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Today, a cadre of ‘old school’ suppliers of graduation gowns and services have a predictable business model that includes high costs for struggling schools and students. Every September an army of 1099 sales reps go from school to school, meeting with graduation coordinators to get the May-June commencement order. They place the order with the manufacturer, sit back, and watch the money roll in. GraduationSource was determined to disrupt this model, going direct to the schools and the students and passing the saving back to the schools, PTA and students. But each school has unique pricing and packages, so to do this, they needed to transform into a more modern, eCommerce-like business, with custom online stores for each store, where ordering, customization and fulfillment could all run in a smooth, efficient and automated manner. Being able to transfer order data in real-time is critical to maintaining success in an online retail environment. GraduationSource previously used another integration solutions provider, but found it lacking in enabling the company to fulfill orders quickly and correctly. With their previous system, orders were delayed up to an hour and mapping was not efficient. GraduationSource wanted to have real-time data transfer between their Magento store and NetSuite, and to have a streamline ordering and fulfillment process.

At the heart of the support services EACS offers to its clients is their Service Desk, which serves companies throughout the UK. The Service Desk is manned by a team of qualified engineers who act as a single point of contact for customers providing both first line support (to end users) and second and third line support (to IT staff in other organizations). All calls into the team are tracked with formalised call logging, management and an escalation process if required. Regular reports also need to be generated to highlight key business intelligence and call trends. EACS’ original Service Desk solution was a previous version of Microsoft Dynamics CRM. However, it had shortcomings that prevented EACS from increasing efficiency and improving the overall end to end customer experience. The IT team wanted to replace it with a flexible and easily customizable hosted solution that could grow with the company and provide a better experience for their clients.

The Saskatoon Health Region originally relied on BMC Remedy to support its end users. By the end of 2014, the solution was getting older and needed to be upgraded. Additionally, the Saskatoon Health Region was selected by the government to participate in a provincial initiative to test System Center Service Manager (SCSM). With the new solution, they aimed to achieve several goals: leverage automation capabilities to increase efficiency, enable secure access to the portal for multiple groups including outside vendors, and provide mobile access for IT workers. However, the initial deployment of System Center was not very successful, leading to a need for reconfiguration with Microsoft's assistance. Eventually, they achieved a functioning help desk solution and later purchased Cireson’s apps, which enhanced manageability and overall usability.

For a number of years, Woodforest National Bank used an older version of FrontRange ITSM to support their users. However, the product was not satisfactory as it did not work with new apps and lacked usability and functionality. The bank decided to deploy System Center Service Manager (SCSM) as their new help desk solution, but the initial deployment in 2013 was tedious and did not meet their expectations. The re-deployment process revealed that SCSM lacked usability and was slow. The bank needed a faster, more responsive solution with the same functionality across all platforms, mobile access for technicians, automated ticket processing, and easy customization features. They eventually chose Cireson apps to enhance the SCSM experience for their technicians and analysts.

For years, AECC did not have a formal help desk solution. The users would call in or email with questions or service requests to get help from the IT department. With every request being processed manually, it was a very inefficient system, resulting in long wait times for the end users. AECC took steps to resolve this issue and selected their first help desk solution, System Center Service Manager was originally deployed a year prior. For the first year, the IT team worked with the platform exclusively, with no add-on solution to simplify the daily management process. While using Service Manager, they realized the need for a more user-friendly, intuitive interface to help workers manage everyday tasks, while retaining the agile backend automation capabilities. After conducting significant research into their options, the AECC team selected Cireson to help resolve their pressing Service Manager needs.

As the university’s original ticketing system was getting too old and expensive to maintain, the IT department had to find a replacement capable of supporting 20,000 students and faculty members. The IT team wanted a solution with strong automation features and a user-friendly interface. The solution had to be intuitive to use, to enable the university’s students to submit service requests. Another goal was compatibility with Linux-based applications, since the university had a number of programs running on Linux. After considering a few popular options, the university’s IT team picked Microsoft System Center Service Manager to replace their aging system. Implemented a year ago, Service Manager checked most of the boxes for the team, however the analysts quickly realized it was very challenging to work with. According to Simon Eiden, “We had problems customizing the portal, and adding new features. It’s very difficult to make changes in Service Manager.” To make Service Manager more user-friendly for their analysts and end users, the university’s IT team chose to deploy Cireson on top on Service Manager.

