Knapp I.T. » Real World Tips

Need a copy of your ITIL Certification?

Jill Knapp — Fri, 22 Jan 2016 04:05:00 +0000

I get calls and emails all the time from former students who have lost their ITIL Foundation certificate, and need a copy quickly. I wish I could get it for you, but I can’t!

Regardless of what training company you used when you took training from me (TEK Systems, New Horizons, ProTech, BridgeView, Knowledge Peak, Pultorak and Associates, NETD, etc.), your exam itself was purchased from (and graded by) one of four Exam Institutes (“EI”s): EXIN, Loyalist Certification Services (LCS), PeopleCert, and APM Group (APMG).

One of those companies has your grade and your certificate… not me.

So let’s say your company hired TEK Systems to deliver an ITIL Foundation class at your workplace with me as your teacher. TEK Systems was your training company. I was just a contractor hired by them to teach the class. TEK Systems purchased exams from one of those four Exam Institutes I listed above (and to save you some trouble, TEK Systems happens to use EXIN as their Exam Institute.)

During class, I made you sign into the website of the Exam Institute (either EXIN, Loyalist Certification Services (LCS), PeopleCert, and APM Group (APMG)) that TEK Systems bought the exams from (again, TEK happens to use EXIN), and you created a username and password for the EXIN website, and also you gave EXIN your email and snail-mail address, plus a bunch of other information. Once you were done with your exam, I sent your exam paper to the Exam Institute to be graded. The EI then graded your exam and gave you your results via email. I was completely out of the picture by that point.

So, your grades are completely between you and your Exam Institute. Because I teach for so many companies, I can’t easily list out what training companies use which Exam Institute, especially because training companies can change EIs at any time– so maintaining an accurate and updated list here for you would be nigh impossible.

Hopefully that jogs your memory enough to remember which Exam Institute was used during your exam session, and now you can check a few places:

If you still have access to your ITIL Foundation workbook, you can look in the first section of your workbook and there should be a slide that talks about the exam… hopefully there is information about who your exam institute was. Because I have taught for many different training organizations over the years and they all use different workbooks, I can’t tell you where to look in your workbook because I don’t know what workbook you have.

If you still work for the same company you worked for when you took the training and exam, search your email for your certificate. Your certificate and exam results were sent to your email address. Search for “ITIL” first. If you don’t find anything, then try searching for the name of the Exam Institutes, which are EXIN, Loyalist Certification Services (LCS), PeopleCert, and APM Group (APMG).

If you don’t work for the same company anymore and no longer have access to your former job’s work email, then you’ll have to contact the Exam Institute directly. I have no way of knowing what Exam Institute used to take your exam, so you’ll have to check with each of them, which are EXIN, Loyalist Certification Services (LCS), PeopleCert, and APM Group (APMG).

If you checked the “Include my name in the successful candidate register” box when you signed up for the exam (it was in with all the privacy stuff, so many times people don’t check the box), then your name MAY be in the Successful Candidate Register maintained by AXELOS. (AXELOS is the governing body of ITIL– all of those Exam Institutes Report up to them.) Look up your name; maybe it’s there!

Your last resort is to contact the company (not me, your trainer) who performed your training… sometimes their logo is on the cover of your workbook, and with any luck their contact info is also there. They can look you up since you (or your company) paid them for your training.

2018 UPDATE: If you took your exam in 2018, there is only one Exam Institute handling ITIL exams for every student and company worldwide; and that company is PeopleCert. So if you took your exam in 2018, check your email for anything from PeopleCert, or go to the PeopleCert website and simply log in there to grab a copy of your certificate. Easy peasy!

That’s all the information I have, but I hope it helps you out!

If you can’t get a copy of your certification, then I can certainly point you in the direction of a FANTASTIC series of ITIL self-study videos featuring ME! Once you watch the videos, you can go to EXIN or PeopleCert’s website and sign up to take the ITIL Foundation exam online from any computer with a webcam!

Best of luck!

–Jill

Link Love: Jeremy’s updated “How to Buy a Laptop” guide

Jill Knapp — Tue, 30 Dec 2014 05:54:48 +0000

One of my best friends on the planet is the Group Policy guru, Jeremy Moskowitz. And every year he writes a “How to Buy a Laptop” guide for friends and family. Well guess what? He’s my friend, and you’re my friend, so you get to see it.

WHO LOVES YOU? I do. :)

So… If you’re a techie, you probably have friends and family asking you what kind of laptop they should buy. Laptop technology is changing all the time… do you want an iPad? A Netbook? A Google/ChromeOS laptop? An Android tablet? A full-on laptop? Let Jeremy Moskowitz guide you through the questions, answers, and options. He’s the MAN.

Here’s the link: Enjoy!

How to buy a laptop for the Regular Person (2014-2015 edition)

Another Terrific Link: Buying a new laptop in 2012

Jill Knapp — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 13:57:52 +0000

If you’re a techie, you probably have friends and family asking you what kind of laptop they should buy.

Laptop technology is changing all the time… do you want an iPad? A Netbook? A Google/ChromeOS laptop? An Android tablet? A full-on laptop?

Let Jeremy Moskowitz guide you through the questions, answers, and options.

