Introduction. About myself No of Buildings: 576 Geographical Area: 2,500 sqr Miles Corporate ICT Customers: 5,500 Educational ICT Customers: 2,200 No.

Introduction

Introduction• About myself• No of Buildings: 576• Geographical Area: 2,500 sqr Miles• Corporate ICT Customers: 5,500• Educational ICT Customers: 2,200• No of ICT Service Desk Staff: 75• Currently going through an ICT Review of our Service

Reason for Redevelopment of assyst• Used assyst for over 15 years mainly as a call logging tool• We kept upgrading but never used any of the new functionality• Stored assets in the CMDB

– Never discontinued– Information never used – No Relationships, config characteristics, maintenance records etc– Caused our CMDB to be out of date

• Never carried out Problem, Change or Incident Management• Logging and Cause Categories were out of date, which made our reports

inaccurate.

Starting of Project• Workshops with an Axios Consultant on the following areas:

– Incident Management– Change Management– Problem Management– Service Level Management– Asset and Configuration Management

• From the workshops, pieces of work and personnel were identified. • Regular catch up meetings throughout the development with axios.• 9 months of development before going live (although this should have been

longer!)

Advantages of Web Client • Access to assyst was available on all computer so calls could be

viewed/updated immediately instead of having to get back to their own computer.

• Most future enhancements were being done on the web and not on the windows client and we wanted to make use of these enhancements.

• Web client was customisable. • Searching for Items and Events are easier in the web. • Role out of web was simpler, as there was no application to install and any

future upgrades would be more straight forward.• Rolling out of the Self Service Portal (assystNET) to our customers.

What we have Implemented• assystWEB

– Currently have 9 instances of assystWeb/NET Running, although will increase upto 23 when all secondary schools have been rolled out)

• Predefined search queries easier to access and view

• Customised front page to advertise important information

• Advanced searching with the assyst Search Server

What we have Implemented• Contact User Gateway

– Automatically updates Customers – Names, Building, Section, Telephone No, Mobile, Email Address from Active Directory

– Automatically creates/disabled accounts so less administration in assyst.– Queries 15 Domain Controllers (1 Corporate & 14 Secondary Schools).– Maintains around 7,500 user accounts

• Smartmail– Sends 1,200 emails a day

• Assign Actions• Major Incidents Notification & Hourly Updates from Calls• Closure Email, automatically sending a Survey Email • Escalation Emails• Pending closure Email• Emails to Affected Users, Assigned Users, Incident & Problem

Managers• Reminder Actions• Calls Reopened• Customer Update Requires

What we have Implemented• Assyst Discovery

– Updates config characteristics on 5000 assets– Imports IP Addresses of discovered computers. This will allow us to

automatically move computers into the correct buildings. (Not completed yet)

– Tells us when our asset management tool last saw the computer on the network. We now disable AD computers that haven’t been seen for more than 50 days automatically. (Reports are created to show disabled assets)

• Assets Scanning App– Commissioned an asset scanning

application to be created, to import • New assets into assyst • Movement records of assets

moving.• Other departments are now

maintaining some of their assets.

What we have Implemented

– Designed the message centre to make it easier for them to choose what form to use.

– Usage per month (Average) Incidents = 10% Requests = 30%

• Self Service Portal (assystNET)– Created customised forms for all types of Requests, like ICT Disposal,

Leavers, New Starts, New Software, New Blackberry

What we have Implemented• Excel Import Spreadsheets

– Automatically logging calls on specific days/months/specific no of day.– Log a large amount of calls in 1 go. (Good for large rollouts).– Discontinue of assets once disposed.– Creating maintenance contracts and assigning them to assets.– Movement of assets.– Creating/Discontinue Alerts– Creating/Updating/Discontinuing Item Relationships

• Visual Basic Scripts– Read pop3 mailbox and log calls depending on subject line– Automatically restart SLA Clock if reminder action (future action) has

passed.– Log calls if maintenance contract is about to expire– Discontinue all config chars, relationships, movement records when items

have been discontinued.– Automatically log calls when stock levels have been reached.– Determine what the next available AD Username is and then create the AD

account.

Lessons Learned • Buy in of all Senior Managers

• Plenty of training of the new application before going live and after going live.

• Plenty of time to develop procedures and documentation.

• Plenty of communication and involvement from all teams.

• Constantly reviewing and improving assyst after going live, as things need to be refreshed and changed.

Future Development of Assyst • Upgrading to Version 10

– Rollout assyst Knowledgebase integration• Resolve more 1st level calls by having the required support documents to hand

when logging incident or change request.

• Implementing proper Change Management– More change processes– Convert our Forward Schedule of Change spreadsheet into change

requests in assyst so we can use the scheduled start and end date.– Create more relationships between servers, databases, network equipment.

• Implement more forms on the Self Service Portal.

• Rollout of the Self Service Portal to the rest of our Secondary School

Any Questions?