A month following the launch of ServiceNow, campus members are acclimating to and finding value in the University’s new primary ticketing software. That’s what user feedback and usage stats indicate for ServiceNow, which replaced Carolina’s old Remedy system on July 30.
In the first month, the University’s new ServiceNow platform received 10,000 incident tickets, of which 9,700 were resolved. In addition, 8,000 service requests were received, one major incident was logged, 155 changes were submitted and 228 new knowledge base articles were created.
That’s a huge number of requests, said Brenda Carpen, Project Lead for ServiceNow and an ITS project manager.
Embracing increased functionality
Campus members are engaging with the platform and getting their work done in the new ServiceNow platform, even during the busiest time of the academic year. “People are figuring it out, and that’s fantastic,” she said.
“ITS groups are adjusting well to the new Change processes in ServiceNow,” said Matthew Mauzy, Practice Owner for Major Incident. “There’s a bit of a learning curve but groups are embracing the increased functionality. The ability to link changes and incidents will give us improved visibility into the impact of our operations.”
Those requests for changes to ServiceNow demonstrate that users are conceiving of additional features and functionality that would enhance their experience with the platform, Carpen said. “They’re adapting and wanting changes. That’s good news.”
Since go-live, the ServiceNow Service Management team has established two new smaller teams: the Service Management Platform Team and the Service Management Customer Engagement Team. Made up of the former ITS Remedy group, the Platform Team is responsible for managing the ServiceNow architecture platform. The team took over the development role from the ServiceNow vendor Contender. The Customer Engagement Team is responsible for customer outreach and prioritizing customer requests.
‘Forming storming norming’
“The Customer Engagement Team and the Platform Team continue to be heavily engaged in the forming-storming-norming phase dealing with process challenges, tackling problems, identifying best practice solutions to deliver quick results,” said David Smith, Manager of IT Service Management (ITSM). “This is the norm in order for the team to grow and establish processes around how we deliver services and manage the platform.”
For the first month, the Service Management team operated on a one-week development cycle. With that quick turnaround timeframe, it was “from the frying pan into the fire” and very intense, Carpen said. “I think we learned a lot doing it that way.”
The development cycle is now every two weeks. “That’s given us a little bit of breathing room,” Carpen said.
“The first month has gone by fast,” said Alison Campbell, Customer Solutions Lead. “We’ve had a lot of volume and have made a lot of changes since our go-live date. Considering we are a newly formed team, we are getting work accomplished quickly.”
Further polish is next
The Customer Engagement Team, she said, “is getting our feet under ourselves, forming work processes and practices, and acting as liaison between our users and the Platform Team. Our focus over the next few months is to further polish how people work in ServiceNow, and continue to improve the platform to meet the needs of campus.”
What’s next for the overall group working on ServiceNow, Carpen said, is to stabilize the platform, engage with customers, rapidly deliver enhancements that ITS customers need, develop new service requests and improve reporting. In addition, the group wants to onboard the University’s Finance and Operations division and some non-IT units.
“Our goal between now and the end of the year,” Smith added, “is to establish process norms around roles and access, on-boarding, and platform improvements that align with campus needs. We also need to strategize on the next phase towards decommissioning the remaining applications in Remedy.”
Now looking back on the first month and the lead up to the launch, Carpen said the ServiceNow project team had its challenges and surprises.
The big challenge, Carpen said, was that there were some things the project team could not anticipate until ServiceNow was operating.
“There are things you only figure out when you’re in the platform and servicing tickets,” she said.
Making sure the ServiceNow team was communicating at the right level was another challenge, she said.
Customers take ownership
As for surprises, one surprise from the first month of post-launch, Carpen said, is how readily campus customers have accepted and taken ownership of ServiceNow. “I’m seeing a huge amount of enthusiasm around ServiceNow being able to do more,” she said.
Some users who support classroom technology have formed their own group to explore classroom requests.
“It shows that there is enthusiasm for leveraging the tool,” Carpen said. That group of users wants guidance on best practices from the ServiceNow team.
Appreciation offered
Something else from the first month surprised Carpen, but then again, it didn’t — the volume of work that the Customer Engagement Team and the Platform Team handled. The two teams have taken, worked on and released 66 development requests.
”That’s a lot of work,” Carpen said. She always had faith in their ability to perform at a high level, but from a group of people who already had been working non-stop, that’s astonishing, she said.
“I hope they understand they made a huge impact,” Carpen said.
Campbell and Smith, meanwhile, offer their appreciation to others who helped launch ServiceNow.
“Special thanks to the ConnectCarolina Change Management team for all their help with webinars, website updates, knowledge articles and fulfiller communications,” Campbell said.
In addition to expressing his gratitude to the ConnectCarolina Change Management team, Smith thanked all the people “who volunteered to help make this project a success.”