PETERBOROUGH, England, March 5, 2013 /PRNewswire/ --

New solution improves handling of critical tasks for IT teams and data centres

Halcyon Software, the global leader in systems management software, has announced the immediate availability of Task Supervisor, a new solution that significantly improves the visibility of all IT tasks that are critical to business operations. Designed to meet the needs of IT outsourcing companies, managed services providers and IT departments of large organisations, Task Supervisor provides a simple and effective way to organise all essential tasks in one, centralised location to minimise the risk of business disruption and human error.

Task Supervisor enables organisations to replace the disparate methods used for task management by IT teams and individuals, making it easier to see all tasks, report on how long they take and whether they were completed at the appropriate time. It has a web-browser interface that allows tasks, traditionally organised using tools such as Outlook, ACT or spreadsheets, to be consolidated using a single, centralised repository that can be shared with staff at any location around the world.  

Halcyon's new solution also eliminates the reliance on experienced employees who perform task management routines based on their own specialist knowledge. Such tasks, which previously may have been unknown and not visible to other members of the team, can now be imported into the software. Halcyon also provides a free service to extract existing tasks from any application, including Outlook, Lotus Notes and Excel, and import them into Task Supervisor.

"Task Supervisor is a unique product which gives organisations full visibility of all tasks which need to be completed in order to deliver an effective service to all users or customers," commented Carole Chandler, Sales and Marketing Director of Halcyon Software. "The shared visibility enables other team members to take control to cover for staff holidays, absence, leavers or in response to an unexpected event to ensure the business can continue without disruption."

Task Supervisor lists all tasks and processes in a time sequence showing which ones have to be completed at specific times or within defined time frames. It highlights tasks that need to be completed manually by specific users or groups as well as those handled by automated processes. Tasks automatically handled by Halcyon's monitoring and automation tools are shown as well as other third party solutions used by the organisation. Warnings are displayed on the dashboard should tasks not complete on time and dynamic links can be created to 'run books,' which list a company's procedures and instructions to resolve typical issues or problems.

"Task Supervisor enables outsourcers to provide an evidence-based delivery of a managed service by documenting every task and the time taken to complete each one," continued Carole Chandler. "It delivers efficiency gains during the customer 'take-on' process and provides standard reports to prove the effectiveness of managed services to clients."

There is no limit to the number of users or tasks that can be stored within the software and profiles can be created to group all tasks associated with specific processes or users. Being platform agnostic, Task Supervisor can be used in any IT environment and can be extended to list tasks across the whole organisation including human resources, administrative functions, facilities and building management.

Task Supervisor is available on a subscription software basis and existing customers can add it to their current Halcyon monitoring and automation package for £500 a month per organisation. New customers can specify Task Supervisor as an optional extra for £500 per month per organisation when buying any of Halcyon's monitoring suites for IBM i, Windows, AIX and Linux platforms.

About Halcyon Software

Halcyon Software is a global leader in multi-platform systems management software solutions that reduce the complexity and cost of monitoring critical business systems, core applications and processes. They support IBM enterprise-class systems, including IBM® i and AIX®, as well as Windows® and Linux® platforms. Halcyon solutions are used world-wide by large multi-nationals, corporate and public sector data centres as well as small to medium sized organisations to ensure that vital IT systems, business applications and services are available 24/7. With regional offices in Peterborough UK, Philadelphia USA and Melbourne Australia, Halcyon also has an international network of partners and distributors supporting Europe, the Americas and Asia Pac. For further information please visit http://www.halcyonsoftware.com

Carole Chandler, Halcyon Software, Tel: +44(0)1733-34995, Email: carole.chandler@halcyonsoftware.com

Paul Jennings, PJMC Limited, Tel: +44(0)1926-12886, Email: info@pjmc.com

SOURCE Halcyon Software