TECHNOLOGY INTEGRATIONS
& PARTNERSHIPS
- Atlassian
- AWS
- Appfire
- Tempo
- Carahsoft
- ...and more!
Utah Valley University Partners with Isos Technology to Implement Jira Service Management and Establish a Single Service Portal for Students, Faculty, and Staff
40k+
students served
200
degree programs
1
centralized source of truth
Project Snapshot
- Facing a complete shift away from inperson learning to online learning, UVU realized it needed to modernize its IT service management technology.
- UVU had previously identified Atlassian as its preferred technology provider and Isos Technology as its preferred services partner, which expedited the decision-making and implementation process.
- Isos Technology implemented Jira Service Management with a customer-facing portal where students, faculty, and staff could submit tickets, and implemented Confluence as a knowledge base to support self-service.
- UVU’s IT service desk was able to streamline service delivery, increase visibility into work in-progress, access meaningful metrics, reduce response time, and improve customer satisfaction.
- JSM was quickly adopted by almost every academic and operational department at UVU, resulting in a single, centralized portal where students, faculty, and staff can raise issues and get the help they need.
Our client
As the largest public university in Utah, Utah Valley University (UVU) serves more than 40,000 students with over 200 different undergraduate and graduate degree programs. Students benefit from both the university’s rigorous academic life and spectacular location—UVU is situated in Orem, Utah, just south of Salt Lake City and near the Wasatch Mountains, so opportunities to ski, snowboard, hike, and mountain bike are all just a short drive away.
Challenge
Like all educational institutions, UVU’s normal operations were completely disrupted at the beginning of 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. For the IT service desk, things were particularly challenging since the team was already struggling with outdated software that was difficult to work in, and did not provide visibility into the work being done. Once a ticket was open, neither the IT team nor customers could see if progress was being made on it, and processes were unclear and overcomplicated.
Time to first response was measured in days, time to close a ticket was measured in weeks, and Tier 2 and Tier 3 tickets were often not responded to at all. Since no other metrics were available to them, the service desk team focused on volume of tickets handled, but even hung up calls and wrong numbers were counted as tickets, so the data was skewed. Not only was customer satisfaction low, workplace culture and employee morale suffered.
The university recognized it needed more modern software to support the transition to remote classes during the pandemic, and sustain its growing student population into the future. Fortunately, several years earlier, UVU’s then-Director of Digital Services had come across both Atlassian and Isos Technology at a conference. Both companies—and the Atlassian suite of tools—made a lasting impression on him. In fact, he had kept an Isos business card on his desk all those years, waiting for the opportunity to make a call.
Solution
As a public institution, UVU faced both financial and compliance challenges that needed to be resolved before it could implement new ITSM software. Isos Technology was able to help UVU meet its financial limitations by taking advantage of Atlassian’s educational pricing, and carefully managing who at the university received licenses. Compliance concerns were addressed through custom programming. Ultimately, Isos implemented Jira Service Management and Confluence, and the UVU team set up asset management as well. UVU also took advantage of Isos’ managed services offering to support ongoing expansion and maintenance of the tools.
Now Jira Service Management (JSM) serves as command central for UVU—a portal where students, faculty, and staff can submit tickets and raise issues, and the IT service management team can work on them. Every stakeholder has visibility into the status of work-in-progress, and since JSM is easier to work in, issues get resolved faster. Confluence serves as a knowledge base where self-help articles are created and housed so that customers can resolve issues on their own, while Atlassian’s asset management functionality helps the IT team manage university-owned assets like laptops and software.
While the initial implementation of JSM was for UVU’s IT service desk, JSM has been adopted as a service portal by nearly every operational and academic department at the university, including academic advising, accounting, asset management, events management, facilities, financial aid, groundskeeping, payroll, and the schools of arts, business, computer science, humanities, science, and social sciences.
As a result of this widespread adoption, students, faculty, and staff now benefit from a single, centralized, university-wide portal where requests or issues of any type can be submitted and resolved. Isos Technology continues to support UVU through its Atlassian managed services offering and ensure the ongoing success of the university’s service management tools and processes.
Results
A Single, Centralized, University-Wide Portal: JSM has been adopted by almost every operational and educational department across the university, so students, faculty, and staff have a centralized place to submit tickets and raise issues, regardless of what they are about.
Significant Service Improvements: The new system has resulted in significant reductions in time to first contact and time to resolution, and an equally significant increase in customer satisfaction.
Meaningful Reporting and Metrics: Using JSM’s out-of-the-box reports, UVU can accurately measure volume, type, speed, and quality of work, which helps it set and achieve goals and supports continuous improvement.
Streamlined Processes: Every department across the university that uses JSM now benefits from streamlined and standardized processes that simplify and speed delivery of services.
Increased Transparency: Visibility into work in-progress for both service providers and customers has
driven improved accountability, increased engagement, and greater employee satisfaction.
From the very beginning of the engagement, we felt valued. It was clear that Isos Technology wanted us to succeed, and that continues to hold true. I reached out to our implementation manager a year and half after the project, and he dropped everything to help us. One thing is certain—you’re more than just a number with Isos!
Download Case Study
