Jan 14, 2011 09:45 GMT  ·  By

A new solution available from Microsoft allows IT professionals to bridge the latest version of System Center Service Manager with the most recent releases of Exchange Server.

Obviously, the System Center Service Manager – Exchange Connector is designed to streamline the work that Service Manager administrators need to do in relation to issues reported via email.

At the same time, IT admins need to not only receive emails, but also send out their own messages, another action that the connector simplifies.

The System Center Service Manager – Exchange Connector is available free of charge and can be grabbed via the Microsoft Download Center.

“The System Center Service Manager – Exchange Connector connects Service Manager to Exchange for processing incoming emails related to incidents and change requests,” Microsoft explained.

“The emails can update the incident action log or change the status of an incident to resolved or closed. Incoming emails with special keywords allow a change request reviewer to approve or reject a review activity and activity implementers can mark activities assigned to them as completed.

“The SendEmail solution allows analysts to send messages to users via email from the console.”

According to the software giant, in order to leverage System Center Service Manager – Exchange Connector, customers must be running System Center Service Manager 2010 SP1.

At the same time, the connector is designed to play nice only with Exchange 2007 SP3 or Exchange 2010 SP1.

Microsoft also provided a feature summary of the System Center Service Manager – Exchange Connector:

“• Create incident from email

• Update incident action log from email

• Resolve or close incidents from email

• Approve/reject change requests from email

• Update change request “action log” from email

• Mark manual activities completed from email

• Add email file attachment to work items as attachments

• Send notifications to users from the console.”

System Center Service Manager – Exchange Connector is available for download here.