Before Maven, Atlanta Public Schools (APS) managed their assets with multiple tools and lacked a centralized system. This made it difficult to effectively and efficiently serve the area’s students and manage the district. Their needs were met with the implementation of IBM Control Desk (Maximo) and Cognos. Many schools have the same asset management challenges.
CHALLENGES
IT Service and Asset Management
The centralization of a support team greatly increases the management of a school district. APS needed assistance managing assignments by location and request type because technical support was overwhelmed with management of all the assets coming into the district. Service teams needed the ability to dispatch incidents to 60+ teams with annual ticket volume trending around 65k. In order to effectively manage tickets, structured and consistent workflow processes were needed.
User feedback showed reporting was not meeting needs to gain the necessary insights for IT Service and Asset Management.
Change Management
Previously, the APS change management process did not allow the team to easily review historic changes to assess impact and risk. Further, it was not connected to the ticketing system, so change-related incidents could not be correlated and used to improve future change delivery. Change data needed to be integrated with ticketing or configuration items to view impacts of changes with other teams or systems.
Data Analysis
APS required analysis reporting with their existing ICD/Maximo platform. Each reporting request required a developer with strong SQL skills. Data exports into Excel would often lead to too much of the wrong information and the analysts would struggle to gain actionable insights.
INSIGHTS
Easy to Use • Flexible/Self-Service • Dynamic Reporting and Dashboards • Real Time Data • Multiple Data Sources & Applications • Business User Centric • Software as a Service
SOLUTION
We created a match made in cloud heaven. IBM Cognos Analytics and Control Desk (Maximo) were exactly what APS needed. Cloud to Cloud, IBM to IBM — there was no heavy lifting for the APS IT Teams. We produced a way for teachers, administration, and staff to easily submit requests for IT Services with self-service tickets. We offered catalog standardization for common requests, such as ink and toner replenishment. The centralization of IT Service Management made a single source for all needs from incidents reporting to change releases. In addition, knowledge management was created with a virtual assistant to guide users toward their solution which expedited resolutions.
“We needed a reporting and dashboarding tool that would be adaptable to meet the needs for different teams and leadership levels within the IT organization.” — Paula Curtis, Atlanta Public Schools
