The 160 strong IT and telecoms staff support staff and students of the University, created by the merger in 2002 of London Guildhall University and the University of North London. Since implementing the first stage of the solution in the summer of 2005, the IT service desk has improved its service significantly now providing support to anyone around the world, with one phone number, one email and web self-service.

After the merger the University had two IT service desks, one already using Hornbill’s Supportworks. A tender process followed after which Hornbill was selected for the newly formed central IT department.

“The roll out of the new Service Desk has provided a unifying element. Everyone is now able to see what everyone else is doing, and it has broken down the barriers. We can now produce good clear reports for the Executive Group, so that they can see how the team has responded to requirements. The fact that the performance data is now in an easy to read graphical format has also resulted in a lot of positive feedback to the department,” said Carolyn Saunders, Head of ICT Support at London Metropolitan University.

Supportworks is used by first, second and third level support personnel and covers all IT and telecoms requirements. Calls that can’t be dealt with by the first level Service desk are passed to Second line support which is spread across all locations. Any calls that they don’t resolve are passed to third line support that includes a systems team, MIS, networks and Intranet support.

The University is able to provide support to part-time and overseas students via a password-secure Student Portal. Using the self-service portal, students and staff have 24/7 access to the knowledge base and FAQs, freeing up service desk staff from routine queries.

Supportworks is integrated with other systems such as student records systems, enterprise directories for staff authentication records and desktop management systems.
The ICT Support Services department is also now able to work to SLAs. The reporting facility within Supportworks enables the team to see how many calls are dealt within SLAs so that they are able to monitor peaks in demand and deploy staff more efficiently, improving service.

A consolidated asset register within Supportworks ensures that the University knows exactly what equipment and software it has. Assets can be shared across departments. Ms Saunders said, “The Asset register has helped in a number of ways. With external contracts for hardware maintenance we now have a much better oversight of what is covered by contracts, helping to cut the costs by around 40%. Keeping more accurate records has reduced our software licensing costs by 20%.”

Gerry Sweeney, Managing Director at Hornbill Systems commented, “A centralised IT helpdesk can greatly help organisations to streamline working practices and improve efficiencies, however disparate the locations they support. Supportworks’ enterprise platform can pull together any number of service desks into one central system, that’s why it’s so well suited to organisations split across many locations and functional divisions. The economies our customers see speak for themselves.”

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NOTES TO EDITORS
About London Metropolitan University
London Metropolitan University was created on 1 August 2002 by the merger of London Guildhall University (now London City campus) and the University of North London (now London North campus). The university employs 4,000 staff and has approximately 34, 000 students. It has students spread across the world, with affiliate institutions in China, Nigeria, Pakistan and India.

For more information please visit http://www.londonmet.ac.uk