The primary goal of CBS’s IT department is to provide timely technical support to the university’s 2,000 employees and 20,000 students. To resolve issues quickly, the IT department needed to tap into various databases with the click of a button, as well as have a way to automatically prioritize all incoming user service requests. The IT department relied on CA Unicenter Desktop and Server Manager as their former solution to support the employees. However, as the university’s infrastructure became more complex, and the number of databases grew, the IT department started to struggle with the old workflow system. When CBS deployed Microsoft’s System Center, they simultaneously replaced the old desktop support product with the bundled System Center Service Manager offering. With the help of Service Manager, CBS was able to more effectively connect their back end, gaining access to data that was very difficult to incorporate into the workflow with the original service desk help application. Unfortunately, the front end of Service Manager presented challenges for the IT staff. The original interface of Service Manager was not very intuitive, which proved difficult for IT staff members to learn quickly. To speed up the integration process, the IT department decided to deploy Cireson’s Business Management Solution. Designed for incremental deployment, the solution offers a wide range of apps to help organizations easily create and manage custom IT workflow processes within Service Manager.

Until the deployment of System Center Service Manager 3 years ago, the GrECo IT team didn’t have a formal help desk solution. To submit service requests, their users called or emailed the IT department, creating an ineffective system with little accountability. When the IT team started looking for add-on solutions to simplify their daily interactions with Service Manager, they also wanted to have additional capabilities, such as comprehensive asset management. Initially, they wanted a better solution for asset management. That’s how they came across Cireson. They also discovered they had lots of additional cool tools, such as the Self-Service Portal, and others. They decided to give it a try. In addition to the comprehensive features, GrECo’s IT team also discovered another important benefit of using Cireson solutions. The number of updates provided by Cireson is not comparable to what Microsoft was offering. They get updates from Cireson almost weekly, while Microsoft last updated their solution over a year ago.

Before Harris Federation moved its entire network of schools to System Center Service Manager, the IT support system for the entire organization was decentralized. Each school had its own way of supporting their staff members and students. Some of the secondary and primary schools used the Spiceworks solution, while others employed a combination of spreadsheets, email, word of mouth, or staff notice boards. Lance Ball, Head of Service Delivery, said, “There was no central repository for the incident data collected from those academics, therefore the IT management team at the Harris Federation had little visibility of the various incident trends, which made it difficult to manage and improve the IT support service.” The end users simply weren’t getting the support they needed, leading to frustration and long periods of disruption to their work. With the help of Service Manager, Harris Federation was hoping to consolidate the IT support service for all the schools in the network and gain visibility into the IT support requirements at each school (including the number of support people needed, the type of support requested, etc. The collected data would enable the team to monitor trends, as well as improve the IT support service. While searching for ways to simplify the management of Service Manager, the IT team came across Cireson’s apps. “We discovered a couple of Cireson products freely available on the Internet and found this very useful. Further research into Cireson revealed them to be an obvious partner,” said Lance Ball.

The primary goal of SanMar’s IT team was to find a solution that could provide help desk capabilities their users could be comfortable with, and that could be deployed and managed on premises. They also wanted it to be budget-friendly. After considering a few offerings, they picked System Center Service Manager. It offered the help desk features they wanted, and it was affordable. However, before they deployed Service Manager, the IT team decided to also choose an add-on solution to simplify Service Manager’s daily management. “We knew about the difficulties of dealing with Service Manager,” said Al Kimbell, IT Operations Manager. “Microsoft recommended that we looked at their partners, including Cireson, and their offerings. We knew Cireson’s Self-Service Portal would fit our needs.“ “Another reason we chose Cireson was because we didn’t want to depend on Silverlight,” added Al Kimbell.

Loyola’s University IT department, managing over 3,500 devices across the campus, had been using a service desk product to automate and fulfill service requests for a number of years. They were quite familiar with the management of the old product, and were generally satisfied with the capabilities it offered. It also allowed them to manage their unique non-homogenous environment – while 85% of the students and staff at the university use Windows, the remaining 15% are dedicated Mac users. Once the old service desk product reached end of life, the university decided to switch to Microsoft’s System Center Service Manager. The reason behind it was twofold – the product’s extensive capabilities, as well as lower overall costs. While offering a wealth of capabilities, Service Manager was at times difficult to navigate for those without extensive training and also presented challenges for integration of non-Windows based devices. While the staff was enthusiastic about the potential capabilities of Service Manager, they were unanimous in the decision that – they had to find an add-on to make the solution more user-friendly and more robust for their unique environment. They started looking for an add-on product to speed console operations, streamline workflows and clicks, increase functionality of the product, and allow Service Manager to be functional from non-Windows platforms.

