ServiceWare upgrades its offering

ServiceWare has announced what it calls significant enhancements to its flagship product, ServiceWare Enterprise. ServiceWare Enterprise 5.5 now supports Unicode, introduces a new user interface for ServiceWare Self-Service and includes the addition of ServiceWare Agent, a new product designed for customer service representatives. ServiceWare's product suite also includes ServiceWare Professional, ServiceWare Architect and ServiceWare Administrator.

Enterprise 5.5 supports Unicode for knowledge searching and building in many languages, including Asian double-byte languages. Out-of-the-box, Version 5.5 supports Chinese, Danish, Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish and Swedish. The Cognitive Processor, ServiceWare's self-learning technology, automates cross-language learning and eliminates the need for coordinating separate knowledge relevancies in each language, says the company.

Further, ServiceWare explains, Self-Service user interface has been redesigned with a side-by-side search capability that allows users to search and see results on the same screen. The company believes this new interface will significantly improve user acceptance and performance and also increases the flexibility of workflow options available for installation. Self-Service also now features options for multiple results lists, which provide flexibility as to how users view search results, an FAQ page that provides options for filtered or unfiltered search results and customer-configurable search steps.

ServiceWare Agent is designed for "Level 1" agents or for any company that needs to provide a complete agent workstation knowledge management center. The functionality of ServiceWare Agent is similar to ServiceWare's existing agent-facing application, ServiceWare Professional, but with a portal-based user interface. Like Self-Service, Agent utilizes a side-by-side search capability, and contributions are made on the same page as the search results to ensure ease of knowledge entry. Agent also includes additional portal-like features, including common links, urgent notices and agent-to-agent collaboration capabilities via e-mail, instant messenger and expertise location.

Enhancements also have been made to the Cognitive Processor to increase flexibility and control over the operations of its search engine. Additional ServiceWare Enterprise enhancements include Oracle 9i support; out-of-the-box LDAP support for iPlanet and MS Active Directory Server; and browser-accessible Web reports, which can now be accessed from Agent, Professional, Architect, Administrator or from a new report url.

In other ServiceWare news, the company announces it has formed a strategic partnership with systems integrator StrataCom, which will resell and provide professional services for ServiceWare Enterprise.

The alliance will enable ServiceWare and StrataCom to assist enterprise help desks reduce call volume, increase self-service and expedite call resolution, as well as increase productivity, drive down costs and deliver a rapid return on investment, the companies claim. The relationship also will enable ServiceWare to leverage its partnership with Remedy. Both StrataCom and ServiceWare are Remedy Alliance Partners and, as a validated vendor, ServiceWare Enterprise integrates seamlessly with Remedy Action Request System, ServiceWare says.

Also, ServiceWare has extended its relationship with HP by joining the HP OpenView Solution Alliance Program and achieving certification of integration of ServiceWare Enterprise with HP OpenView Service Desk. (HP explains its OpenView Solution Alliance Program is designed to help software vendors create applications that provide complementary functionality to specific HP OpenView products.)

ServiceWare provides HP with a knowledge management component to the OpenView Service Desk solution. ServiceWare Enterprise seamlessly integrates with OpenView to provide IT help desks with a robust knowledgebase component. That ensures that help desk agents can deliver fast, accurate and consistent answers to employee questions