Description
Low user adoption, complex and costly technology stacks, and high maintenance costs were some of the key challenges Group Health's IT service delivery team was facing every day. But their existing legacy ITSM technologies were taking far too much effort, leaving no time for building new services, meeting business goals, or driving innovation.
Join Troy Holmes, Senior Systems Engineer at Kaiser Permanente formerly Group Health, and Udi Gotlieb, Director of Product Marketing at ServiceNow, to learn about Group Health's journey to ServiceNow's cloud‑based ITSM solution.
In this webinar, Group Health will talk about:
- The challenges they faced with their legacy ITSM solutions
- Their selection process and their then move to a ServiceNow's cloud‑based solution
- The benefits for their IT team, as well as to Group Health's employees outside of IT
Please register to watch..
Read the Q&A
Q. Who was the implementation partner?
A. Yes it was no other platform could provide all of the functionality. So the larger TCO picture is we would have had to build and support multiple platforms which made ServiceNow TCO considerably better. In addition when you start to look at 5 year TCO when it comes to Upgrades and equipment costs ServiceNow was an even better value.
Q. Was ServiceNow the least expensive option when it came to licensing, installation services, and three-year TCO?
A. No, ServiceNow ITSM is a good fit for smaller shops as well, with embedded OOTB ITIL processes, guided setup with best practices - you can start small, and grow as needed on the same platform. See Craft Brew's story as a good example https://www.servicenow.com/customers/craft-brew-alliance.html
Q. This seems as if it is mainly geared towards larger enterprises. Would you say that is accurate?
A. We are constantly configuring ServiceNow and adding new functionality. Configuration is adding fields and business rules and new functionality. ServiceNow is a platform that is meant to be configured to fit your organizations needs. As long as we are following ServiceNow's best practices and adding things that we can call and get support on from ServiceNow even if it is a customer built table then it is not customization. We currently release Feature enhancements once a week and are averaging 30 Feature Enhancements added per moth. So we stay plenty busy. You would be amazed at how many people want to use and expand the use of ServiceNow once they use the platform.
Q. With little customization how does your ServiceNOW Developer spend their time?
A. We are constantly configuring ServiceNow and adding new functionality. Configuration is adding fields and business rules and new functionality. ServiceNow is a platform that is meant to be configured to fit your organizations needs. As long as we are following ServiceNow's best practices and adding things that we can call and get support on from ServiceNow even if it is a customer built table then it is not customization. We currently release Feature enhancements once a week and are averaging 30 Feature Enhancements added per moth. So we stay plenty busy. You would be amazed at how many people want to use and expand the use of ServiceNow once they use the platform.
Q. On average, how often are service pack updates done? Is there a need on our end to implement those? Or since this is cloud based, do we even need to perform the service pack updates?
A. Service Packs come out as needed. There is a quarterly minimum Release that you must maintain. The good news is you do not apply the Service Packs or the even the full version upgrades. We upgrade to new version first quarter of every year and we spend about 2 weeks evaluating the upgrade. 2 Weeks testing in Development, 2 Weeks in User Acceptance Testing before upgrading Prod. For ServicePacks we try and stay ahead of quarterly patching and normally patch 1 or 2 times a year and these we evaluate anything in the notes that are affecting us and then test. In total this about a 2 week period start to finish. Either way we do not actually apply the upgrade or patches just schedule them with ServiceNow
Q. In Service Catalog requests, do you have any workflows that are automated? Meaning the workflow obtains approvals, and then processes the request (ex. Adds access for EPIC). Or does someone still need to touch every SC order? A.We are not currently have any fully automated service requests
Q. Troy: when you implemented SNOW, what did you start with? For example, did you start with CMDB and then build out from there? A.Yes, all basic ITIL processes (incident, problem, change, request, etc.) are delivered with pre-defined workflows
Q. Are workflow modules/pre built libraries included or do I need to create from scratch as it relates to ITIL compliance
A. Yes, all basic ITIL processes (incident, problem, change, request, etc.) are delivered with pre-defined workflows
