSDesk, IT Service Management solution on the Cloud. The city moved from the TrackIT solution to BOSSDesk due to the need for a more intuitive, modern and user friendly solution. In the words of Josh Panton, Senior Systems Analyst at City of Winterpark, "BOSSDesk is an ITIL centric service desk solution with unlimited customization and a great clean, easy to navigate UI" Implementing BOSSDesk has resulted in users engaging well and recording issues through the portal increasing accountability and efficiency. In addition to using the solution for managing incidents and requests, the IT department is also using BOSSDesk to manage the city assets (Cis). All the assets such as laptops, phones assigned to employees are tracked. This increases ROI through accountability and getting more utilization of the assets. This capability has been extended to other departments as well. The Purchasing Department processes all Purchase requests with the help of BOSSDesk. Automating Employee Onboarding and Offboarding through BOSSDesk service catalog, has resulted in tremendous savings of time and improved efficiency. Earlier, several exchange of emails were needed for completing simple tasks. This has now been replaced with one form that automates all the tasks with appropriate routing and approvals. All the information is tracked and the task gets completed in a timely manner. The use of Problem Management has helped identify and solve problems in a more organized way thereby avoiding recurrence of incidents. The automation associated with Problem management results in quick resolution of all incidents associated with a problem and users get updated and notified in a timely manner. Change Management has been put in place and has helped the city plan and implement changes in a more organized fashion. Better communication and automated approval processes has increased cooperation from stake holders and users. This ensures that the actions of the administrators does not affect any end users. The BOSSDesk Mobile app has benefitted the city in more ways than one. It is a big time saver as technicians can address issues on the go. The departments service multiple locations and technicians are out in the field a lot . The smart phone access is a time saver as it helps the techs resolve and update the tickets quickly and managers are able to monitor the tickets as needed. The availability of mobile app has improved efficiency and user satisfaction. Josh Panton , Senior Sytems Analyst summarized the benefits of BOSSDesk that have come his way. The Cloud/ Mobility factor, Clean and Easy to navigate User Interface, Great User Experience, Customizable and User friendly Service Catalog that allows you to create your own forms with a simple drag and drop intuitive interface, push to conform to ITIL standards all of these have helped him save time and made his day to day operations easier. The workflows and automation are very easy to set up and implement and help the technicians with ticket escalations and resolution. The Knowledgebase provides users an easy way to resolve known issues. The documentation helps with Problem and Change Management as it provides a record of who did what when and where. According to Josh, "BOSSDesk is fully customizable with good automation, powerful workflows and great reporting. Good single pane of glass software". Josh sums up the impact of BOSSDesk for the City of Winterpark as, "Overall we have cut down on the amount of emails needing to be sent. The purchasing process has been streamlined and greatly improved efficiencies. It helped us standardize our onboarding process. Centralized Documentation and Knowledgebase helps with the Problem and Change Management. The reporting helps us provide management with the necessary decision making data." Visit www.boss-solutions.com to learn more BOSS thanks Josh Panton, Senior Systems Analyst, City of Winterpark for contributing to this blog.

