ServiceNow to EasyVista Service Manager Migration – Contract to Go-Live in 120 Days

Birmingham City Council (BCC) decided to make significant savings by switching from ServiceNow ITSM to EasyVista Service Manager. Once contracts were signed, they had only 120 days before ServiceNow was decommissioned.

This case study discusses how we assisted BCC in delivering the migration on time and on budget.

The Challenge

BCC developed a revised Digital Strategy that identified that the council required a modern, industry-standard solution to provide a fresh start and safely migrate away from the existing, heavily customised, IT Service Management (ITSM) tool.

The strategic aims were to:

• "Create online Services that are easy to use."
• "Give our council teams the right digital tools to do their jobs."
• "Build the best technology and infrastructure to support council services."

The council required a cloud-hosted ITSM platform with Hardware and Software Asset Management and workflow capabilities that can scale to meet future needs. The chosen tool must be a feature-rich, modern, ready-to-use, and configurable solution provided by an experienced professional services partner working collaboratively with the BCC project team. The migration to the new solution must be completed before the current contract expires.

After an extensive evaluation and formal RFP process, BCC selected EasyVista Service Manager (EVSM) and engaged Tekwurx as the delivery partner.

However, the extended evaluation process meant that we had just 120 days to migrate an ITSM tool, with many years of customisation & development, to a solution that would support 12,000 users without negatively affecting the council’s business. We also had to bring the users and analysts on the journey, keeping them engaged and positive throughout the process.

The Solution

Our approach

As in all our service engagements, we used a collaborative approach to implement EVSM and to migrate the existing ServiceNow workflows and processes.

The need to decommission the incumbent system meant we had to deliver the solution within 4 months. With the agreement of the council, we decided to split the implementation into two phases:

• Phase one: Deliver a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) to allow the council to retire the existing system, and not incur additional subscription costs
• Phase two: Complete the remaining processes.

Phase one: Minimum Viable Product

Working with the council’s project team, we selected the processes they considered essential to deliver the core ITSM service to support end users.

To deliver the MVP, we implemented:

• Incident Management
• Request Fulfilment
• Asset Management

BCC managed the remaining processes until they were added in the second phase.

During phase one, we:

• Migrated over 1,000 ServiceNow ticket templates
• Imported an asset data snapshot containing 80,000 assets
• Developed 60 Business Rules
• Developed 16 Workflows
• Integrated with InTune, Active Directory, SNOW and O365
• Built two self-service portals.
• Configured the Starters, Movers, and Leavers processes.
• Supported over 100 resolver groups.

BCC performed extensive testing across over 1,300 test scripts, revealing no significant issues.

Screenshot of the BCC IT Portal

Phase two: Complete the remaining processes

The majority of the work was delivered in the first phase, and we had a solid platform to build out the remaining ITSM processes. In the second phase, we implemented:

• Change Management
• Release Managemen
• Problem Management
• Knowledge Management
• Hardware and Software Asset Management
• Two online asset portals

Our consultants’ practical experience in running IT service desks gave the BCC team the confidence to accept our advice on meeting their requirements. They were open to our suggestions about best practices, which helped us to deliver phase two quickly.

"BCC is the biggest local authority in the UK. It is only a matter of time before others find out and start asking questions about the product and how we did it. I will be giving them a very high recommendation."
David Moorcroft.

Challenges and how we overcame them

1. Compressed implementation timescales. Working with BCC, we developed a two-phase approach that delivered the core functionality, allowing them to retire the incumbent system whilst maintaining a viable service to users.
2. Loyalty to the way the incumbent system worked. We explained the benefit of an alternate approach: more straightforward and cost-effective.
3. Many complex requirements are not available out of the box. We developed solutions that kept as close to the OOTB configuration as possible to avoid over-customisation.
4. All portal-related defects were set to “high” priority. This made it difficult to identify real issues among minor things like spelling mistakes. We worked with the Testing Team to redefine the priorities based on the user journey.
5. Resource availability during the project. Key members of the BCC project team were not available throughout the project. This put additional pressure on the remaining personnel. Our consultants empathised with the team and mentored those with less experience, reassuring them that the project would succeed.
6. Pushback against change. Our ITSM team has decades of experience in ITSM implementation and service desk management. They have a deep practical understanding of the subject that they use to advise customers on best practices.

The Results

Tekwurx’s collaborative approach allowed us to meet the customer’s goals. The strong relationships developed with key stakeholders ensured that the implementation was a success.

At the end of the project, the EV Service Manager was deployed across the council and used by approximately 600 departments.

✔️ Create online services that are easy to use.  
✔️ Give our council teams the right digital tools to do their jobs.
✔️ Build the best technology and infrastructure to support council services.

"Already, those who have seen the product are complimentary about it. I could not recommend TekWurx highly enough as an implementation partner; no task was too small or too big for them, and my team has very high standards."
David Moorcroft.

The Future

We are implementing automated asset discovery and are engaged with other areas of the organisation to bring them into the EVSM family.

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