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From 5000 to 400 open tickets: How Hasselt University revolutionized IT support with Xurrent

Industry
Location
Challenges

Hasselt’s open-source software solution no longer met the requirements. They needed a more professional, future-proof service management solution with a user-friendly, state-of-the-art self-service portal to help them achieve a higher service maturity level and improve efficiency.

Solution

ITSM, ESM

“I am very happy that we started the project to professionalize the IT services two years ago and even happier that we carried it out with Xurrent in collaboration with 2Grips. The Xurrent tool and the guidance of 2Grips have led to the success of this project. It really turned out to be the right decision.”

Filip Reyns, ICT Manager at Hasselt University

Hasselt University (Hasslet), an innovative university with a strong international orientation, was growing. Quickly. So fast that it outgrew its open-source IT service management solution, GLPI — a platform that no longer met the requirements for the higher level of service delivery required. 

Hasselt sought a more professional, future-proof service management solution with a user-friendly, state-of-the-art, more mature self-service portal to improve efficiency. 

Founded in 1971, Hasselt is a fast-growing university in Belgium. Seven faculties, two schools, and six research institutes are spread out over two campuses. 7,000+ students and nearly 1,600 researchers and staff members are affiliated with Hasselt. 

Hasselt is ranked among the best institutions worldwide with its focus on excellence in education, top research in leading fields, and active commitment to innovation and entrepreneurship. 

A PwC and Deloitte audit triggered a need for IT to “professionalize” its services and create more awareness of IT among its end users through positive service experiences. An RFP process was initiated, one that included Xurrent, Ivanti, Ultimo (used by Hasselt for facility management), ServiceNow, and TOPdesk. 

The evaluation team created a scoring rubric for each vendor and then narrowed it down to the top 3. A team of eight reviewed demos and scored each solution based on the same criteria.

Xurrent checked all of the boxes, emerging as the clear winner. 

Filip Reyns, ICT Manager at Hasselt University (and alum and 35 year+ employee), is responsible for the IT infrastructure of the university, the network, service suppliers, and the ITSM service desk. 

He explained: “We were looking for a complete solution that would enable us to cater to all the IT needs and tickets of our customers in a more professional and efficient manner, now and in the future. The desire was to become a more mature service organization by redesigning our service management processes in a modern and complete ESM solution.” 

It was time to start implementing Xurrent at Hasselt.

A short 24 days to get up and running

Hasselt collaborated with Xurrent partner 2Grips for the implementation. 

Filip was impressed with 2Grips: “The collaboration with 2Grips was excellent. They have a no-nonsense, practical, hands-on approach, with no superfluous theoretical sessions. They are well-informed about what is going on in the workplace (high level of practical experience). The value of working with 2Grips has been incredible, especially because we don’t always have all the necessary knowledge in-house.”

24 total days, spread out over two phases.

Phase #1: Xurrent implemented with Self Service portal, support processes, and Knowledge Management. This phase included incidents and requests and the service catalog, as well as various workshops and training.

Phase #2: Various processes were extended. Release and change management were added, including non-standard Change Management processes. 

From there, the team began defining the project management process.

2Grips also helped with the training, with all 62 specialists participating. This general session was followed by role-specific training, where everyone was first shown the new processes and then how to perform each step in Xurrent. All the courses were done in the native language.

“Very good results; it is all very positive.”

Filip reports that end users are happy now with Xurrent’s user-friendly, 24/7 Self-service portal, which they use far more than before. “In addition, our specialists have a very professional tool to handle the tickets efficiently.”

Filip admitted that he was slightly worried about the change from existing to Xurrent going “less than smoothly,” considering most people don’t love change. However, he was pleased with the “great success” Xurrent has proven to be.

A recent user satisfaction survey showed “an enormous difference” in the IT service user experience.

And the same holds true a year after implementation: 

“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 Xurrent solution. This was certainly not the case before.”

Filip Reyns, ICT Manager at Hasselt University

Filip said that the “advantages of the new way of working are enormous.” He has seen an increase in service desk productivity while service costs have decreased. He attributes employee satisfaction going up “considerably” because employees feel more empowered using Xurrent’s Self-Service portal. 

Other “wins” include: 

Fewer monthly open tickets

Xurrent has been processing 800-900 tickets per month, with a peak of 1,500-1,700 around the start of the academic year. But more importantly, is that the number of open tickets is down — significantly —  from an average of 5,000 open requests (old system) to closer to 400 (Xurrent).

New service catalog and SLAs

These were both non-existent before Xurrent, leaving the more complex requests stuck in “open” status. Now, with set targets, the open requests have decreased considerably. People see when tickets are in the red and can be called to account.

Advanced knowledge within the first-level support team

With Xurrent’s ever-growing number of knowledge articles, 50% of tickets are handled by first-level support, a number that hovered around 30% pre-Xurrent. Filip expects this first-level support number to increase to 75%+ in the near future.

More efficient process flows

Tickets in Xurrent are now processed automatically by service desk employees, ensuring the team’s established processes are consistently followed.

Dashboards, KPIs, and reporting

Filip sees the analytics and dashboards being a huge value because the team can measure everything and, where necessary, set against targets. “To measure is to know,” says Felip.

Service-centric approach

Hasselt now has a well-thought-through and effective service catalog so that users know which services are or are not supported. And there are SLAs and knowledge articles attached to the services.

Filip — and Hasselt University — is thrilled with Xurrent

In Filip’s own words, 

“I would recommend Xurrent 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 predictable pricing model is a perfect solution for us.”

Filip loves that: 

  • They only pay for active service desk specialists and can adjust the users per month.
  • All front-end users (ticket creators) use the tool free of charge.
  • All Xurrent functionality is available, so they never have to buy additional modules. “It’s in our interest to use as much of the Xurrent package as possible. The more we use, the greater the benefit.”

And usage across Hasselt University is growing.

As of this writing, only IT uses Xurrent, but plans are in the works to have other departments and services (like HR and Finance) use the platform. It’s the first important step to moving from ITSM towards true ESM in the future. Eventually, Hasselt would like to have as many services as possible on one platform. One of the final goals is to work with one single entry point for all end-user enterprise tickets! 

Filip sums it up best: “I am very happy that we started the project to professionalize the IT services two years ago and even happier that we carried it out with Xurrent in collaboration with 2Grips. The Xurrent tool and the guidance of 2Grips have led to the success of this project. It really turned out to be the right decision.”

Thank you, Felip.
Thank you, Hasselt University.

We look forward to continuing to grow our partnership.