Maintaining Location Hierarchies


Overview

Tasks

Included with

Tivoli Service Desk

Overview

Locations

In Tivoli Service Desk, you maintain information for each location, such as addresses, phone numbers, fax numbers, and time zones.

In Tivoli Problem Management, locations are associated with contacts. The location identifies where the contact is located. TPM locations can be an entire company, a department within a company, or a smaller group of people. See also Maintaining contact locations.

In Tivoli Asset Management, locations are associated with assets. These locations represent the physical locations your company maintains, such as your main office and branch offices. The types of locations you set up are arbitrary, but you should consider the level of location detail needed by your company when performing inquiries, audits, and valuations. Tivoli Asset Management enables you to track the physical location of an asset with detailed accuracy. For example, you may need to know the outlet number on the wall, or just in what room or cubicle an asset is located.

Locations window

Use the Locations window to create and maintain location hierarchies.

To access the Locations window, do one of the following:

  • If you are using the Asset Management Administrator profile, the Problem Management Administrator profile, or the Tivoli Service Desk Administrator profile, from the Edit menu, choose Work with Locations.
  • If you are using the Change Management Administrator from the Demographics menu, choose Work with Locations.
  • From the Help menu, choose Your System Profile and follow the instructions under Work with Locations.

Tasks

Standard maintenance tasks

This help topic covers maintenance tasks specific to the location hierarchy. For information on tasks that can be performed in any hierarchy, see Maintaining Hierarchies.

Asset maintenance in hierarchies

For information on maintaining location assets, see Maintaining Assets in Hierarchies.

Adding a root-level location

The first step in setting up location hierarchies is establishing the root-level locations. The root-level locations should be the broadest level of locations for which you want to make inquiries, determine valuations, or conduct audits.

In Tivoli Asset Management, if your company has locations in different countries, you might want to make the countries your root-level locations. If your company has offices in different states, but only in the United States, the individual states could be your root locations.

In Tivoli Problem Management, you can add locations for all the organizations and groups of people your help desk supports. Add new locations as you acquire new customers.

Tip: To avoid adding duplicate locations, verify that a location is not already in the location hierarchy or the location database by using the Find command. See Finding and viewing an item in a hierarchy.

To add a root-level location:

  1. In the Locations window, choose Add Root.
    Result: The name of the section on the right side of the Locations window changes to Add Root Location.
  2. In the Name box, type the location name.
  3. In the ID box, type the ID name or number for the location.
    Note: Each location must have a unique ID.
  4. In the Organization box, specify an organization to which the location belongs by doing one of the following:
    • Choose Browse to select an organization from the Organizations window.
    • Type part of an organization name. When you exit the Organizations window, select the appropriate organization from the Matches dialog box if there is more than one possibility.
    • Type the complete organization name.

    Note: This setting is only used in Tivoli Service Desk installations that are secured under Multi-Customer Data Support.

  5. In the Address, City, State, and Zip boxes, type the address information for the location.
  6. In the Phone and Fax boxes, type the appropriate telephone numbers for this location.
    Note: In Tivoli Problem management, the Phone number is the one belonging to the primary contact at this location.
  7. From the Time Zone list, select the time zone that applies to the location.
  8. Choose Paste to Root.
    Result: The new root-level location appears in the Locations window.

Adding a child-level location

You can divide each root location into smaller, more specific locations. The more specific locations are called children of the root location. However, each child location can also be a parent to other child locations.

For example, if Central Region is one of your root locations, its child locations could be the states that form the Central Region. The states, in turn, could be the parent locations for even more specific locations such as cities and buildings.

Build the hierarchy until you reach the most specific location for which your company might ever want to perform an inquiry, conduct an audit, or determine the value of assets.

To add a child-level location:

  1. In the Locations window, select the parent location for the location you want to add.
    Note: The new location is added as a child of the location you select.
  2. Choose Add.
    Result: The name of the section on the right side of the Locations window changes to Add Location.
  3. In the Name box, type the location name.
  4. In the ID box, type the ID name or number for the location.
    Note: Each location must have a unique ID.
  5. In the Organization box, specify an organization to which the location belongs by doing one of the following:
    • Choose Browse to select an organization from the Organizations window.
    • Type part of an organization name. When you exit the Organizations window, select the appropriate organization from the Matches dialog box if there is more than one possibility.
    • Type the complete organization name.

    Note: This setting is only used in Tivoli Service Desk installations that are secured under Multi-Customer Data Support.

  6. In the Address, City, State, and Zip boxes, type the address information for the location.
  7. In the Phone and Fax boxes, type the appropriate telephone numbers for this location.
    Note: In Tivoli Problem management, the Phone number is the one belonging to the primary contact at this location.
  8. From the Time Zone list, select the time zone that applies to the location.
  9. Choose Paste.
    Result: The new location appears in the Location Hierarchy as a child of the selected location.

Editing a location

Change address and telephone numbers for any location in the hierarchy by editing a location.

To edit a location:

  1. In the Locations window, select the location you want to edit.
  2. Choose Edit.
    Result: The name of the section on the right side of the Locations window changes to Edit Location. The details of the selected location appear in the boxes in the Edit Location section.
  3. Make any necessary changes to the location information.
    For further instructions see Adding a root-level location or Adding a child-level location.
  4. Under Edit Location, choose Save.