The Breakers located in Palm Beach Florida is a luxury Resort & Hotel offering unapologetic luxury, seaside glamour and world-class service. The Breakers is a 5 star Resort & Hotel that also has four sets of High End Apartments .The Breakers has been a customer of BOSS Solutions for many years. Their IT department has been using BOSS Support Central our fully integrated on premise ITSM solution to manage and track incidents and requests at the Hotel. The BOSS Support Central suite includes modules for IT Service Desk, Asset Management and Lifecycle Management. The Breakers Apartments are owned by high end clientele and can also be rented out by the month or year. This section of The Breakers is called Breakers Row. There are four separate buildings that each contain around 20 apartments each. The Breakers employees take care of all the maintenance, landscaping and security for this section. All these years, Security and Maintenance employees at the Breakers Row were using manual time consuming pen and paper processes to record all their tasks. They were hand writing all work orders to track what was being done inside each apartment. However tracking information manually was very difficult and getting a report was impossible. They contacted the Breakers Technology Department for suggestions on how they could better handle their work orders and asked if they would be able to use BOSS Support Central in some form to help them. They liked how The Breakers IT team was benefitting from BOSS Support Central and putting it to good use. The techs at Breakers reached out to me for suggestions on how best to implement this time tested solution for the apartments as well. The Breakers Row evaluated BOSS Support Central and decided this was their best route to go. How they would use the product, was to be decided based on discussions with the BOSS Solutions team and they looked to me and my team to offer a viable solution for them based on our years of expertise. As BOSS Support Central is easily customizable, I came up with a plan to use different Buildings as Organizational Units (OU) in BOSS Support Central. Each Building has a name, so inside BOSS Support Central each OU is given the name of that building. Then Each Apartment Number was entered into the OU as a user. So each Building is tied to the correct apartment numbers. When a ticket is created the apartment numbers show as users to tie each ticket to the appropriate apartment and building. Each common area is also entered in as a user in the system as landscaping and maintenance tasks are done on these sections also. Now all work orders go through BOSS Support Central and they can track any type of work and cost associated with each apartment and building. The BOSS Mobile apps made it all the more easy to track work orders. Maintenance and Security techs can now use their phones for all work orders and no longer have to carry around a piece of paper. Keep us in mind when you visit the Breakers as they are a perfect example of BOSS Facilities Management at work! BOSS Solutions is a U.S. Company providing innovative software solutions to meet the need of customers in service management. The company’s major product lines are BOSSDesk that provides IT Service Management on the Cloud, BOSS Support Central – that provides IT Service Management On-Premise, and BOSS811 a one call ticket management solution for the damage prevention industry. Contributed by: Kris Giroux Director, Support BOSS Solutions

The first days on the job for new employees are critical to their ability to fit in and become as productive as possible, within a short time. Onboarding — the process to help just-hired employees acclimate to a new environment is not a stand-alone event but part of a more comprehensive process. Onboarding is not just a buzzword for orientation or something that is needed only in large companies. When incorporated it really helps small and midsize businesses streamline the process and ensure that new employees become productive and satisfied members of their staff. BOSS Solutions Customer, Beaufort Memorial Hospital has been serving the healthcare needs of the South Carolina community for more than 70 years. Opened with 25 beds in 1944, the hospital has seen significant growth over the years and is now the largest medical facility between Savannah, GA. and Charleston, SC. We recently had the pleasure of speaking with Willard Fosberry, Director of IT Infrastructure at the hospital, about how his team has been able to adapt BOSS Support Central the ITSM On Premise solution offered by BOSS Solutions for managing the On Boarding process of all new hires at the organization. Willard spoke at length on how he has benefitted by using BOSS Support Central for Employee Onboarding besides using it to track issues. Beaufort Memorial Hospital had been using BOSS Support Central for their help desk ticketing and they recently extended its use to the on-boarding process of new employees at the hospital. Before a new member of staff is due to start at the organization, the hiring manager simply completes a new hire web form detailing the equipment and privileges that person is going to need. This information is then used to automatically create work orders that are sent to the appropriate staff members for completion. Willard commented, "The whole process is so much more efficient now that we are using BOSS Support Central for our on boarding process. It’s significantly reduced the amount of time involved in getting a new employee set up and has also eliminated the need for multiple email and phone call requests. The support team at BOSS worked closely with us to build a custom designed web based new hire form that provides all the options we need." Willard adds "We are so pleased with the results of the new hire on-boarding system that we are now looking to use it for our internal employee transfers." Implementing a good Employee Onboarding process plays a vital role in making the transition smooth and easy for new employees so they can focus on getting up to speed and adapting quickly to the new environment. BOSS Solutions offers IT Service Management On Premise and on the Cloud to help with Employee Onboarding. BOSS Solutions is a U.S. Company providing innovative software solutions to meet the need of customers in service management. The company’s major product lines are BOSSDesk that provides IT Service Management on the Cloud, BOSS Support Central – that provides IT Service Management On-Premise, and BOSS811 a one call ticket management solution for the damage prevention industry.

