FEDICT

Quality of ICT Services precisely monitored

Management dashboards pinpoints problem areas rapidly

CUSTOMER CASE

Industry Public Business Issue Develop a performance management system to monitor, manage, and report the performance of services delivered by ICT Shared Services Solution SAS® Strategic Performance Management, SAS® Enterprise Intelligence Platform Benefits 1. Increased awareness of service quality levels through the use of a management dashboard. 2. Reduced outage time and average time to solve a problem. 3. Increased percentage of SLAs on target.

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Working with service level agreements (SLAs) requires a reliable tool to accurately measure the quality and the performance of services. Do customers receive the quality of service they’re entitled to? Is overall service quality improving for all customers? Is the level of customer support in line with targets? ICT Shared Services relies on SAS to monitor the quality and the performance of its services.

Meeting the ICT needs of Federal Public Services

ICT Shared Services provides direct ICT support to various Belgian Federal Public Services (FPS). It also offers cross-service assistance to supporting entities such as the Chancellery of the Prime Minister, FEDICT, Personnel and Organization, and Budget and Control. Relying on a common ICT team enables the effi cient re-use of existing knowledge and technology, and centralizes the development of expertise.

“The various Federal Public Services and supporting entities have similar needs. And each of them obviously wants to be supported as well as their colleagues,” says Yves Vander Auwera, Head of FEDICT ICT Shared Services. “They expect round the clock assistance, with focus on maximum security, availability, and performance. To guarantee this, we work with SLAs.”

A clearer view of service quality

“We wanted a tool to help us better monitor these service levels,” continues Vander Auwera. “The idea was to develop a dashboard that would provide us with a transparent and objective view on the quality and performance of services provided. But we also wanted a tool that was robust and fl exible. Most of all, we wanted an application that was easy to use; the simpler the tool, the clearer the information and ease of interpreting data. In addition, it had to be easily integrated with different data sources, including our SQL database. SAS was able to offer an end-to-end solution, from the collection of source data to dashboard reporting.”

Drill down on key performance indicators

The SAS solution provides users with a management performance overview. The starting screen gives the overall status of a number of key performance indicators. These include overall PC availability, incident management effi ciency, business alignment, and overall security. Using the drill-down function, users can access more detailed information about a specifi c fi gure in just a few mouse clicks. Availability data, for instance, can be broken down to e-mail availability and Internet accessibility. Details can also be viewed according to geographical location. In addition, each performance indicator can be viewed graphically. Pie charts, for instance, indicate the number of e-mails that meet a certain threshold, such as a “send and receive” within two minutes.

Rapid identification of weak points

The dashboard is used by the ICT Shared Services staff to proactively follow up and improve the quality of services they provide. The traffic lights feature of the application enables to identify weak points more easily. These can then be treated and improved through adequate corrective actions. ICT Shared Services has already noted a reduction in outage time and in the average time to solve a problem. As a result, the percentage of SLAs actually being met has substantially increased.

“The management dashboard has greatly improved the transparency of our service quality and the objectivity of reported figures,” observes Vander Auwera. “The tool also enables a better trend analysis. As a result, our Executive Committee has started using it as a basis for its monthly meetings.”

The application is also frequently utilized by top management within the FPS and the supporting entities. Using the dashboard, they can see at all times exactly where their unit stands in terms of ICT equipment and performance. Because the application is Web-based, it can be viewed by users where and when they want.

An additional motivation for staff members

“We wanted the application not only to highlight weaknesses, but also strengths,” adds Vander Auwera. “A dashboard with only red lights will be viewed as a sanctioning tool. That is why we have chosen to equally stress results that are higher than 100%. In this sense, the application is also a tool that recognizes achievement. This is a great source of motivation for staff members.”

A key challenge in optimizing dashboard efficiency and staff motivation is the appropriate definition of thresholds. Too much red discourages people, while too much green puts the reliability of the tool in doubt. That is why the thresholds are being continuously examined and adjusted.

In popular demand

“The dashboards are used frequently, both by department staff and by customers,” concludes Vander Auwera. “As a matter of fact, new performance indicators are requested regularly. Much of the tool’s success can be attributed to how the SAS application combines with the measurement tools we use to collect elementary metrics from our systems, applications, and other sources of information. SAS is proving to be an ideal tool for performance management. Producing reliable dashboards requires vast numbers of data to be smoothly collected from various sources and appropriately processed to compute the right aggregated figures in an easy and comprehensive way. That is exactly what the SAS technology excels at.”

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