There are a lot of words, phrases, and abbreviations we use throughout the implementation and lifecycle of using myITProcess. This glossary is meant to understand terminology at a quick glance. To visit our knowledge base for more detailed explanations of myITprocess, click here.
Here is a list of some of our most common items, all specifically in terms of the TruMethods/myITprocess perspective and under ‘perfect’ circumstances:
Standard template: A list of standards organized into particular categories and sections. myITprocess comes with some starter questions automatically as the default.
myITemplates: There is a blue button on the upper right hand corner of the Standards Library main page that says ‘add a standard’. Once clicked, the user can create a new section/category/question, and there will also be an option to ‘add from myITemplates’. These are a list of different types of compliance standards written and curated by our Standards Manager. Most will have the myITprocess logo shown next to the name of the template; this means these templates are locked for editing and only our Standards Manager can update them. To get any of the standards listed into your own standards library, simply drag and drop the section or category from right to left.
Standards Library: This is the main place where all the questions live that we ask clients in the pursuit of evaluating their level of compliance. Every question that a member would ever want to use would live here; this can be narrowed down on the client templates.
Client Template: The individual page under the umbrella of the Standards Library for each client. These can be personalized for the client through selecting specific categories and sections from the Standards Library to apply only where needed. For example, HIPAA questions are only needed for clients who are in healthcare, so only the clients who need those questions should have them. Please note: Questions, categories, and sections can only be edited in the Standards Library as a whole, not on the client template.
Section: The larger heading/grouping for grouping Standards in the Standards library. (darkest blue stripe on the left hand side of the beam/row)
Category: The smaller heading/grouping for grouping Standards in the Standards library. (medium blue)
Standard: A yes/no question we ask of a client in pursuit of evaluating their level of compliance. (lightest blue in the Standards Library)
Tags: A label that can be put on a section or category in the Standards Library. These labels enable the user to create reviews with only those specific items selected. This is a useful feature to be able to create the same review multiple times very quickly for different clients.
Reminder period: This is a timer function in myITprocess on the category level only, and it is automatically set to remind users to complete the category every 3 months. This can be changed to a number of days, weeks, or a different number of months. These reminders will become evident when a user goes to create a review; ‘overdue’ items will be shown at the top of the screen of selectable categories and sections. It is also shown on the myITprocess home screen under the “Categories Up for Review” widget.
TAM: Technology Alignment Manager - The role or function of the business responsible for standards and alignment. The TAM should be technical, but not your most technical resource. They need to be cordial and friendly to people, but not easily sucked into long conversations. A TAM needs to like methodical, detailed, and tech-speak work, as that is what they do for the majority of their time. The TAM is the person who goes on site (or virtually, in pandemic times) and answers questions about the client having the right things in place. These are yes-no questions, and they are gathering information to give to the vCIO, who will make judgement calls on the severity of the situation.
vCIO: Virtual Chief Information Officer - The role or function of the business responsible for owning the business impact and strategic client relationship. This person has excellent communication skills, business acumen and experience in the tech world, and enough technical knowledge to bridge the gap between the technology alignment information and what is important to the client. They decide how vulnerable a client is based on the questions and answers received by the TAM and present projects, solutions, and ideas to the customer using the Strategic Roadmap.
Review: A list of questions created from your Standards Library to be answered yes/no by your Engineer/Tam, and then evaluated for business risk by your vCIO. Both portions of the review must be completed for us to call it a ‘completed review’.
Technical Analysis: As the TAM is answering their portion of the review, they may find that some additional technical information would be useful for the vCIO or client to know. Below each question is a box where this technical analysis can be dictated.
Business Analysis: A large portion of the vCIO’s job is evaluating the business impact of a particular item being out of alignment. While eventually they are going to make a recommendation to fix the item, there is a box below each question for the vCIO to write their connective thoughts between the technical finding of the TAM and the business impact the client will experience. This is the best place to input the business risk associated with each misalignment.
Reports: Two of our most common reports live under the ‘reports’ tab. The ‘Client Reports’ tab has our legacy Alignment report, lovingly called ‘the bomb report’. This report takes data out of reviews that are in progress or completed and compiles it to show the client what is in or out of alignment, depending on what the user chooses to show. The Alignment report option in the list is the more recent version of the same report.
Budget Report: This report is found underneath the Strategy option in the menu at the top of the screen. This report pulls financial and recommendation information from the Strategic Roadmap and organizes it into a pivot table. Different factors of the report can be moved on and off the chart, and it can be filtered to specific clients, recommendations, or what has been accepted by clients, among other things.
