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Hampshire Constabulary automates ITIL processes with Infra service desk
Hampshire Constabulary is the second largest non-metropolitan police service in England and Wales and polices the counties of Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, covering an area of 418,000 hectares and serving a population of 1.8 million in 730,000 households. Based at Headquarters in Winchester, the IT and Communications Services (ITCS) department provides support for the IT infrastructure that underpins police operations, including over 700 applications and vital command control systems such as the crime recording system.
Within the ITCS department, the ITIL Service Support team is tasked with providing 24 x 7 x 365 Fault and Service Request support for the force’s 7,500 employees. This includes maintaining over 3,500 desktop machines and the mission-critical Airwave digital radio system, which is relied upon not only by police officers for instant communication with colleagues and base, but also by civilian staff such as delivery drivers and facilities managers.
As part of a drive to improve IT Service Management, the Constabulary decided to implement a new ITIL-aligned service desk solution from Infra Corporation. Previously, the Service Support team was using a client-server solution from another vendor. Although adequate for basic call logging, the old system did not provide integrated Incident and Problem Management, and Knowledge Management functionality was strictly article-based.
According to Steve Felton, User Support Manager at Hampshire Constabulary, “We had a clear need for an ITIL-aligned service desk that would allow us to implement best practice processes starting with Incident and Problem Management. Having reviewed the market thoroughly, we concluded that infraEnterprise could best provide the flexibility, ease of use and depth of functionality we required.”
Seamless integration with Airwave system
The new Infra service desk was deployed in February 2007. Due to the tight timescales involved, infraEnterprise’s out-of-the-box functionality proved a key benefit for Hampshire Police, not least the system’s automated integration with best-of-breed third-party applications.
Up until this point, essential information on the Constabulary’s 3,500 workstations was collated and maintained manually by the Service Support Team. This was extremely resource-intensive and failed to provide the high standard of accuracy required for effective ITIL processes. Using Infra’s SMS plug-in connector, the team are now able to use SMS asset tag data to pull up individual PC or laptops records within Infra’s Configuration Management Database (CMDB). Similarly a connector to the digital radio system provides access to current data relating to almost 4,000 in-car systems, handheld units and base units at the station. infraEnterprise’s seamless integration with Active Directory also enabled the team to rapidly populate the CMDB with customer data, ensuring a single login for users and the automatic recognition of access privileges.
Improved service desk efficiency
infraEnterprise was implemented at the same time as the new ITIL processes were introduced. The rollout went smoothly with service desk operators describing the Infra software as “very usable”.
Prior to implementing infraEnterprise, the call logging process was time-consuming as operators had to type in both questions and answers when gathering information. As a result, there were issues with incomplete or incorrect data, rendering managing and reporting on Problems more difficult. Using scripting within infraEnterprise, service desk staff are now guided through the information-gathering process on screen, simply clicking on the relevant answer.
According to Steve Felton, “Scripting within infraEnterprise has clearly had a positive impact on productivity and crucially, enables us to record comprehensive and accurate data. We can also easily customise screens to suit our specific needs, all of which makes the Infra system extremely intuitive to use.”
Following a short training session from Infra, Steve Felton found it simple to instigate several time-saving customisations to the system in-house such as changing the primary search criteria from name to login ID and using bulk logging to create new accounts for new users on the police training school class list.
Increased first line resolution rate
The Service Support team handles in excess of 5,500 calls per month with issues typically ranging from forgotten passwords or PUK codes for the Airwaves radios, and requests to set up shared folders or radio talk groups. Using infraEnterprise workarounds, Problems are swiftly located, and categorising call types and monitoring trends is systematic and straightforward.
According to Steve Felton, this has already had a positive impact on customer service, “Being able to manage calls across the Incident/Problem/Known Error lifecycle makes the service desk much more efficient – indeed it has improved our first line resolution rate significantly to the point where 85 per cent is now a realistic target.”
Calls that cannot be resolved by the frontline can now be easily escalated to other specialist analysts within ITCS, for example the Server Management or Network team. Sending emails with an automatic link to the product and related fault record reduces the amount of time second and third line teams spend looking for information, while the frontline service desk retains ownership of the Problem until action is taken.
Introducing customer self-service
Around 50 per cent of all calls are currently logged by email then transposed manually into the system, tying up a considerable amount of staff resources. The Service Support team is planning to rollout an integrated Infra Customer Portal in the near future to enhance customer access to service and boost service desk productivity.
According to Steve Felton, “From the start we were very impressed with the level of integration provided by the infraEnterprise Customer Portal, and immediately saw ways in which it could improve the whole customer experience as well as free up service desk staff to be more proactive.”
Plans are also underway to replace the Constabulary’s bespoke Change Management system. Implementing integrated Change Management will provide vital information about related Changes to the service desk when trying to resolve Incidents and Problems.
Steve Felton concludes, “infraEnterprise has enabled us to automate ITIL processes quickly and efficiently and we’re already seeing the benefits of a much more structured approach to service management. Throughout we have found the people from Infra to be extremely responsive, the training excellent and the comprehensive product easily customisable to our needs.”
