Local Government Computer Services Board:
Housing Application Managed Service
Challenge
The challenge for Version 1 is to support, maintain and enhance the Board’s housing systems - iHouse and Rental Accommodation Scheme – which are utilised in 34 major Local Authorities incorporating over 80 Borough / Town Councils with some 200 users nationwide.
Solution
Version 1 took over support for these systems from a third-party supplier, following a 6-week transition of service. We now provide a full managed service through our centralised Service Desk, covering the housing systems and underlying databases.
All support incidents are logged, prioritised and triaged by our Service Desk staff before being routed to our Housing Support team. The vast majority of tags are closed over the phone or via remote secure connection. Performance improvement is one of the cornerstones of our Managed Services Practice and we have been working with the Board to develop and implement a formalised programme of system modification and user education which will improve the overall usability and functionality of the systems.
Benefit
"Version 1's commitment to Continual Service Improvement has led to significant improvements in the functionality of the iHouse System. The knock on effect of these improvements has translated into increased user satisfaction, reduced volumes of incidents and the creation of extra bandwidth within the service to deliver value-added activities not previously envisaged when the contract was awarded."
Dominic Hegarty, Manager, Business Services
Service Desk
Users log incidents through a dedicated, centralised, ITIL-aligned Service Desk where each call is analysed, prioritised and forwarded onto the support team for resolution. The user is kept regularly informed as to the progression of their incident through to resolution and closure. Our systems allow us to resolve the vast majority of all calls remotely.
Continual Service Improvements
We proactively analyse and review logged issues and use root cause analysis to identify areas of service improvement. We recently deployed a major release of over 40 changes which, in addition to introducing new and improved features, will significantly reduce recurrent issues.
Standardisation of Technology
Legacy code has been migrated and standardised to reduce the complexity of maintenance and ensure that the technologies remain in vendor support.
Improved Deployment
By moving to a centralised UAT model the effort involved in nationwide deployment is significantly reduced.
Documentation and Help
Improved user documentation and centralised help files makes users more self-sufficient and reduces queries to the service desk.
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