System Center Service Manager (SCSM) was the credit union’s first professional help desk solution. Their original system was a homegrown product comprised of 4 different systems. “Service Manager proved too simplistic for us. We needed more options and features. It was also different for each department, and not straightforward. You had to know the person who would help you with your problem, before submitting a ticket,” explained Kevin Goodwin, Business Systems Analyst. Since the credit union already owned the System Center suite, it was a natural choice for them to pick Service Manager for their new help desk solution. The credit union’s IT team deployed SCSM in mid-2015, without using an outside consultant. “It was a process of trial and error. The basic functions were easy to deploy, since a lot of information is Googleable. Customization features were difficult, since there is not a lot of resources out there to figure it out,” said Kevin Goodwin. The credit union used SCSM with no add-on products for about 10 months. Their primary complaint was that SCSM was very slow. “Microsoft portal is Silverlight-based,” said Kevin Goodwin. “It always took a while to load. The HTML5 version was buggy, and didn’t work right.” The credit union’s IT group learned about Cireson through word of mouth. They decided to try the apps from Cireson to make SCSM faster, and more user-friendly.

The IT team at CPPJ didn’t have a professional help desk solution before they deployed System Center Service Manager. The choice to go with Service Manager was simple - according to Charles Burton, Information Technology Director, “We chose Service Manager because it is integrated with System Center.” The majority of CPPJ’s infrastructure is Windows-based, so their main concern was to find a system designed for their environment. From the end of the previous year, CPPJ the team had trouble customizing the workflow process, resulting in additional delays and wasted time. After a year, the IT team realized they would need various enhancements to meet their needs, as well as experienced consultants to guide them through the process. Ultimately, CPPJ chose Cireson’s professional team to help implement the Cireson solutions, as well as customize Service Manager’s implementation. Talking about other competing solutions, Charles Burton, Information Technology Director, said “The CP IT department invested in the Microsoft System Center solution to monitor, maintain and track the technology services and needs within our organization. The third party tools available on the market were a mixed bag of partial solutions and unneeded functionality. Cireson was found to have the most complete set of solutions with simple implementation steps.” With Cireson’s help, the IT team wanted to achieve three goals: gain visibility into the work of the IT department, better manage daily service requests, as well as understand how cost is allocated for their IT needs.

With the existing service management platform approaching end-of-life, TAFE SA began researching possible replacements. As a Microsoft-based organisation, TAFE SA was entitled to Microsoft Service Manager and wanted to leverage the platform for cost-savings and system cohesion. However, with predicted growth of its online student population, TAFE SA sought solutions for emerging issues. TAFE SA engaged leading Australian System Centre firm and Microsoft Service Manager expert Systemology to help customise and implement its new service management system. Rather than invest time and money into custom-coded fixes, Systemology recommended Cireson solutions to fill the gaps and achieve the goal of having a user-friendly, intuitive self-service portal.

RTVSLO needed to expand the number of help desk licenses available to its IT team. Due to budget restrictions, they were looking for a cost-effective way to solve the issue. Their solution at the time, BMC Remedy, required RTVSLO to pay for additional licenses to include the new members of the team. “We wanted to upgrade the platform, but as a public company, we had financial concerns,” said Bostjan Cernjak, Information Technology Department, System Development. “We learned that by using Microsoft’s Enterprise Agreement, the additional licenses would be almost free.” Before the deployment of Service Manager, RTVSLO relied heavily on paper documents to manage internal requests. They wanted to eliminate paper trails and to convert the record keeping system to the electronic format, which required the new system to offer comprehensive reporting capabilities. “While Service Manager covered all our platform needs, the reporting wasn’t good,” said Bostjan Cernjak. Another big issue was the language of the interface. Based in Slovenia, RTVSLO needed a solution that had a Slovenian interface, as well as documentation. “Localization is a big problem in Service Manager, everything had to be translated,” said Bostjan Cernjak. While the team at RTVSLO looked at a number of add-on solutions, they finally chose the apps from Cireson to customize and simplify their daily interactions with Service Manager.

