Leeds Beckett University just implemented Ivanti Service Manager! We sat down with their head of end user services, Sally Bogg, to talk about the implementation.

Q: Tell us a little bit about yourself and your role at Leeds Beckett University.

SB: I am a tea drinking, shoe loving, Yorkshire lass with a keen interest in service desk, customer service excellence, and higher education. As an alumni of Leeds Beckett University, I joined the university's IT services department in December 2015 as head of end user services, which is the same position I have today. My role is to lead, develop, and manage the teams responsible for end user services.

I am also leading on a programme of work called the Unified Service Delivery Model. The vision for this programme is to use standardised ITIL processes and a shared ITSM solution to provide a single point of contact for users of IT systems and services, improving communication and information, ensuring the effective turnaround of incidents and service requests, increasing customer service and satisfaction, and providing meaningful management information for effective decision making.

I have a passion for customer service and higher education which ensures that I put student experience at the heart of service improvement and am keen to support the empowerment and enhancement of women in tech.

Q: If my understanding is correct, you used to use our old ITSM product and have now moved on to ISM. Why did you make that decision?

SB: So often ITSM tools are purchased as a silver bullet and a catch all solution to implementing ITIL but the reality is that they can’t change your organizational culture or fix broken support processes. We had been Landesk customers for many years but our implementation was suffering from a lack of investment and development. Consideration was given to purchasing a new product but we felt that would be wasting the significant investment we had made in our relationship with Landesk over the years. We decided that we would start from scratch, redesigning our ITSM processes and rebuilding our system from the ground up. Just was we were in the planning phase of this the merger came about and we saw an opportunity to move to a new platform whilst keeping our strong relationship with Ivanti moving from an on premise to cloud solution at the same time.

Q: What Ivanti products do you use?

SB: We are using Ivanti Service Manager and Ivanti Protect.

Q: How has the onboarding process with Ivanti gone? How has using ISM changed (or is changing) your IT team and user experience?

SB: The IT support teams are really happy with how the launch has gone to date, particularly with the communication and information they have received both before and after the initial implementation. There was a level of apprehension related to the new tool but we have been delighted with how it has been received so far and the potential for evolution and development in the coming weeks. It already feels like a positive step forward for how we manage our services, boosted by the knowledge that with continued engagement and development it is only going to get better.

It was particularly useful to have the Ivanti consultant on site during the first couple of days.

Q: What’s the next pain point you are trying to solve in your IT department (asset management, or log in times, for example)?

SB: We are already starting to scope and plan for Phase 2 of Ivanti Service Manager. This will include further development of our IT Self Service Portal to deliver empowered self-help to our users, the introduction of server assets to provide better control and management of the IT infrastructure components and the expansion of our knowledge management process.

Q: Anything else you’d like our readers to know about ISM or Ivanti generally?

SB: We want to add a thanks to everyone involved in the implementation both at Leeds Beckett and Ivanti. This is only the start of our Unified Service Delivery Model journey and there remains much to do but the additional functionality we have gained with Ivanti Service Manager will greatly enhance our service proposition and improve customer access to our services and help demonstrate our accountability for the effective delivery of IT to the University. We look forward to further developing and building a strategic partnership with Ivanti!

Well done to everyone involved!