Driving Automation Adoption within Service Management

Six Key Use Cases

The Kelverion team frequently hears that businesses are striving to deliver more services with fewer resources while still meeting tight Service Level Agreements (SLAs). Automation presents many opportunities to relieve this pressure. This article explores six prominent use case examples driving automation adoption within service management.

Starters, Movers & Leavers (Joiners, Movers & Leavers)

One of the most painful tasks for overloaded service desks is processing Starters, Movers & Leavers. The creation of accounts for new employees or temporary workers, adjusting access for users moving roles, and terminating IT accounts for departing staff are labor-intensive activities. These tasks require senior staff with the necessary system access and expertise to perform.

Office 365 Management

While Office 365 saves companies the headaches associated with Exchange and SharePoint infrastructure, managing users and permissions remains laborious. Automating tasks such as creating users, adding users to groups, assigning licenses, and disabling users can significantly reduce pressure on service management teams. Organizations often believe these tasks must be done manually due to security concerns, but a self-service interface for request submissions, controlled via an existing change management approval process, can automate these tasks securely and efficiently.

Standard IT Tasks

Numerous day-to-day IT tasks are manually completed by staff. Even if the workload is manageable, these tedious tasks can impact the morale of the service desk team, whose time could be better spent elsewhere. Automating tasks like password resets, restarting virtual machines, deleting Active Directory accounts, and performing ping or traceroute checks can alleviate this burden.

Virtual Machine Provisioning

Virtual machines (VMs) have revolutionized IT agility, allowing for the running of different operating systems, application testing, and data backup. However, manually creating and managing VMs is time-consuming. Automating VM provisioning can save time and money, allowing VMs to be built and managed securely through self-service requests, ensuring IT remains in control.

Self-Service Software Delivery

Automating the installation of software can dramatically improve efficiency. When end-users require new applications, they typically wait for a senior IT member to add them to a software deployment tool group. This process can and should be automated, reducing delays and freeing up valuable IT resources.

Patch Management

Patching servers is crucial for maintaining IT infrastructure security but is often complex and time-consuming. Many organizations use a mix of Windows and Linux operating systems, struggling to find a unified patching solution. Monthly patch deployments can be unreliable, making it essential to have a reporting function to confirm successful patch deployment. Automating patch management allows teams to schedule deployments, manage exceptions, and address patching issues efficiently.

Empowering the End-User

One of the most exciting advancements in automation is the implementation of self-service portals. All the above use cases can be managed by end-users through self-service requests. This reduces call volumes and provides a modern user experience, meeting and exceeding the expectations of internal stakeholders.

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Next Steps

If you are considering using Azure Automation to handle service requests like the use cases mentioned above, Kelverion can help. With over a decade of experience in automation, both on-premise and with Azure Automation, we offer the Kelverion Runbook Suite, https://www.kelverion.com/runbook-studio comprising four key components:

The Runbook Studio

A ‘click and configure’ graphical authoring environment for creating and modifying automation processes, saving hundreds of man-hours. Similar to a Visio diagram, this image-based approach eliminates the need to write code.

Integrations

Our products integrate seamlessly with your existing ITSM through our ‘smart discovery’ technology. Explore our Integration library. https://www.kelverion.com/runbook-suite-library

Solution Packs

Pre-built automation solutions ready to be deployed and tailored to your organization’s needs. https://www.kelverion.com/runbook-suite-library?dfg_active_filter=33

Automation Portal

For customers without a self-service portal, our automation portal empowers end-users to complete their own service requests, fulfilled through automation.

For more information, to arrange a discovery call, or to see a demonstration, please contact our helpful team today via [email protected].