Fairfax County Government Innovates with MCT’s Implementation Support

Background

Fairfax County Government in Northern Virginia has a lot to juggle in delivering essential services to more than one million residents in one of the wealthiest and best-educated counties in the United States.

The county’s Department of Information Technology provides the citizens, business community, and county staff with convenient access to appropriate information and services through technology. The department must always be ready to provide innovative business solutions for its more than 13,000 staff in 56 different agencies, including public safety, health, human services, and land use.

Goal

Fairfax County Government needed to replace its existing help desk application with a service management solution that could fully support ITIL best practices. After thorough review of available solutions, infraEnterprise IT Service Management (now VMware Service Manager) was selected, and MCT was chosen as the implementer.  “The 100% web-based customizable platform, ease of integration with third party software, graphical workflows, and expertise and support available from MCT were key factors in our decision,” project sponsor Jeff Porter said.

MCT, a preferred VMware partner, met with the client to determine next steps in guiding the implementation. “MCT's recommendations and input were invaluable as we planned for the design and configuration of the application to meet our requirements,” technical lead Randy Cartwright said.

Some of the key objectives developed by executive leadership, IT management, and business consumers included:

• Implement an enterprise-wide customizable IT Service Desk.
• Move closer to 100% recording of Incidents, Change Requests, and Service Requests.
• Increase customer satisfaction and improve communication with customers.
• Improve service levels for IT staff handling in excess of 100,000 calls per year.
• Log incidents faster, and improve accuracy of assignment to the correct support group.
• Improve operational efficiency: Streamline processes and adopt best practices to ensure timely resolution of customer requests. Utilize workflow automation to enable staff to submit forms and secure approvals online.
• Introduce a user-friendly customer portal to allow round-the-clock access to IT services.
• Customize the Active Directory integration, fields, and screen layouts to best accommodate business needs and operational efficiency.
• Integrate with third party solutions utilizing web services API’s.
• Create and distribute a broad range of IT service management reports.

Action

Considering Fairfax County’s requirements and objectives, MCT developed a customized project strategy drawing from its industry experience and comprehensive service portfolio. MCT also hand picked a team of experts, each with a carefully selected set of skills and knowledge, to build a consulting team fit for this unique client.

Above and Beyond

“MCT was responsive and professional throughout the implementation, always willing to go the extra mile,”

Karen McMeekin, Fairfax County Government

The project continued with MCT working with a cross-functional Fairfax County team to assess business needs and determine best solutions for process improvement and increased efficiencies. The team’s findings and recommendations provided clarity for the process changes and refinements needed for Fairfax County Government to reach its goals.

Over several months, the team implemented the Service Desk, Incident Management, Change Management, Configuration Management, and Service Level Management modules.

The Fairfax team also saw a huge potential for using the workflow functionality to automate service requests with online forms and approvals.  County staff can now submit request forms and secure required approvals online.  The first workflows to be implemented were requests for: telework, IT tools, secure email, and special access. 

Point of Differentiation

“The graphical workflows differentiated the solution from other available products, and enabled us to streamline processes and increase efficiencies."

Karen McMeekin, Fairfax County Government

The team’s findings and recommendations provided clarity for the process changes and refinements needed for Fairfax County Government to reach its goals.

“Working with Service Manager and MCT has been a good experience, and we have been consistently pleased with the quality of the responses provided to the queries we have had along the way,” Porter said.

Result

Soon after the implementation, other businesses groups across Fairfax Country Government were adopting the new Service Desk capabilities – accessing only the data that relates specifically to their functions.  The Human Resources Department uses the system’s graphical workflows and reports to process requests for telework and generate related reports. Users and IT staff across the enterprise can now log and track their incidents and service requests; they can also view bulletin board notes about system availability and known errors.

Their IT Service Management enterprise application has been a great asset to the Fairfax County Department of Information Technology in achieving their mission "To deliver quality and innovative information technology solutions to provide citizens, the business community and the County staff with convenient access to appropriate information and services."