Upon deploying Microsoft System Center, it was a logical choice for the IT department to move from the old service desk product to the bundled System Center Service Manager solution. The migration was expected to save financial resources, and provide the IT staff with an advanced, fully integrated help desk product, as Westdale’s environment is 100% Microsoft-based. At the end of the pilot phase, Westdale’s IT department had two options. The first one was to hire a developer to create a custom solution with an intuitive user interface to automate many tasks. However, this would potentially have been a very expensive and time-consuming undertaking. The second option was to find a provider with existing apps designed to run on top of Service Manager, offering users a coherent, familiar environment where they could easily complete their daily tasks. Westdale’s team decided to go with the second option.

Asta originally relied on the infraEnterprise help desk solution from EMC to support their users. Over three years ago, they also tried the Conduit cloud solution, but they were disappointed with the results. “Our engineers didn’t like using it,” said Pierre Smit, IT Service Manager. “It was cheap, compared to the old system, and clunky.” In the middle of 2013, the IT team decided to switch to System Center Service Manager (SCSM). The main motivation behind choosing SCSM was the licensing structure, making the solution affordable, compared to other options. Asta hired an external consultant to help with the deployment. Asta’s IT team was too busy with other projects, and they didn’t have a very good understanding of SCSM, which turned out to be more complex than they originally expected. Commenting on their deployment experience, Pierre Smit said, “It wasn’t the smoothest process. Service Manager is like a shell, where everything needs to be configured. It’s flexible, but not out of the box.” After struggling with SCSM for over 6 months, Asta’s IT team decided to try add-on products to ease their work with SCSM. They turned to Cireson at the beginning of 2014. After a positive experience with Cireson’s free tool, Notify Analyst, Asta’s IT team moved on to deploy other Cireson apps.

Before ARTC implemented System Center Service Manager, the IT department used a home-grown help desk product to support their users. The simple solution didn’t provide many automation features, and lacked an effective way to track user requests. In addition, it couldn’t be fully integrated with Microsoft SharePoint, used extensively by the IT department. The deployment of Service Manager was brought on to resolve the issues of the original help desk solution, and provide a wealth of other benefits such as extensive automation features, speeding up resolution of incidents, connection of all important backend systems, easy integrations with SharePoint, intelligent tracking of user requests, and the ability to mine data to understand IT trends and patterns. Furthermore, Service Manager did not require a large financial investment, making it a highly attractive replacement for the outdated help desk solution. To enhance Service Manager’s capabilities, the IT department looked at two add-on solutions – one from Cireson, and another one from Provance. The solutions from Cireson offered the exact fix to ARTC’s concerns, prompting the IT department to go with Cireson.

The IT team at Perkins Coie originally used an older version of BMC Remedy. However, to efficiently support over 2,500 users in multiple locations, they needed a more advanced solution with better automation features. The IT team had two options – to upgrade the Remedy solution, or to go with another offering. After looking at a few options, they decided to deploy System Center Service Manager. It was more cost-effective than an upgrade of the old system, and it offered many of the features they wanted. To alleviate some of the setbacks they experienced with Service Manager, the Perkins Coie IT team turned to Cireson. The IT team hoped to achieve 3 main goals with the deployment of the new system: to remove manual steps from their daily operations (such as data entry of the incoming email volume), to create a better reporting system, and a better automation system, integrated with other tools.

With close to 1,700 users in about 10 locations, Centric Group has always had a need for a flexible help desk solution with a solid tracking system of user requests and incidents. For a number of years Centric Group used Track-It! software from BMC. While offering basic help desk functions, for Centric Group, the solution was lacking in two important areas: it didn’t offer a way to create a comprehensive historical record of customer requests. Without the feature, the IT department couldn’t properly assess present work of its employees, figure out on-going trends and patterns, as well as establish standards and benchmarks to evaluate future performance of its workers; and the licensing fees were too high. When the time came to look at other solutions, the IT department chose System Center Service Manager from Microsoft. As a bundled solution, Service Manager didn’t not require any additional licensing fees from Centric Group. It also offered a wealth of other features, including a way to preserve, and later mine customer and end user data. After about 9 months after deploying Service Manager, Centric Group’s IT department decided to try an add-on solution to increase efficiency. They chose Cireson due to the extensive portfolio of products offered, as well as many extra tools they could try and use at no charge.

Prior to implementing the Cisco Jasper platform, CTS relied on emails to bring devices online, check connection status and detect potential issues. The turnaround time—typically up to 48 hours—was unacceptably slow, especially for customers who require devices to be installed and activated right away. The email-based system proved particularly cumbersome on weekends and holidays, which are typically busy times for both commercial fleets and consumers.

