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Serena Service Manager 5.2.2 Readme
This readme file contains information about this release. Last updated on 2017-01-26.

Contents

About this Release

Welcome to Serena Service Manager 5.2.2.

Refer to the What's New? tab for a complete list of new features in this release.

Please note the following important information:

  • On-premise customers: Before you install this release, you must install and configure SBM 11.1 or higher as described in the SBM Installation and Configuration Guide.
  • Service Manager is available in English only.
  • This readme pertains to both the on-demand and on-premise versions.

Packaging Changes and Impact on Upgrades

The following changes have been made to the installer packaging:

  • The SSM 5.2.2 framework is powered by SBM Tomcat and requires that you install or upgrade to SBM 11.1.
  • Serena Service Manager and Serena Request Center are the only solutions are delivered by the Service Manager installer. Serena Release Control is no longer delivered in the same installer as Serena Service Manager.
  • The Demand Manager solution is no longer included in the installer.

New Installations of Service Manager

If this is a new on-premise installation:
  1. Download SBM 11.1 or higher from http://www.serena.com/support.
  2. Follow the instructions in the SBM Installation and Configuration Guide to install and configure SBM.
  3. Verify that SBM successfully installed and configured.
  4. Download Service Manager 5.2.2 from http://www.serena.com/support.
  5. Follow the installation instructions in the Serena Service Manager Getting Started Guide.

Upgrades from Previous Versions

Important: If you are upgrading from an earlier version of Serena Service Manager, you must upgrade to SBM 11.1 or higher first.
The Service Manager upgrade process consists of two phases: the installation upgrade (on-premise only) and the solutions upgrade.
  • Installation Upgrade

    In the installation upgrade phase, you install and configure the latest versions of the framework files for Serena Request Center and features such as service level agreements (SLA). The solutions that you have implemented from previous releases are supported with the upgraded framework files.

  • Solutions Upgrade

    In the solutions upgrade phase, you import new solution files and merge changes into your current solutions. Before attempting this upgrade, review the list of changes to determine the benefit of upgrading your solutions.

For upgrade instructions, refer to the Serena Service Manager On-Premise Upgrade Guide or Serena Service Manager On-Demand Upgrade Guide.

Note the following important upgrade considerations:

  • If you are upgrading from version 5.2, Serena recommends that you only upgrade the SSM installation and skip the solutions upgrade phase. The versions of the process apps are nearly identical between 5.2 and 5.2.2, with the exception of a few minor defect fixes. This means that you can upgrade from 5.2 to 5.2.2 simply by upgrading the framework.

    If you upgrading from an older version such as SSM 4.5, you can still just upgrade framework, but the 5.2.2 solutions offer several enhancements that you might consider using.

  • If you are upgrading from a previous version that included Serena Release Control, the Serena Release Control files are not upgraded by the Service Manager installer. The Service Manager installer only upgrades your Service Manager framework files and delivers the Service Manager 5.2.2 solutions to Application Repository.
  • If you have an existing installation of Serena Release Control, it will continue to operate after you upgrade to Serena Service Manager 5.2.2.
  • If you plan to use Serena Service Manager and Serena Release Control, ensure that you have installed and configured your desired version of Release Control before you upgrade Service Manager to version 5.2.2. You cannot run an earlier installer (such as the 5.1.1 installer to install Release Control) after you have run the Service Manager 5.2.2 installer.

Installer Components

The installer delivers three components:

  • Solution Files – Solution files are process app snapshots and blueprints that contain the latest changes and updates for the Service Manager process workflows and data models.
    The following Service Manager solutions are delivered by the installer:
    • Serena Request Center
      • SRC - Starter Pack Forms - IT
      • SRC - Knowledge Management
      • SRC - Service Request
    • Serena Service Manager
      • SSM - Change Management
      • SSM - Configuration Management System
      • SSM - Problem Management
      • SSM - Incident Management
      • SSM - Asset Management
      • SSM - Integrations
  • Framework Files – The framework files augment your underlying installation and enable certain features in the Service Manager process apps. The framework files include new templates, images, and code that are backward compatible with your existing installation.
  • Service Level Agreement (SLA) Files – SLAs define the level of service that an organization commits to its customers. SLAs contain performance metrics that correspond to these commitments.

