Catholic Education Network scores high marks with LiveTime

Inspired by the objective to enable students to participate in the global benefits of education, the Catholic Education Network (CEnet) rapidly evolved from a joint venture between a few dioceses in New South Wales, to well over 500 schools across Australia.

The not-for-profit service company now supports a collection of Catholic education networks, and connects communities across metropolitan, regional and rural New South Wales, Queensland, Northern Territory and the Australian Capital Territory. With the vision for a network and learning architecture built to support education in the digital age, CEnet integrates information and communication technologies that provide contemporary learning, teaching and evangelization.

Faced with rapid growth and the increased importance of ICT in education, CEnet was driven to improve its processes in order to deliver a quality IT service. To achieve this goal, CEnet reviewed its IT service management procedures and established the objectives to:

• Centralize the logging and management of Incidents, Problems and Changes, making them accessible to all CEnet staff and nominated IT stakeholders;
• Work with a centralized Configuration Management Database (CMDB), which includes the ability to clearly define relationships between Configuration Items (CIs) and relevant Incidents, Problems and Changes;
• Offer flexible reporting capabilities around all aspects of the CMDB and Incident, Problem and Change records;
• Reduce the risk of system failure and system downtime;
• Minimize the impact of system failure;
• Maintain strong levels of control within Incident, Problem and Change management;
• Maintain strong visibility when registering and managing Incident, Problem and Change Requests.

Seamless Implementation

Based on these objectives and the essential requirement that the service management tool be easy to use for customers and support staff, CEnet invested in LiveTime Service Manager.

“LiveTime is ITIL compliant, was very competitive on price and we were very impressed with the ability to run LiveTime on any OS “ said Mr Chris Burrows, Operations and Support Manager for CEnet. “Running mostly Macs, it was refreshing to see a product that ran on a Mac,“ observed Mr Burrows, “The built-in chat functionality and iPhone compatibility were also great draw-cards.”

CEnet described the LiveTime installation process as “simple” and Mr Burrows highlighted that “The instructions were easy to follow and we didn’t need advanced knowledge of MySQL or Apache.”

Part of the implementation process included two days with an onsite LiveTime consultant and the CEnet Operations Manager was happy to report that they were “shown the ropes and helped to configure the CMDB in a logical manner to help CEnet offer the best possible service to its end-users.”

“LiveTime provides visibility for all team members’ Incident, Problem and Change Requests, which means the status of all tickets is always known, irrespective of a technician’s availability,” explained Mr Burrows, “This means the customer can receive an accurate and up-to-date report on their request no matter who answers the phone or chat.”

Reduced Workload

Mr Burrows stated, “With LiveTime, we have also noticed that through the use of the online knowledge base, customers are helping themselves prior to contacting the Service Desk. This has resulted in faster answers to commonly asked questions and reduced workloads for our support staff.”

CEnet found the other benefits realized with the implementation of LiveTime include the management team’s ability to tap into the Reports module for an overview of staff workloads, and to monitor the types of Incidents and Change Requests being logged, and by whom.

Mr Burrows reported that LiveTime Service Manager allows CEnet to continually improve its service management processes, and his confidence in the tool selected is only enhanced when dealing with the team at LiveTime Software, “Support from the LiveTime team, no matter what time of the day or night, is above expectation,” said Chris, “We usually have a fix or workaround within hours of logging an Incident.”

About LiveTime Software

Headquartered in Newport Beach, California, LiveTime Software, Inc. is a vendor of Web 2.0, Open Standards based ITIL service management (ITSM), help desk and support software for medium to large enterprises such as Verizon, Wellpoint, Pricewaterhouse Coopers and the United States Department of Defense. Founded in 1999, LiveTime Software is a privately held firm with offices in the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom. For more information visit www.livetime.com