As our world population is booming, people are living longer, and healthcare costs continue to skyrocket, there’s an increasing need to innovate access and delivery of long-term care. The Internet of Things (IoT) is making that possible, enabling companies like Jupl to change the future of healthcare. Jupl’s home monitoring solution addresses the challenge of the evolving mobile lifestyle, with smart technology that goes beyond the boundaries of the home environment. Their technology leverages a two-way voice-capable Samsung 3G smartwatch (that’s connected to a cellular network) and pairs with a powerful cloud platform, the Virtual Biometric Network (VBN), which securely captures sensitive health information from the wearer. Healthcare providers can deliver more proactive care by bundling the tablet-accessible Jupl solution and smart wearables with their own 24/7 services to deliver round-the-clock care for vulnerable individuals who live or work independently.

Consumers increasingly expect a seamless experience to pay for products and services wherever they are, and Clover’s wireless POS solutions and connected services make that possible. By managing connectivity using Control Center, Clover (a First Data company) can provide merchants with secure, reliable payment and business productivity solutions anywhere they do business, whether at a fixed location, online or on the road.

The demand for energy efficiency and more environmentally conscious use of resources is transforming the way utility companies operate. Upgrading existing infrastructures to meet these demands requires new technologies that can provide visibility and control over multiple points in the distribution systems. Peterborough Utilities needed a solution to monitor and manage water treatment, electricity distribution, and utility usage effectively. The company faced challenges in gaining insight and control over mission-critical applications, ensuring that smart switches and metering units were operating properly, and managing issues that arose in the distribution network.

GLNT faced the challenge of managing different providers and distinctive solutions for telemedicine, which became cumbersome as they expanded globally. Connectivity issues in remote areas, particularly in Europe, posed significant hurdles. Devices frequently hopped from tower to tower, complicating the collection of sensor data and patient video. Diagnosing these connectivity issues was time-consuming and required multiple phone calls, making the process inefficient.

In the age of IoT, traditional network service providers are evolving to offer new business models and value-added services. KPN, the largest network service provider in the Netherlands, needed to expand beyond fixed lines and mobile communications to provide innovative solutions for IoT, cloud, analytics, and security. Customers now expect a full solution, not just SIM connectivity, and they want a one-stop shop for their IoT needs. KPN faced the challenge of meeting these new customer expectations while also managing the scalability and complexity of IoT deployments.

The biggest challenge for Telular was ensuring that they collected the right data from their smart connected devices to provide value to their customers. With the vast amount of data available, it was crucial to minimize distractions and present only the necessary information to help customers make informed decisions. Additionally, Telular needed to transition from hardware-oriented discussions to delivering real value through recurring services and the power of the information obtained from connected devices. Another challenge was managing the diverse interfaces and network structures of different carriers in North America and Europe, which required seamless integration and efficient problem-solving capabilities.

SCSI, a leading provider of 3G/4G and M2M communication solutions for the electronic security sector in Australia and the APAC region, faced the challenge of managing tens of thousands of SIMs in their DirectWireless network. Ensuring reliable and efficient day-to-day operations was critical, especially for mission-critical security communications. The need for automated connectivity management was paramount to streamline operations, verify SIMs and network functions, and provide analytics, reporting, and billing support. Without an effective solution, SCSI risked higher operational costs and potential service disruptions, which could compromise their reputation and customer satisfaction.

As populations age and the cost of healthcare rises, the use of telecare and telehealth is increasing. These forms of remote care promise to make independent living more feasible for seniors, ensuring their wellbeing, safety, and access to quality care in emergency situations. Motech Electronic Devices is expanding on this promise with the power of the Internet of Things (IoT). Previously, telecare was only delivered at home, using analog-based technologies. So, if a person fell outside of their home, the service was not available. Motech addressed that problem with CareClip, a discrete, wearable, mobile device, supported by monitoring, tracking and communication services, that gives active seniors the assurance of constant access to care and emergency services wherever they go.

Even though the connected home business is thriving, Vivint believes the Internet of Things is still in its infancy. The company faces the challenge of connecting various devices in a meaningful way to create a great experience for customers. Vivint needed a more efficient way to manage its connected devices and provide world-class customer service. The company also aimed to increase revenue streams by adding new services and products to its portfolio. Additionally, Vivint required a solution to track occupancy/vacancy patterns in homes to save energy and reduce waste, while also securing homes when residents are away.