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Università della Svizzera Italiana (USI) is one of Switzerland’s 12 certified public universities. It operates as a teaching and research organization and has three campuses in Lugano, Mendrisio, and Bellinzona in the Italian-speaking part of Switzerland. It currently has 3,350 students, 10,455 graduates, and an academic and administrative staff of more than 1,200.
Founded 25 years ago, USI is constantly evolving, always taking on new challenges while remaining true to its three guiding principles: quality, openness, and responsibility.
USI has been growing quickly since its foundation and is in the process of consolidating its management processes, particularly for requests by information technology users. It had a legacy open-source solution for managing cases linked to IT services (incident, problem, request) and some other areas. The tool worked well initially, but its user interface had limits: it was designed to solve cases, not to provide services to the users of IT.
USI was looking for a next-generation tool that would meet all the IT service needs of the organization in one platform. One of the most important factors on the list of criteria for a new tool was that USI wanted the opportunity to fully integrate its service catalog with its processes and risk management.
Another essential requirement for USI was for the supplier to provide dynamic, reactive, professional, and competent support, which 4me offers.
After seeing the proof of concept, USI realized that 4me was the right solution for the university.
Ivano Di Remigio, Coordinator of USI’s IT support for the users with the function of Service Manager, says: “The platform matches our needs perfectly. The interface is agile, dynamic and intuitive, which is much appreciated by all users and agents. And the platform is fast and transparent, making it easy to quickly see the status of pending requests, the progress of single projects, and the status of activities across the whole organization.”
Industry
- Education
Location
- Switzerland
Challenges
- USI’s aging open-source solution was designed to solve cases, not provide IT services.
- Also, there were disparate solutions for knowledge management and project management. The challenge was to find a
single service management platform that
could do it all.
Solution
- ITSM
“The platform matches our needs perfectly. The interface is agile, dynamic and intuitive, which is much appreciated by all users and agents. And the platform is fast and transparent, making it easy to quickly see the status of pending requests, the progress of single projects, and the status of activities across the whole organization.”
Ivano Di Remigio
Coordinator of IT support for the users with the function of Service Manager, USI
USI decided to implement 4me step by step over a period of about a year. This was undertaken by 4me’s trusted Italian partner C. H. Ostfeld Servizi, who ensured that the project ran smoothly and that USI ended up with a tool that met its needs exactly.
“It allowed us to make an internal analysis of our structure and needs and to build our platform, which was integrated with a complete service catalog that manages all our processes and all the risks.”
As part of the implementation process, C. H. Ostfeld Servizi provided the initial training, which was dedicated to two different groups of agents: specialists and administrators. The training was done remotely due to the Covid restrictions. After that, 4me’s online courses, available at no extra cost to all customers, were enough to train users.
- Service Request and Incident Management
- Service Catalog
- Service Level Management
- Change Management
- Project Management
- Knowledge Management
The integrations with 4me included single sign-on (SSO), Active Directory, and various web services.
The entire IT service department now uses 4me and USI has centralized support for all users for all requests and problems related to support, business applications and infrastructure.
Ivano Di Remigio says:
USI now manages around 1,000 user requests per month.
4me has replaced several separate tools used by USI and offers a unique entry point to manage requests and services, saving both user time and individual tool costs. For example, knowledge pages have now been made available via 4me Knowledge Management, offering a single point of reference for all requests and instructions. 4me’s Project Management has also replaced a separate tool. USI now has a complete service management platform that provides full transparency and control.
Ivano Di Remigio explains: “One of the great things is that the introduction of 4me has allowed us to analyze, and further detail the service catalog making it more organic and efficient.”
“Requests are being tracked better and in a more organic manner, and we can easily improve and develop services. We have now reached a good standard of collaboration and communication with the users through a unique tool. We have received very positive feedback from users, especially about the transparency that we are now able to offer with request management.”
USI would certainly recommend 4me to other education institutions looking for a new service management solution.
“The work has been challenging and demanding, but very successful. The experience was positive in more than one way. First, our experience of working with C. H. Ostfeld Servizi to implement 4me was good as it helped us build our platform based on an analysis of our structure and needs. Second, since 4me went live, we always receive punctual assistance on all our requests or issues, which saves us a lot of time and energy.”
Ivano Di Remigio
Coordinator of IT support for the users
with the function of Service Manager, USI