Forsyth County, with the help of BOSS Solutions, has implemented a cloud based 811 ticketing solution BOSS811 to replace a costly web-based service for managing utility service marking/location requests. The state of Georgia has a central service where citizens can call 811 to have utility services lines marked before doing any construction or digging. The state office determines the local agencies responsible for providing those utility services and notifies that local agency about the utility marking request. Forsyth County used a web-based vendor to track these service requests and to transmit status updates back to the state agency. The county paid the vendor for each service request posted on the vendor’s website, and there are 100-200 service requests each week. This web-based service was very limited, had no reporting functions and had no workflow to monitor/manage service requests. BOSS Solutions worked closely with Forsyth County to replace the existing service request listing website with web services to receive an XML data feed from the Georgia state agency and turn that into Support Central tickets. Forsyth County water utility service crews use Support Central in the field to manage service requests. They have dashboard reports to list any emergency service requests and to show service requests in estimated completion date order. When service requests are completed, the Support Central web services transmit updates back to the Georgia state agency. We call the new BOSS Solutions application “BOSS811”. The new BOSS811 service provides all of the functionality of the website listing service and more. Support Central has workflow to monitor ticket status and escalate unassigned tickets. Timesheets can be used to track the time spent on each service request. Service crew workload can be tracked as tickets are assigned to crew members. An additional benefit was quickly realized when the county GIS department was able to use geo-location data in the XML data stream to produce electronic maps showing all of the service requests. This allows the water utility staff to efficiently plan their workload. BOSS Solutions was able to react to the new technology from the state agency (the XML data stream) and incorporate that into the existing ticket system to produce a solid and reliable solution for our water utility department. BOSS Solutions is a U.S. Company providing innovative software solutions to meet the need of customers in service management. The company’s major product lines are BOSSDesk that provides IT Service Management on the Cloud, BOSS Support Central – that provides IT Service Management On-Premise, and BOSS811 a one call ticket management solution for the damage prevention industry. Rick Young IT Manager Forsyth County, GA (BOSS thanks Rick Young for contributing to this blog)

Keeping an inventory, tagging and tracking assets from the cradle to the grave is not easy! Lauren Graviet of Limestone County explains how they keep up with their inventory with the help of BOSS Solutions. "Limestone County, AL has been a BOSS customer for more than five years, and as such, have been very satisfied with their products and customer service. Over the past year we have begun the process of implementing the BOSS Asset Management System. We have found it extremely helpful in keeping up with our inventory, which in turn assists with maintenance renewals, support contracts, and product life-cycle. We have equipment in various locations throughout our county, so it is crucial that we have an effective system in place to keep up with the equipment. We began using the asset tags recommended by BOSS. They are small and have a QR code for easier scanning. When we receive a new piece of equipment we immediately assign it an asset tag. Once the tag is assigned to the equipment we tape it to the box, so that when the equipment is removed from the packaging for installation, it can immediately be tagged. One of our main concerns was the tagging of equipment that was currently on location. To efficiently tag every piece of equipment, we decided to give our technicians a few asset tags to take with them when they went to a location. They could simply add the tag to the equipment, scan the QR code, and assign it to the correct department. Tagging every piece of equipment is still a work in progress, but we have found this to be the best way to ensure everything is tagged correctly. Overall, we have been very satisfied with the Asset Management System. The asset tags are small and stay on the equipment very well. The tags are easy to scan, as this is performed by using either an Apple or Android device, such as a Smart Phone or tablet. I highly recommend the BOSS Asset Management and Tagging System to keep up with your companies growing inventory." BOSS Solutions is a U.S. Company providing innovative software solutions to meet the need of customers in service management. The company’s major product lines are BOSSDesk that provides IT Service Management on the Cloud, BOSS Support Central – that provides IT Service Management On-Premise, and BOSS811 a one call ticket management solution for the damage prevention industry. Authored by Lauren Graviet, Network Support, Limestone County IT, AL BOSS Solutions thanks Lauren Graviet for this contribution.