Astea International Inc. today rolled out a major new release of its field service management suite of applications that adds workforce collaboration tools, a third-party vendor management module, and a new user interface.

The 10.0 release of Astea’s Alliance applications is aimed at helping manufacturers more easily manage their field service operations, whether the manufacturer provides service directly to customers or works through third parties.

“This release focuses on enabling and easily facilitating service organizations to confidently and effectively create, support, and manage a truly virtual service delivery network for both financial and operation efficiencies,” said Astea CEO Zack Bergreen, in a prepared statement.

The latest release of Alliance includes a new Third Party and Vendor Management module that lets outside service vendors and subcontractors access the system’s dispatch and other features and participate in the service delivery process. The module lets managers view information about external and internal service technicians, allowing them to choose the best technicians for specific jobs.

Astea Alliance 10.0 also includes improved collaboration and analytical tools as well as an updated user interface. The latest release features embedded analytics and dashboards that enable the exchange of information and ideas throughout the service lifecycle.

The release also includes enhancements to the platform’s development environment, allowing users to more easily customize Astea Alliance and use plug-ins, developed by Astea. The enhancements to Astea’s Studio development environment are based on Microsoft’s Visual Studio 2008 platform.

In addition, Astea has added to the 10.0 release support for best practices as defined by the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL). The set of best practices, developed by the U.K. government, include guidelines for handling incident management, problem management, change management, and service-level management.

Besides the new Third Party and Vendor Management module, Astea Alliance modules cover contact center management, depot repair, field service, logistics, marketing, sales, and professional services.