Third-party Tools

For more information regarding third-party software copyrights and license information, refer to the files under "Downloads" or "News" at http://www.serena.com/support.

What's New?

The following features and changes are new in this release.

Multi-Language Support for Knowledge Management

Request Center Improvements

Additional Improvements

Modern Forms vs. Legacy Forms

Multi-Language Support for Knowledge Management

Administrators can now translate Knowledge Management strings per locale as needed. This enables users with different locales to see translated strings when accessing Request Center.

When you select Allow Translation for MLS Runtime Objects and Design Objects on the Values tab and re-deploy or promote the Knowledge Management app, the following categories appear on the Localization page:

  • KM Visibility Group
  • Knowledge Management
  • KM Categories

You can also translate values for the following Knowledge Management runtime objects:

  • KM Categories: Name field
  • KM Visibility Group: Title field

You can export values in the KM Categories: Name and KM Visibility Group: Title fields to XML for translation if the Allow translation for value display in relational fields check box is selected on each field in the Options tab in SBM Composer and the Knowledge Management process app is either promoted after a new SSM install or when it is re-deployed after an upgrade to 5.2.2 or later.

For more information, refer to "Translating Request Center Strings" in the Serena Service Manager Getting Started Guide. For more information about the Localization feature in SBM, refer to "About Localization" in the SBM Application Administrator Guide.

Request Center Improvements

  • Request Center Customization

    Administrators can now customize Request Center by adding URLs, Work Center activity views, and SBM reports as new tabs or as sections that appear in the Catalog view. This enables administrators to provide information relevant to their users.

    For details, refer to "Adding Tabs to Request Center" and "Defining Sections" in the Serena Service Manager Getting Started Guide.

  • Enhanced Requests and Approvals Views

    Administrators can now specify any report for the enhanced Requests and Approvals views. This provides administrators complete control over the items and fields that appear in these views. In addition, the results of the reports appear in the views just as they do in Work Center.

    The legacy Requests and Approvals views are automatically displayed for upgrading customers, in addition to the new views. New customers can also display the legacy views by enabling them in the Request Center Properties and then manually adding them as tabs. For details, refer to "About Legacy Requests and Approvals" in the Serena Service Manager Getting Started Guide.

  • Log On to Request Center As Another User

    As of version 5.2.1, users can log on to Request Center as another user from within their user preferences. To enable this feature, grant the Logon as Another User privilege in Application Administrator to the appropriate users or groups. This feature was introduced in version 5.2.1 but was not mentioned in the readme.

Additional Improvements

  • De-escalate Major Incidents

    A new transition in the Incidents workflow enables you to de-escalate an incident from the Major Incident state. The De-escalate transition, available from More Actions, sets the Major Incident flag back to No and sets the Request Type to Break Fix.

  • Mobile Support for SSM Process Apps

    Mobile support is now enabled by default for the following process apps:

    • SSM - Incident Management
    • SRC - Service Request
    • SRC - Starter Pack Forms - IT
For customers who upgrade to SSM 5.2.2 and intend to use the mobile client, ensure that the Enable options for Serena mobile app check box is selected on the application in Composer and re-deploy each process app.

Modern Forms vs. Legacy Forms

Modern forms, introduced with SBM 11.1, use technologies such as HTML5 and .css properties to achieve greater stability in layout and less reliance on scripting overall.

Legacy forms refer to forms created before SBM 11.1. All of the existing SSM forms are legacy forms and will continue to work as expected.

Note: In SBM Composer, be sure to keep legacy mode enabled for SSM forms and for any new forms that you create based on SSM forms. Disabling legacy mode will lead to unexpected results.

Known Issues

For a complete list of known issues and potential workarounds, refer to the Knowledge Base.

Serena Request Center Issues

  • The Request Center catalog fails to load and an error appears in the browser's console if one of the legacy tab names (Approvals, My Requests, Knowledge) contains a single quote. To work around this problem, rename the tab or contact Support and refer to DEF296606 for assistance.