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Introduction

This training is intended for Octopus administrators who will have to:

• Configure Octopus to determine its behaviour.
• Prepare and maintain the request structure, forms and their respective options.
• Manage users, CIs and other Octopus modules.

The role of an administrator is very important in Octopus since he is usually the person with the most knowledge about the software.

A good administrator will be able to exploit the possibilities of the software its maximum in order to facilitate the life of the Octopus users and the end users. He will also remain informed of new features as Octopus is an evolving software, there are always improvements and innovations to exploit.

The goal of this training is to give the administrators the knowledge to properly configure the application in order to maximize its usage.

Training Objectives

• Understand and correctly use the key terms discussed according to ITIL.
• Recognize the Octopus interface and main menus.
• Configure and manage Octopus with the different options.
• Manage the reference data and understand the impacts.
• Manage users.
• Manage CIs. 
• Know how to configure planned requests.

Training Content

Basic ITIL Concepts

• ITIL: The Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) is a set of publications on the best IT management practises based on the business requirements.
• SLA (Service Level Agreement): Agreement between an IT service supplier and a client.
• CI (Configuration Item): Equipment, software or any other infrastructure component which is the cause, the subject or the target of incidents, service requests, problems or changes.
• Changes:  Add, modify or change of any component that can have an impact on the IT Services..  
  Alias: RFC, Change request, Project, etc.
• Problem: Cause of one or many incidents for which an investigation process must be done in order to understand the root cause of the problem and to identify a permanent solution.
• Service request (SR): A request made by a user to create, provide, install or change an equipment or software. Non-trivial requests are managed as Changes.
• Incident: A service interruption or degradation noticed by the user. "It was working yesterday, it's not working now.”

Octopus Installation 

• The ​Octopus installation article explains how to perform a standard and advanced Octopus installation.
• The ​Installing multiple instances of Octopus on the same computer article explains how to perform two Octopus installations (or more if necessary) on a single computer.
  This procedure is required if a single computer must be used to access two distinct Octopus environments ( example: production and test).

Configuration of the Main Options

• Menu: Tools > Options
  • It is possible to print the list of options and values.
  • After the option modifications, Octopus will restart in order to apply the changes.

Reference Data Management

• Menu: Tools > Reference data management

Administration Tools

• The article on ADSIReader explains how to import users, computers (workstations and servers) and print queues contained in your Active Directory .

• The article on MailIntegration ​explains how to receive emails in Octopus to create a new incident, an event or to update an existing request by adding an activity.

• The article on DataImporter explains how to import data from other databases into Octopus. It is possible to import CIs, users, service contracts, incidents and more.

• The article on WMIUpdater explains how to update the configuration (hardware and software) of computers of your network into Octopus.

• The article on GetDbApp explains how to download the Octopus database hosted on our servers and even to restore it on one of your servers.

Configuration and Operation of the Modules 

• The Setup guide article provides a simple workflow in order to simplify and accelerate the implementation.

• The ​Service asset and configuration management article explains how to configure the module, in order to constitute a powerful relational database of configuration items (CMDB) which will be used throughout Octopus.
• The Configuration change journal is an important tool to tracks who changed what in the system. 

User Management 

• The User management article describes the user management module, the various information to configure for basic Octopus usage, as well as a more advanced use of Octopus.
• The Role management article explains how to use roles in Octopus, as well as the steps to properly configure them.
  • The Permissions section explains how the permissions work, it also provides a reference document of the permissions.

Request Management

• The Basic configuration-Service Requests article describes the steps and procedures in order to create SR types which will be used to process service requests.
• The Basic configuration-Incidents article describes the steps and procedures in order to create templates which will be used to process incidents.
• The Create customized forms in Octopus article explains how to quickly create forms with a powerful and user-friendly tool which will be used to create requests using a form.
• The Custom Field Library article explains how to manage and exploit custom fields in Octopus. 

Planned Request Management

• The Planned request management article describes the planned request management module, the various information that you will need to configure for basic or advanced usage of Octopus.

Web Portal

The Web Portal Operation article describes how the Web Portal works for users. 

The Web Portal - Customizing the Home Page article explains the different elements that can be customized.

The Web Portal - Setting up the modern mode article explains how the modern mode works and how to configure the tiles and description of the teams and categories. 

The Web Portal Authentication Modes article describes the different connexion modes that can be used to log in to the Web Portal.