User-Driven Service Improvements

At the annual IT Summit, there were multiple high-interest sessions that drew in a crowd of IT professionals. One of those sessions was on User-Driven Service Improvements.

In IT, a healthy portion of time is spent assessing products, processes, new developments and technology, and identifying opportunity for improvement. All these conversations are important, but more importantly, it’s necessary to understand what is being done with all of this feedback received by the IT staff, stakeholders, and the general university population.

Maysoon Eshelman, Executive Director of Campus IT Partnerships, is focused on evaluating feedback and incorporating it into various projects to help make the user experience as human-focused and easy as possible. She recognizes that several projects and migrations are in addition to peoples’ day-to-day jobs and responsibilities, so to have the greatest success rate and adoption rate of services, addressing issues and feedback is a necessary component.

“Your feedback matters. We hear you,” stated Eshelman. “We may not be able to act on everything that you give us, but it’s important that you know how impactful your participation is and how it drives UITS Services.”

An example of turning feedback into change is CatNet 2.0 and the evolution of the service. CatNet 2.0 is the university's secure Microsoft Active Directory service. It is a great, secure, active directory, but like other services, there were early flaws. Some of these frustrations, voiced by users, included difficulty accessing due to a required fingerprint screening and the process of getting a Predictive Analytics World (PAW) taking 6-8 months. The team learned that the PAW was not a necessary step for those who do not do high-level work in CatNet 2.0, and from a process perspective, there was difficulty for users to in understand how to get into CatNet and understanding the right path and person to go through.  

This feedback was important to allow for the project team to implement CatNet successfully, and with the open dialogue and transparency from users, multiple changes were made.

• The required fingerprint proved to be an unnecessary extra step and was removed.
• The complication with PAW was addressed.  A case was made to fund PAWs and stop charging units for them, streamlining the process to allow for a turnaround time of 1-2 weeks, reducing wait time.
• For those who don’t require highly secured laptop access the need for PAW was removed.
• Taking into account the frustrations and feedback received, several common tasks were automated in ServiceNow, eliminating the need for a PAW for a lot of people. These automations include:
  • Automated creation of Exchange Distribution Groups
  • Automated actions for Exchange(mail) accounts – Department and Service accounts
  • Automated creation of Microsoft Teams
  • Automated actions for computer objects

For those who felt it was unclear where to start with CatNet 2.0, steps were taken to make the transition seamless and easy. A dedicated “MS Team” was created and a weekly work group meeting was added to provide a singular place for resources and community outreach. A project manager was assigned and regularly worked with campus units to ensure a smooth transition.   

To hear more on user-driven improvements, listen to the recording and access other presentations from the summit.