SUCCESS STORY
UHASSELT
Hasselt University Switched to 4me to Professionalize Its Service Management Organization

HEADLINE SUCCESS

INCREASED USER SATISFACTION

IMPROVED WORKFLOW EFFICIENCY

HIGHLY EFFECTIVE SERVICE CATALOG
A flexible service-oriented solution results in higher service maturity and efficiency
Ready for a new future-proof enterprise service management solution
- Service Portfolio and Catalog
- Master Incidents
- Automized Request Fulfilment
- Non-Standard Change Workflow
- Configuration Management/CMDB
- Knowledge Management
Industry
- Education
Location
- Belgium
Challenges
- The university’s open-source software solution no longer met the requirements. They needed a more professional and future-proof service management solution with a user-friendly and state-of-the-art self-service portal that would help them reach a higher service maturity level and improve efficiency.
Solution
- ITSM, ESM

“After more than a year, we see very good results; it is all very positive. The research shows that over 80 per cent of all IT service users are satisfied or more than satisfied with the quality, speed, knowledge, user-friendliness, and overall experience of the 4me solution. This was certainly not the case before.”
Filip Reyns
PMO and Process ICT Manager, Hasselt University
Implementation
The implementation of 4me was done in collaboration with 4me partner 2Grips.
Filip says: “The collaboration with 2Grips is excellent. They have a no-nonsense, practical hands-on approach, and there are no superfluous theoretical sessions. They are well informed about what is going on in the workplace, they have that huge practical experience and as a result, they have been of great value because we don’t always have all the necessary knowledge in-house.”
It only took 24 days to set up the whole 4me environment, but that time was spread across two phases. The reason for that was to take some time to get people on board the new way of working and request processing.
During phase 1, the 4me solution was implemented, including the 4me Self Service portal, support processes, and Knowledge Management. This phase included incidents and requests and the service catalog, and also various workshops and training.
In phase 2, various processes were extended, and release and change management were added, including non-standard Change Management processes, to address approval steps that differ per customer. The team used the workshops to establish the most efficient processes and workflows. Following phases 1 and 2, the team has started defining the project management process.
Training
Various useful training sessions were organized in collaboration with 2Grips. All 62 specialists followed the specialist training (online because of Covid) on how to use 4me. And then, there was the role-specific training, where everyone was first shown the new processes and then how to perform each step in 4me. All the courses were done in their own language.
In addition, there was some training to explain the 4me processes to the end users and to show them the benefits of the 4me Self Service portal. The end users can do much more themselves, saving them a lot of time and frustration.
Scope
- Request Fulfilment
- Incident Management
- Configuration and Asset Management
- Service Level Management
- Problem Management
- Change & Release Management
- Project Management
- Knowledge Management
Integrations
SSO, Ultimo, ClearPass, and Microsoft SCCM and TFS (Team Foundation Server).
Go Live
Everyone has had to adapt, both the end user and the service desk specialists who handle the tickets. But the end users are happy now with their user-friendly 24/7 Self Service portal, which they use far more than before, and the specialists have a very professional tool to handle the tickets efficiently.
Filip says: “Before we started, I worried that this change would go less smoothly; people always find change difficult. But it turned out to be a great success.”
Results
The IT team recently conducted a user satisfaction survey, and they’ve seen an enormous difference in the IT service user experience.
Filip says: “After more than a year, we see very good results; it is all very positive. The research shows that over 80% of all IT service users are satisfied or more than satisfied with the quality, speed, knowledge, user-friendliness, and overall experience of the 4me solution. This was certainly not the case before. I am really amazed by these results, even more so because our university audience, students as well as professors and researchers, are known for being very critical.”
In the past, certain professors and researchers were not very positive about IT and the whole reorganization. They just wanted IT to be there for them when they needed help with an issue. Before 4me, they could go to an actual helpdesk, but that desk no longer exists. They now have to try to arrange their tickets themselves in the Self Service portal first. What helped a lot was the training that the end users received to help them get familiar with 4me and change their mindset. Most of them quickly realized how the new way of working benefits them.
Filip explains, “The advantages of the new way of working are enormous. Thanks to the shift-left, we’ve seen an increase in service desk productivity while service costs have gone down. And because employees feel more empowered using the 4me Self Service portal, employee satisfaction has gone up considerably.”
The system handles around 800-900 tickets a month, with a peak of 1,500-1,700 tickets per month around the start of the academic year. Filip says, “In our previous system, we had an average of 5,000 open requests; this is now dramatically reduced to around 400. Before 4me, we didn’t have a service catalog or SLAs, so the more difficult or complex requests often remained open. Now that we have set targets, the open requests have decreased considerably. People see when tickets are in the red, and they can be called to account.”
“Before 4me, many tickets had to be forwarded to the second-level support because the know-how wasn’t there at the first level. Now, with an ever-growing number of knowledge articles in the system, 50% of tickets are handled by first-level support. This used to be 30% The idea is that this will increase to 75% with more knowledge articles.”
According to Filip, the main improvements after the 4me implementation are:
- The process flows have become far more efficient. The tickets are now automatically processed in 4me by the service desk employees, whereby the processes that the team has implemented are automatically followed. This works really well.
- The dashboards, KPIs, and reporting have made life much easier. The analytics and dashboards are of great value because we can now measure everything and, where necessary, set against targets. To measure is to know.
- Thanks to 4me’s service-centric approach, the university now has a well-thought-through and effective service catalog so that users know which services are supported and which aren’t. And there are SLAs and knowledge articles attached to the services.
“I would recommend 4me to anyone looking for a future-proof service management solution. It’s an innovative service-centric SaaS solution with all ITIL processes embedded in it. The reporting capabilities and dashboards are very valuable, there are no maintenance costs and we benefit from the free weekly product updates, it’s user-friendly and, last but not least, the flexible pricing model is a perfect solution for us.”
“What I like most about 4me? The dashboard and reporting functionality is very special. Finally, we can give IT management and the university’s management complete insight into what we need to do, what we effectively do, and what resources are needed to do this. We couldn’t do that before.”
Filip Reyns
PMO and Process ICT Manager,
Hasselt University
