Inside the ServiceNow Transition to a Unified Platform

Across the University of Arizona’s IT ecosystem, a quiet yet transformative effort is nearing completion, one most campus users will experience firsthand, often with a single click to submit a ServiceNow ticket.

Beneath that simplicity lies a complex, months-long effort to integrate dozens of independent systems and workflows into a unified platform. At the center of it all is Sandy Spakoski, Interim Assistant Director for IT Services Strategy & Operations, who has been leading the ServiceNow transition with a blend of collaboration, deep project management experience, and measured persistence.

Enterprise Support’s transition to ServiceNow in August 2025 marked a major milestone, but it was really just the beginning of the process. “There were 99 colleges, divisions, and departments on different systems or without a ticketing system,” Sandy explains. “People didn’t realize how much was still out there.”

Today, that number has dropped dramatically. What remains of the initial 99 are complex environments in a few units, where IT support is closely integrated with specialized systems and workflows.

At the outset of the project, resistance in some units was both expected and real. Sandy explains, “That mindset began to shift, however, through engagement and inclusion.”

One of the biggest challenges in the transition wasn’t technical; it was conceptual. Many units weren’t using their ticketing systems solely for IT. “They had facilities requests, lab requests, curriculum updates, all in the same system,” she notes. “So we couldn’t simply replace it; we had to understand it.”

That meant working closely with each unit to carefully separate IT support from everything else, preserving what needed to stay in existing systems while transitioning what could be centralized in ServiceNow. It wasn’t a one-to-one migration. It was a thoughtful extraction.

Shared ownership has also created a sense of urgency. In some colleges, what once felt like a long list of disconnected systems has become a focused, time-bound effort to simplify and move forward. UITS Specialized IT Services, Enterprise Support, and Systems Administration teams are setting aside dedicated time, coordinating with stakeholders, and steadily working through their migrations. What could have been a fragmented process now feels increasingly unified.

In environments like the College of Medicine – Tucson (COM-T), existing systems supported purchasing, provisioning, and project intake and served as a historical record of work. Moving to ServiceNow required carefully untangling those functions and determining which to transition and which to keep in place.

The challenge in COM-T was its complexity. “It wasn’t that we weren’t excited to take advantage of ServiceNow,” says Sheila Bustamante, Assistant Director of Consultancy & Project Management. “We just had to think carefully about how everyone would interact.” Coordinating across teams, aligning development cycles, and integrating systems such as MedLearn ensured that requests were routed correctly without disrupting existing workflows.

85 units are now live in ServiceNow, with 10 more scheduled to transition by June 2026. Progress has relied on relationships already in place. The senior directors in Specialized IT Services have opened doors, built trust with units, and highlighted the complexity of existing systems. That groundwork enabled the project to move forward not as a top-down mandate but as a coordinated effort across UITS teams.

In many cases, momentum comes directly from within the college units. Project managers embedded in colleges and departments lead their own timelines, coordinate with their developers, and advance work in ways that fit their environments. Sandy stays closely connected to ensure project alignment, while ownership remains where the expertise resides. She notes, “In areas such as the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS), deep local knowledge paired with strong relationships has been critical to moving work forward efficiently.”

For Sandy, that’s the true measure of success. The project isn’t just about implementing a single ticketing system; it’s about building a culture where teams move as one. The work is distributed, leadership is shared, and progress is collective. She keeps the big picture in view, including the project’s status, timelines, and dependencies, but the success belongs to everyone.

A key turning point came when teams realized they weren’t losing anything; they were gaining. “There was a fear that you’d lose your go-to IT person,” Sandy says, “but that’s not the case.” The same expertise remains, now supported by a broader team, offering backup, scalability, and greater visibility. In practical terms, this leads to fewer bottlenecks, faster response times, and more sustainable workloads, so no one has to carry the burden alone. 

“We might be the front end for the ‘Get Support’ form in ServiceNow, but it really is cross-collaboration across all of our UITS teams,” says Lizeth Mora, Director of Enterprise Support. “Without it, we wouldn’t have been able to reach out to our end users, which is the most important thing.”

That shift is also changing how support is experienced across campus. Where users once relied on individual contacts, they are now supported by broader teams. “People are reaching out to teams, while still recognizing familiar faces,” Mora explains. Maintaining those trusted relationships while expanding team-based support has helped strengthen connections across the organization.

The impact is evident in day-to-day operations. Response and resolution times are improving as teams become more familiar with one another’s expertise. “A big part of our job is connecting people to the right services,” Mora says. “That has improved significantly because we better understand our peers and what they do. We’re faster at helping people because we can connect them to the right resources more quickly.”

While Sandy leads the project, she’s quick to point out that success has been shared. “It’s really been all of UITS working together. This is what a unified organization really looks like.” Sandy adds, “We’re not just standardizing tools; we’re strengthening how we work together to support campus.”