You have probably heard these stats quoted a million times – the cost of a service desk interaction is $22 per ticket resolution versus $2 for self-service and $0 for incident prevention or self-remediation. Let’s take the example of a password reset. Not only does this cost money for the IT service desk to resolve, but the technician is also bored and engaged in mindless, manual toil work. This contributes to attrition at the service desk, higher end-user wait times and costs that can be prevented.
The most obvious of the shift-left strategy is to move to self-service. This of course works well if you have a stellar self-service portal and a very well-vetted knowledge base (KB). Your end users can easily remedy many issues. However, for something like a password reset or the request to add someone to a user group in the active directory, these are not things that can be done in a self-service portal.
SO, THEN WHAT? AUTOMATE IT!
Many tasks like password resets, user name changes, permission changes and even larger workflows like the request to onboard a new employee can be automated by using an integration and automation layer to connect the IT service management platform with enterprise systems. Imagine if an end user went to the self-service portal and entered a request to add Jim Smith to the Sales Group in the active directory. Old school would be that a technician picks this up, manually gains approvals then manually adds the user. If you are able to automate IT instead, you can then have the ticket automatically route to the right person (departmental head) to approve the request, and then once the request is approved, the platform itself can add the person to this specific group. You do not need a technician to manually go through the steps, you can create a flow using a visual flow builder to do this.
NO-CODE IS CHANGING THE WORLD
No-code platforms are changing the reality of automation and self-remediation. Going back as few as five years, you would probably not find a way to quickly automate something like user group permissions or name changes. But now these automations can be easily built and without the use of a developer. Being able to quickly build out integrations and automations is not only changing how IT works but it’s also impacting areas outside of ITSM such as HR, finance, marketing, sales and other areas. Most organizations have between 100-300 enterprise applications and most of these are not talking, but they can be – and you can do this without having sys admin knowledge of each application. Instead, you can hook them all up to an iPaaS platform and then build out your workflows using a visual drag-and-drop interface. By leveraging this layer with IT service management, we are seeing the shift-left strategy go far beyond self-service and get into self-remediation which is the ultimate cost saver and a huge driver in end-user satisfaction. This is giving technicians an opportunity to take on more strategic work which is driving improved tech strategy and better staff morale.
OKLAHOMA CITY INVESTING IN TOOLS EMPLOYEES LOVE, DRIVING SELF-SERVICE ADOPTION
Effectively managing the technology needs of more than 5,000 city employees, including employees that utilize technology in the field, requires the right combination of people, processes and technology.
Business Systems Manager Dusty Borchardt said Oklahoma City has a top-notch IT team and well-defined processes, but the city government lacked an IT service management (ITSM) platform that would allow it to become a fully mature IT organization … that is, until they discovered TeamDynamix.
Before TeamDynamix, Oklahoma City was using a ticketing application that gave employees very limited visibility into the status of their service requests. Employees had to be connected to the city network to create and update service tickets, which was inconvenient for IT technicians working remotely. In addition, services that required the completion of routine tasks by multiple groups within IT had to be manually routed by employees.
Using TeamDynamix has brought more efficiency to IT service for city employees. With help from the new ITSM platform, Oklahoma City has built a self-service portal to meet employees’ IT needs more effectively.
Now, city employees can initiate a service request from wherever they are using their phone or any other Internet-connected device. Employees have more visibility into the status of their requests, and IT managers have comprehensive insight into how their department is doing. Borchardt and his team are continuing to expand the use of TeamDynamix and look forward to improved project management tools and more effective allocation of IT resources once PPM is fully implemented.
“The feedback we’ve gotten is that everyone loves TeamDynamix,” he says. “This is the first IT service management platform we’ve implemented that everyone loves to use.”
GAINING GREATER EFFICIENCY
With about 100 people providing IT services for more than 5,000 city employees, the IT department needs to work efficiently. TeamDynamix has allowed them to do so by streamlining the delivery of IT service through automated workflows.
“TeamDynamix has brought simplicity to our operations,” Borchardt says.
Using tools within the platform, Oklahoma City IT staff have created a self-service portal linked to an expanding knowledge base. City employees can find answers to common problems and frequently asked questions within the knowledge base, and if they can’t resolve their own issue, they can submit a service request through the portal. Based on the nature of the problem they describe, their request is routed automatically to the appropriate IT team for a response.
“Our goal is that use of the self-service portal will continue to grow, reducing our call volume and emails to the IT service desk,” Borchardt says.
Automated workflows also ensure that important tasks aren’t overlooked when IT staff are busy. For instance, when new city employees are hired, there are many steps in the onboarding process. With TeamDynamix, the entire workflow can be initiated with a single service request that is routed to the various departments automatically. The same is true for requesting purchases and managing IT contracts.
“Before TeamDynamix, we had employees emailing requests directly to our administrative group within IT, and that was causing some issues,” Borchardt says. “Sometimes requests would fall through the cracks, and months would go by without anyone noticing.”
THE BENEFITS OF DEEPER INSIGHT
Greater efficiency is one key benefit that Oklahoma City IT staff have realized from using TeamDynamix. Deeper insight into IT operations is another.
The dashboards and reporting capabilities within the platform help IT leaders identify trends and patterns that allow them to make better decisions. For instance, leaders can see how much time various tasks are taking, or which service categories are getting the most requests, so they can allocate limited resources more effectively.
"FANTASTIC" IMPLEMENTATION WITH STRATEGIC KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER
Getting up and running with TeamDynamix took careful planning. “Before we got started, we spent time defining our service catalog so we could implement with the appropriate structure in mind,” Borchardt says. “We wanted to get this right because we knew it would serve as the foundation for everything we are trying to accomplish.”
Borchardt describes the implementation process itself as “fantastic.”
“We worked side by side with the TeamDynamix team to configure the system. The TeamDynamix consultants taught us every aspect of the platform as we progressed through the system setup,” he explains. “This helped us understand not only how to use it, but more importantly, how to think about the system strategically. It was an immediate transfer of knowledge on how the system works across all areas.”
Using TeamDynamix has helped Oklahoma City’s IT support teams realize their vision for using industry best practices to improve the delivery of IT services.
“We adopted the ITIL framework more than 15 years ago. We’ve had effective processes in place for a while, but we haven’t had a decent tool set to manage them until now,” Borchardt concludes. “TeamDynamix works better than any system we’ve had previously.”
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