The Service Management Marathon at the State Directorate of Saxony
With almost a million applications per year and three main locations, the IT department at the State Directorate of Saxony urgently needed to modernize after years of working with Outlook. The project had to be sustainable, so they needed a scalable, flexible ITSM solution. The IT staff found what they were looking for with Chemnitz-based provider KIX Service Software.
Who is the State Directorate and what does it do?
Anyone caught speeding on the highway will eventually receive a letter from the fines office. This is also the case in Saxony. Few people know that the Saxony State Directorate is behind this. The State Directorate is responsible for more than just administrative offenses. Those who need permits for airports, bridges, or cannabis clubs, for example, contact the officials at the authority. It also deals with environmental protection issues, is responsible for aviation safety, issues boat licenses, and operates initial reception facilities. In short, the State Directorate covers a huge spectrum with over 300 specialized procedures—in other words, IT applications for administrative work.
Various experts work together to accomplish these tasks, including lawyers, engineers, physicists, chemists, doctors, and administrative staff. The State Directorate of Saxony has existed in its current form since 2012 and is subordinate to the Saxon State Ministry of the Interior.
It evolved from the previously separate State Directorates of Chemnitz, Leipzig, and Dresden. The authority's offices are now located in these cities, as well as in around ten branch offices spread across the Free State. The State Directorate employs approximately 1,600 people, around 400 of whom work at the headquarters in Chemnitz.
A quick start to a long journey!
The State Directorate processes over a million applications annually. The demands on IT are correspondingly high, yet a dedicated department has only existed since 2020. Previously, IT was more of a side issue. Today, 35 colleagues work in the IT department. Eight user support staff and seven administrators handle daily operations and service management. The rest of the team takes care of software development and adjustments for the specialist procedures," reports IT manager Thomas Steinbach. The State Directorate is a member of the training association for IT specialists, and four trainees are currently working here.
When the department was brand new in 2020, the IT team initially continued with established processes. They used the Outlook email program from the US-based company Microsoft for ticket processing. They modified this with color coding for the respective processors and topics. However, this was not ideal. There were too many mailboxes and contact persons, and some tickets contained sensitive information, such as names and birthdates. Additionally, the Online Access Act was about to take effect, and due to the pandemic and remote work, more communication was necessary. More and more external experts were also using their own tools for work. Thomas Steinbach and his colleagues had to check them all first. "Overall, we were far from having a single point of contact, so we had to change something quickly," said the IT expert.
Is IT service management with KIX the solution?
In 2023, the IT department decided to introduce IT service management software to eliminate these issues, and the employees already had specific ideas about what they wanted. The software should run in-house, not on a third-party hosted cloud, and offer good performance. The software should also be easy to customize and run on an open-source basis.
Most importantly, the employees wanted to start using the software immediately, grow with it, and not spend years developing processes first. They ultimately wanted to map various processes, such as a service desk, incident reporting, request management, and configuration management. For Thomas Steinbach, ITSM software was an obvious choice: "I have been working on IT projects in the public sector for over 20 years. I first came into contact with ITSM and ITIL in 2005, and I'm a fan. However, our state directorate is increasingly focused on service management, which considers service processes beyond IT." He and his colleagues ultimately decided on a trial phase with KIX, initially using the free Community Edition.
An important intermediate step
At the same time, the IT department took further action. Soon, there was a single phone number and email address for all inquiries, and all requests ended up directly in the KIX ticket system. This open source software from Chemnitz quickly resulted in significantly more efficient workflows for the state directorate. Tickets are no longer lost, all intermediate steps in a process are documented, and every employee can easily track the status.
After a successful test phase, the IT department switched to the Pro version of KIX in April 2024. This was mainly because employees needed additional functions and processes to achieve their goals.
"From day one, KIX impressed us. After a year, we wanted to take the next step. Our long-term plan remained unchanged: to grow with the solution and adapt it continuously. To this end, we collect change requests from all our colleagues and implement them gradually.”
The team gained detailed knowledge through ITIL training courses. Combined with KIX, which is also ITIL-certified and provides extensive support for the de facto standard in the ITSM industry, the IT department became nearly perfect. Incident management now works flawlessly, with employees handling around 1,200 incidents per month. The IT department resolves all software and hardware issues much more quickly and efficiently for all State Directorate of Saxony employees. All IT specialist procedures are integrated into KIX. This marked an important milestone, but the journey continues.
From ongoing processes to complete service
KIX has replaced several previous processes. This has resulted in clearer processes, greater efficiency, and increased security. The next step is to implement the KIX Self Service Portal as a single point of contact for the State Directorate's service desk, with support from the manufacturer, KIX Service Software. Thomas Steinbach and his colleagues are working on this project.
However, that's not the end of the IT department's to-do list. After setting up the self service portal, the team plans to integrate software distribution via Baramundi. The team is also working on various interfaces, such as those for software development with GitLab. The ultimate goal is clear: complete service management for all areas of the State Directorate. From sick notes to caretaker equipment, various service departments will manage all processes via KIX in the future.
The insights gained from this journey have already proven to be very valuable for Thomas Steinbach and his team. "We have learned that there are no finished processes. Ongoing changes are crucial for adapting to challenges. We knew from the beginning that the project would be a marathon. With KIX, we have made a very good start. It has brought much more structure to our work from the beginning, and I am confident that it will help us reach our goal."
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