International university transforms its ServiceNow platform to optimize the digital experience

INDUSTRY: Education
LOCATION: Globally
SIZE: 8,000 employees 

university implementation

Faster incident resolution with the CSM Portal

Increased student satisfaction with time optimization

Provided enhanced visibility to self-service information for all departments

Enabled effective student interactions

Our customer is a world top ten university with an international reputation for excellence in teaching and research. It has consistently been ranked among the world’s best universities, and it is dedicated to developing the next generation of researchers, scientists, and academics through cross-disciplinary collaboration. The university, located in the heart of London, is a multidisciplinary space for education, research, translation, and commercialization, leveraging science and innovation to address global challenges.

The international university aimed to transform IT service delivery by consolidating multiple disparate systems onto the ServiceNow Platform. With a service delivery platform, the university now drives operational efficiency as well as student and staff satisfaction.

The priority for this project was to provide a modern portal for staff and students to communicate incidents and raise requests without going through the help desk. Thus, there was a need to implement the CSM module and re-implement the existing IT Service Management module. As a result of a competitive tender, Scarce IT and ABIT Puresoft were chosen to partner alongside a ServiceNow team, allowing us to provide our joint client with the out-of-the-box functionality, with the option of expanding the platform to other areas in the future.

The implementation of this project was based on the business case proposed by ABIT Puresoft, which was in accordance with the university’s needs and perspectives regarding automation and digitalization. This meant implementing a new best practice instance of the ServiceNow Customer Service Module (CSM) and ITSM (IT module), which now improve the user experience and allow for future enhancements.

The university's former ITSM system needed improvements to align all data up to date in one place. Thus, having a single data platform for performing workflows and providing a single source of truth for reporting. In addition, the prior ITSM system lacked the ability to handle mobility, integration, transitions, and other digital needs. Even though the ServiceNow ITSM module was chosen as a viable replacement for the current ITSM system, implementing and improving it proved to be a challenging mission.

Furthermore, the ServiceNow platform’s seamless integration with current tools and applications was required for a smooth IT service operation. With so many departments inside the university, ABIT Puresoft concluded that introducing Agent Workflow would be a valuable addition. This solution streamlined fragmented tools and integrated customer service to all teams, making it easier to resolve requests.

All essential groups (students, staff, faculty, suppliers, etc.) have access to a single workbench that promotes effective service management interactions. They now have an effective service management software because of the implementation.

The top British university uses ServiceNow as a platform to improve their overall digital experience. The university streamlines IT management systems to accelerate the digital transformation of the services they provide, while also incorporating ServiceNow into the digital strategy and establishing an effective knowledge sharing platform. Therefore, like in many industries, education is undergoing a digital transformation and our customer wants to provide a superior digital experience for students and faculty’s staff.

With ABIT Puresoft’s solution, the university simplified basic operations allowing students and staff to spend more time on more valuable academic matters. The customer transformed their support approach with a new service portal, for both ITSM and CSM. These modules are fully integrated with multiple knowledge bases, service requests, and cases, and powered by digital workflows for incident management.

In conclusion, with ServiceNow, the university’s students enjoy a personalized and engaging interface that is consistent across all the departments. Users can decide what information they want to receive and how it will be delivered (via e-mail or via the platform). Besides, with self-service they can get answers more quickly when raising incidents or requests. The implementation consolidates and automates case management, delivering greater control and visibility into the university’s operations. It enables heightened business agility and faster IT decision-making.

CHALLENGE:

The university, which was already a ServiceNow customer, was having difficulties using multiple ServiceNow instances for each department and faculty, while 95 percent of students were still using e-mail for requests and incidents.

The university’s platform has been substantially customized throughout the years, resulting in a one-of-a-kind version with complicated processes and workflow that poses support, upgrade, and usability problems. In addition, the prior ITSM system was unable to handle mobility, integration, transitions, and other digital needs.

PROCESS:

ITSM Re-implementation

CSM Module Implementation and Support

SOLUTION:

The ability to manage hundreds of staff and student’s service requests on a given day is a challenging task. Thus, ABIT Puresoft assessed their unique situation, and proposed an out-of-the-box implementation of CSM, with no major changes in functionalities and a re-implementation of ITSM.

With the upgrade of ServiceNow to CSM, the users within all departments have access to a streamlined ticketing processes and workflow. With the use of Knowledge Articles, they can now benefit from time optimization and better visibility for problem solution through the CSM Service Portal.

TESTIMONIAL:

ABIT Puresoft is doing a fantastic job and has become a real core part of our team. We have a huge roadmap of improvements emerging and given how well they integrated and regularly delivered value we are looking forward to continuing working together.

 

Product Owner (Cross-Functional)