Parts of the Strategic Roadmap:
Menu: On every client’s roadmap there is a small square button in the upper right hand corner of the screen with three horizontal lines. Clicking that button will bring up the Strategic Roadmap menu.
Strategy Profile: This contains individualized information about a given client, like the beginning of their fiscal year.
Meeting History: This contains all previously conducted meetings, which can be reviewed or deleted at any time.
Build report: This creates a four-quarter report of items selected on the Strategic Roadmap based on the client’s response.
Unassigned findings: These are questions and answers to questions that have been attached to the Strategic Roadmap but not yet assigned to an initiative.
Templates: myITprocess enables users to create templates of Initiatives and Recommendations to use across their entire client base. It makes it very fast and easy to ensure that descriptions, coloring, and other factors of initiatives and recommendations remain the same.
Initiative: A ‘bucket term’ used on the Strategic Roadmap. This is used to categorize together recommendations under some sort of umbrella heading. They are also often used to delineate individual strategies that have multiple parts. Examples of Initiatives include: Business Continuity, 2021 Office Move, Cyber Security, Licensing changes, Policy creation/changes, etc.
Recommendation: A specific project or conversation that needs to be addressed with the client. Examples of recommendations include: Migrate to the Cloud, Discuss transition back to the office, Install new Antivirus, etc.
Presentation Mode: When the vCIO is ready to talk to a client about recommendations, they should create a presentation in the Strategic Roadmap. After clicking ‘add presentation’, the system will ask for some logistical information about the day and time of the meeting, and then on the next screen of the side panel there will be a dotted outlined box. The vCIO must drag and drop the recommendations they wish to speak about in the presentation into this box. The user can then click ‘create presentation’ and when they are ready they can click the blue box to start the presentation. The Presentation Mode is meant to be shown directly to the client through a laptop or screenshare, and then the conversation happens in real time while the client is looking at pertinent slides.
Recommendation Backlog: Sometimes a vCIO wants to write down a recommendation but not have it on the client’s strategic roadmap quite yet. In filling out a recommendation, there is a box to click the option for putting it into the ‘recommendation backlog’. This will store the recommendation internally in myITprocess, but not on the client’s roadmap. When the vCIO is ready to put the recommendation on the roadmap they can go into the backlog and move it.
Parts of the home screen of myITprocess:
Strategy Overview: This area pulls data from the Strategic Roadmap and shows the user the monetary values of the accepted projects on their roadmap for the next four quarters. There is the word ‘open’ in blue on the upper right hand corner of this box, and clicking that will enable the user to see their upcoming projects broken down by quarter and by client. Note: Only someone with vCIO permissions will see this feature. IT Provider Admins will also have a funnel available so they can see all vCIO’s upcoming and accepted recommendations.
Meetings: When a vCIO is ready to talk to a client, they are able to create a presentation using individual recommendations in the Strategic Roadmap. Once a date and time is selected and the presentation is created, it makes a meeting in the system. If any meetings are scheduled for the current week, they will be visible as purple dots in the meetings box on the home screen. If one of those purple dots is clicked, a side panel will pop up on the right with the details of the meeting, and the vCIO can start the presentation mode immediately.
Quick Access: These are reviews that the user can work on right now, based on their role in open reviews.
Finding: As the vCIO goes through their portion of the review, they are going to find standards that are not aligned and want to fix them. For example, the TAM found that the switches are not enterprise grade and the vCIO has deemed this as an issue. There is a blue button on the bottom right of each question (unless it is internal use only) that says ‘add to strategy’. By clicking that, the vCIO is able to attach this question and the answer to said question to our Strategic Roadmap as justification for suggesting a project. In this context, the question is called a ‘finding’. Findings are attached to Initiatives.
Unassigned findings: Sometimes an appropriate initiative has not been created for a particular finding to go into; when that is the case, the user can keep the findings as ‘unassigned’. Unassigned findings should be a temporary state, so we keep users well aware of them by putting them directly on the home screen.
Reviews Assigned to Me: This is any incomplete review that has the user’s name on it as a TAM or vCIO.
Categories up for Review: This is a master grouping of all the categories that have not been reviewed in the correct time frame according to our timer function.
Community: This is a live feed of our myITprocess community and all of our newest postings. If things are out of chronological order it is because something is either pinned or got upvoted.