(Yes, that’s two Mosko-links in a row. What can I say? He’s a smart, prolific guy.)

Here’s the link: Enjoy!

How to buy a laptop for 2012 (for the regular person)”>

Terrific Link: Backing up your data

Jill Knapp — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 20:49:33 +0000

My mentor, dear friend, and Group Policy Mastermind Jeremy Moskowitz has been writing a blog post every year that provides very practical information re: how to back up your data on your home PC.

Obviously your IT Department’s backup strategy is going to be very different than this, but these instructions are perfect for your non-techie friends and family, and also for tech-savvy folks like me who run their company out of their homes. The article is written for non-techies, though techies won’t find it condescending either. :)

Jeremy updates this post every year since backup options and technologies are changing all the time.

And as Jeremy suggests: Print out a copy, and hand it to your parents. This will save you some panicky phone calls one day, I promise.

I highly, highly recommend this article. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure and all that.

So without further ado… here’s the link. Enjoy!

Backup Procedures for the normal (non-IT) person [Repost]

Webinar: Balancing Demand & Capacity Management 5/25/11 10am Eastern

Jill Knapp — Fri, 20 May 2011 01:21:19 +0000

The fine folks at BrightTalk are hosting an online summit entitled “Aligning IT With Business Objectives.” There are many fabulous presenters scheduled for that day, and I’m lucky to be among their ranks.

A hot issue in my world lately is how IT provides the capacity to meet the varying demands of the business, and the two ITIL processes of Demand Management and Capacity Management work hand-in-hand to address this tug-o-war. So I’ll be presenting a 45-minute webinar to discuss these two topics and to provide some tips for addressing some of the challenges associated with providing cost-justifiable IT capacity.

Hope to see you there!

Service Desk Tip – Hire The Right People

Jill Knapp — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 17:58:56 +0000

Pretend you’re a Service Desk Manager and you have to choose between two people to hire:
Candidate #1 is technically very sharp and experienced, but they come across as superior and condescending during support calls. They resolve a lot of tickets on the first shot.
Candidate #2 is kind, bright, on-the-ball, listens well, is patient, and sees each issue through to completion, even though they have to throw a larger percentage of calls over to 2nd and 3rd line support because they’re not as familiar with the technology you use in your organization.

Which candidate should you hire?
The nicer person, hands down.

Why?

Let’s assume that you have the greatest IT department in the world. Everyone gets along, everyone is overpaid with tons of vacation time, your technology never breaks and your leaders are all fabulous. And let’s pretend that you’re a user, and you get the one grumpy snippy jerky IT person on the phone who just happens to work on the Service Desk. What do you, as the user, think of the entire IT department? That they’re all grumpy, snippy jerks!

So hire the nicer person, because they are the only interaction with IT that your users are going to have.

Let’s look at some facts about human nature:

You can train people to be more technical, but you can’t train people to be nice. People are either born nice or they’re not.

People either care about doing a good job or they don’t. You can’t train people to care. People are either born caring or they’re not.

People are either bright or they’re not. The good news is that bright people can be trained easily; they’ll learn to support whatever weird quirky apps you have easily.

Perception is everything!

So… the tip here is: Hire nice, bright people who care.

Service Level Managers should not be smarmy

Jill Knapp — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 15:44:15 +0000

Recently I considered refinancing my mortgage. With interest rates being so low these days, I could easily knock 2.5 percentage points off my mortgage if I refinanced. I called my mortgage company and asked for information, and I was connected to a mortgage loan sales guy. He was the only human I had ever spoken with at my mortgage company; he was the face of my mortgage company.

Sadly, he was a stereotypical smarmy sales guy who was really trying to close the deal. He gave the hard sell (ick!), he interrupted my questions (argh!), and didn’t let me finish my answers (grrrr!). He pulled all of the typical annoying used-car salesguy tactics; e.g., “Let me check with my manager,” and “We have a special deal just for today, but you have to sign the paperwork in the next hour.” Uh, no.

So I said “Thanks but no thanks” and I took my business elsewhere. Even if my mortgage company could give me the best rates around, I’d rather pay a touch more just so I can feel good about who gets the commission.

What’s this have to do with ITSM/ITIL?

If you’ve taken my ITIL Foundation class, you’ve heard me make the analogy that your Service Level Manager is the face of IT to the folks who buy IT services (a.k.a. The Customer, or The Business).

To the business, the Service Level Manager is the one-stop-shopping role; the salesperson for IT. The SLM deciphers what the business needs and compares that to what IT can realistically deliver, and they negotiate how much it’s going to cost as well as the details of what’s to be provided. (They do other stuff too, of course.)

The Service Level Manager is a unique bird, and needs to have some madd skillzz, yo: They need to speak both techie-speak and business-speak, and they need to accurately capture the needs of The Customer, and also accurately convey the capabilities of IT. They have to be great communicators, they have to have backbone, they have to be good schmoozers, they have to know how to close a deal, negotiate contracts, and most of all, they need to have the ability to say “no, I’m sorry” but still be likeable.

With that said…

Make sure the person/people in your Service Level Manager role has those qualifications, or the business may very well choose to take their business elsewhere, just like I did.