Equipping VRT’s helpdesk agents with an agile and fully integrated workplace
Interview VRT
Who is Zehra Atmaca?
Project Lead and Atlassian expert at VRT. She assembled and led a Jira workgroup. She conducted monitoring and analysis of the project specifications through workshops. With the results from these workshops, Idalko was able to lay the foundation of the project, before the internal VRT team took over again for further fine-tuning.
Project in numbers
VRT has 1800 employees and a large number of external contractors in all departments of VRT. There is one data center and three service desks: 3410, Fons (news), and Tor (radio). Together, they handle approximately 300 tickets per month.
“Idalko proved to be the right match for the ambition.”
Anyone working at VRT who encounters a technical issue reports it via a helpdesk. Is there a broadcasting interruption? Is a camera broken? Are there issues during a recording? Do you want to recover a radio segment? Are you new and need a license? Such highly diverse questions about technological infrastructure are handled by the VRT service desks and must then reach the appropriate department and—naturally—be resolved. “To manage all this efficiently, we previously used a ticketing system that left us wanting,” explains project lead and Atlassian expert Zehra Atmaca. “It was robust, but otherwise difficult to use, expensive, and allowed little to no autonomy. Even a simple query had to go through the supplier. It also lacked a portal, so we had to create one ourselves.”
Jira Service Management to the rescue
During the search for an alternative, several criteria played a significant role. The new system had to be consistent and capable of integrating with other systems and functions.
“Sometimes the solution to a question involves multiple services. If those services don’t have a joint management system, things can slip through the cracks and no one has an overview anymore. That needed significant improvement,”
explains Atmaca. Additionally, there was a very strong need for more autonomy at VRT, as they wanted to be able to configure and fine-tune the system themselves, based on evolving insights and needs.
VRT found exactly what it was looking for in Atlassian’s Jira Service Management. The fact that other teams within VRT were already using Jira was an added advantage. Atmaca explains, “As a platinum Atlassian partner for Belgium and a gold partner for France, Idalko was the obvious choice for the migration. This, coupled with the fact that VRT had already successfully collaborated with them on a previous project, made them the ideal partner.”
Raising the stakes
So, the challenge was to establish a single Atlassian ecosystem that would streamline operations across more than 10 technology teams and 3 service desks, ensuring that every ticket reached the right person via the shortest possible route. This involved phasing out the existing ticketing system—while guaranteeing that a helpdesk would always be available for VRT employees—and migrating other relevant databases and services to Jira. The deadline for these tasks was dictated by the termination of the service contract with the previous provider.
“I was very closely involved in the project, so I know how challenging it was,” shares Atmaca. “Timewise, the necessary days just fit into the period remaining before the deadline. During this time, all involved teams, both internal and external, had to get to know each other and then work closely together to achieve the expected results.”
Also, the ambition was significant. VRT expected the new ecosystem to deliver higher efficiency and scalability. The system had to offer autonomy with minimal customization, and the freedom to make processes and the service portal user-friendly. It needed to enable optimal collaboration and ensure thorough follow-up of each ticket. “Idalko proved to be the right match for that ambition,” summarizes Atmaca.
Dedicated to the job
Once the scope of the intended JSM ecosystem was clear, Idalko immediately started with three dedicated consultants, each with their own expertise. “Mark De Bont did very well as the project lead,” says Atmaca. “He knew his team and the subject matter very well.”
The job began with clarifying and setting up the initial subprojects. Within a few weeks, proof-of-concepts were delivered in a sandbox environment, which were then validated. After approval, they were transferred to the production environment, taking care to not disturb the production systems.
“The migration of relevant data from the old system to Jira was another matter entirely,” Zehra continues.
“VRT insisted on carefully determining which data needed to be migrated and what could be left behind. This way, we were able to limit the migration to the open tickets only.”
Tackling existing data & knowledge bases
In addition to setting up the JSM ecosystem, Idalko also provided support for the work that VRT would carry out on the existing Configuration Management Database (CMDB) and its integration into JSM Asset Management. A CMDB is essentially a database of all users and configuration items in use, which can include hardware as well as items like laptops and related accessories. To ensure the information reflects the real world as accurately as possible, this data is regularly imported from external data sources. “As a result of this integration, Jira users and customers can now enrich the support ticket with CMDB information like warranty date, supplier, etc.,” explains Atmaca. “By the way, kudos to the expertise of the Idalko consultant who handled this. It really went smoothly!”
A second important integration relates to the knowledge base. Atlassian Confluence was already being used for documentation at VRT. Much of this documentation was transformed into Knowledge Base articles to make the information accessible to VRT employees. This was connected to the Jira Service Portal, enabling employees to see possible solutions upon—or even before—creating a ticket. By continuously updating and building the knowledge base, knowledge is stored and made broadly available. “In the long term, this will drastically reduce the number of incoming tickets,” anticipates Atmaca. “In terms of efficiently solving problems, this is important to us and where our focus lies.”
“The knowledge and commitment of Idalko have really added value to this project.”
Providing on-site training
A special part of the assignment was a half-day on-site training session to master the fundamentals of Jira. “Some users were unfamiliar with Jira, making this training particularly valuable. For other team members, we realized in retrospect that a longer session would have allowed for more depth regarding managing the ecosystem and imparting more advanced knowledge,” admits Atmaca.
It’s no surprise that it became especially interesting when Jira Automations were introduced during this session. This feature allows users to create their own automations without needing programming skills. It includes automating repetitive tasks and creating custom integrations with Jira Asset Management. During the training, VRT admins were able to assess the capabilities of Automations from their own perspective and use that insight to advance their work.
From agile to Automations
“Automations was a major motivator for VRT to choose the Atlassian ecosystem,” Zehra admits. “The first automations were provided by the Idalko team. Their knowledge of Atlassian Automations is excellent, and they have passed that on to us.”
She continues, “A small, but not insignificant example involves approval management. Within an organization like VRT, you often need approval from multiple people to make a change, replace a camera, perform an upgrade, etc. This wasn’t standard in Jira. With Automations and the help of Idalko, we’ve implemented this.”
With Automations, VRT has the freedom to significantly improve workflows in the future and continue to grow. “To monitor this closely, we have a Jira working group,” Zehra explains. “Although they’re not real experts, they simply use the documentation available online. This leads to not only small fine-tunings but also new ideas, which we then incorporate into our roadmap. It’s really great and completely in line with VRT’s expectations.”
“Customers often know best what they need,” adds Idalko’s senior consultant Mark De Bont. “When you start testing, you notice that some processes could be better handled differently. Jira Automations enables these adjustments. However, an agile way of working where the customer is closely involved is crucial to leading to more efficient tailored solutions and more time for other matters.”
Happy autonomy!
The outcome of the collaboration is impressive. After the entire migration, VRT now has an autonomous and fully integrated ticketing system that they can manage themselves. Users are enthusiastic too: creating and following up on tickets is much more user-friendly, efficient, and effective. From the admin side, nothing gets lost anymore, issues are quickly directed to the right service, and tickets are closed more successfully.
“The knowledge and commitment of Idalko have really added value to this project,” summarizes Atmaca. “We would definitely recommend them to other companies looking to make their ecosystems future-proof. It wasn’t an easy job, partly due to the tight timeline, but they delivered what we wanted: an autonomous and robust system that we control ourselves. With the future of AI applications and the continuous introduction of new features in the cloud, we are well-prepared.”
