Efficiency increase through the introduction of a service catalog
In our daily business we were often confronted with recurring challenges and were looking for a solution that would help us to optimize our processes.
We are confronted with the following topics every day:
- a request comes in via the ticket system and the responsibilities are not clearly clarified or documented
- a change is planned within the infrastructure and it is difficult to find out which IT services will be affected.
- someone wants to make a change to a service, but cannot find the person responsible for the service directly.
Our goal was to create a service catalog to collect information at a central location in a uniform form and use it in such a way that we can automate processes with this information.
Since we have been using Atlassian products throughout our IT for a long time, we looked for a strong partner who has the expertise in this area. With the team of Honicon GmbH we have found this partner. Together with us, Honicon GmbH has developed a service catalog that can not only be used to improve the service management processes, but also to provide a service specification of the IT department to the entire company.
Various service management processes (e.g. fault handling, service request management, change management, major incident management) are to be provided with essential information by this service catalogue in the further course of the project. This includes details on the status of the service, the responsibilities and competencies or their interdependencies.
With the help of the Atlassian tools Jira Software, Jira Service Desk, Confluence and the app “Insight Asset Management (for Jira and Confluence)” (manufacturer Mindville), the solution created optimally links the processes around the new service catalog. It offers a way to present complex issues in a flexible and simple way. The resulting service catalog is not only dynamic, always up-to-date, but also allows to clearly display connections between services and the relationships to responsible persons and customers.
Due to the possibility of integrating different external systems, such as the Active Directory, information does not have to be maintained twice, but can be linked to the processes from the respective leading system.
The project for the introduction of the Service Catalog has laid the foundation stone for adapting processes in the next project steps, which can be increased in efficiency and performance by using the Service Catalog. With Incident Management and Service Request Management, throughput times can be improved because it is immediately clear who is responsible for this service. This means that a process can be specifically assigned to the right group.
For the Change Management processes, the dependencies on other services become clear, so that undesirable interactions and resulting disruptions to operations can be avoided at an early stage. Changes to services themselves can also be recorded directly in the system via Atlassian JIRA. These are then automatically routed to the appropriate service owner, so that he or she can quickly and easily decide whether the service needs to be adapted.
Through the use of well coordinated processes in the Service Catalog and the tools that are easy to integrate, many more opportunities have been created for the future to use the Service Catalog to increase overall efficiency. For example, services can work directly with the alarming solution Check_MK. In this way, faults that Check_MK detects can be displayed directly in the service. The open interface via REST-API is ideal for this purpose.
Together with the employees of Honicon GmbH, we were able to create a solution that can be regarded as a cornerstone in the provision and further development of processes and methods within the IT organization and service management. We are looking forward to further exciting projects and would like to thank you for the good cooperation!
Also Honicon would like to thank DER SPIEGEL on behalf of all involved employees for the great cooperation and the exciting project!
We are always happy to support our customers with expertise and new ideas in the implementation of their projects. We are looking forward to everything that may come.
Honicon GmbH
