TDX: Celebrating a year of progress and future steps for ITSM

This article was originally published in the February 3, 2022 IT Weekly.

The IT service management enhancement project began just over a year ago, with five TeamDynamix modules implemented so far and just three remaining for implementation and review. This article will review the milestones reached in the past year and provide updates on new directions for the project.

Ticketing  

Ticketing is now managed by the IT Service Delivery and Support service, which also includes change enablement, problem management, and the chatbot. More than 24,000 tickets have been submitted since the launch in July 2021, including more than 3,500 through the Technology Help Center. The satisfaction survey has received more than 1,800 responses since the launch, compared to just 131 the previous year, with a Net Promoter Score of 74.22, indicating high satisfaction. Since the initial launch, more than 30 additional forms have been added to further enhance ticket routing. Current priorities include creating a scalable process to create and modify forms, developing operational dashboards to track Operating Level Agreement (OLA) metrics, and migrating processes like onboarding into TDX.

Change Enablement

Since the launch of change enablement in TDX, the weekly review process has become smoother and more efficient, and changes are now visible on the public change calendar. Next steps include integrating change tickets with configuration items (CIs) to see real-time and historic changes across the many layers impacting a service, additional workflow to improve compliance control with the Research Computing Environment (RCE), and more change request coordination details for backend tasks such as virtual machine snapshots and monitoring status updates.

Problem Management  

Three problem tickets have been submitted and are visible on the new Outage and Maintenance Information page of the Technology Help Center. All problem tickets follow the new problem management workflow developed by Dave Belville and Liz Murphy that helps integrate problem management with the other TDX modules and ITSM processes. TeamDynamix identified the workflow as one of the best among their ITSM clients and invited the team to present at the next TDX conference.

Asset Management  

Asset management also required building a new process from scratch, including defining assets and CIs and determining an attainable scope for the MVP. In order to enhance the support provided by the Service Desk and bring immediate value to the warehouse, the project has pivoted slightly and will focus on migrating only physical assets from SnipeIT at this time. The effort is being led by Renee Perry and Jeremy Grahame, with a planned deadline of May 2022. Other resource groups interested in importing their own CIs should contact Ian Isham who served as the subproject lead for the MVP.  

Knowledge Management and Service Catalog  

The knowledge management and service catalog team is working toward a campus launch in summer 2022. Usability testing of the service catalog is currently underway, which will inform changes to the layout and organization of the service catalog to better suit users’ needs. The team aims to make the service catalog visible in draft form for TDNext users to preview in March. Once the service catalog is drafted, the next major step will be migrating help articles from the OIT website into TDX using the new service catalog organization. Training on how to navigate and contribute to the new knowledge base is slated for early summer.

Project Management  

The project management module will be evaluated in a high-level analysis for its fit with agile project management as well as agile product development and delivery needs. The analysis will determine next steps for the start of the fiscal year in July 2022, either proceeding with the TDX implementation or launching an exploration of alternatives that better meet identified needs. As with all major initiatives, the timing of this plan will be dependent on overall organizational priorities. 

Thank you to everyone who served on a project team, attended the trainings, or provided feedback so far. It truly has been an organization-wide effort, and the success of this project has been because of everyone’s teamwork and contributions.