UW Connect
This page introduces you to UW Connect, a tool for helping departments and units serve their customers and manage their work. It is available in a full-featured version and a basic ticketing version. Comparison tables on this page help you understand what the versions offer, along with pricing.
- On This Page
- Which UW Connect option is right for your team?
- At a glance comparison: Key aspects
- Applicable to both UW Connect Service Management and UW Connect Lite
- UW Connect solutions comparison
UW Connect is the UW’s branded version of the ServiceNow platform, a powerful, enterprise-class tool that leverages industry standard Service Management best practices. UW Connect provides information intake and customer support workflow capabilities, and is available to both IT and non-IT departments and units.
Single system of record
Move away from shared email accounts and spreadsheets, and instead use one system for tracking service requests and ensuing activities. Easily organize and prioritize your team’s work as you deliver consistent and regular customer communication.
UW Connect Service Management and UW Connect Lite
Two versions are available, but because UW Connect is one platform, you’ll be able to transfer and re-route support records among other subscribers at the University.
Which UW Connect option is right for your team?
UW Connect Lite demo
UW-IT uses several UW Connect capabilities, and makes a robust version available to UW departments and units: UW Connect Service Management. In response to inquiries from UW departments, now UW-IT also offers UW Connect Lite, a basic ticketing option.
Each is offered as a billable subscription service through UW-IT so that you don’t have to procure and manage your own similar but separate tool for customer support.
- UW Connect Service Management is a good fit for IT departments and other units that need robust service management capabilities, reports and dashboards.
- UW Connect Lite is a good fit for units that are more resource constrained and need basic ticketing capabilities to manage their customer support.
Note: A third UW Connect option is in use by the UW Integrated Service Center (ISC). HRP Case Management is used exclusively by the ISC and its related central business units, including HR and Academic Personnel. It is not available to other support units.
At a glance comparison: Key aspects
| UW Connect Service Management | UW Connect Lite | Details | |
| User license pricing | $49 per month per staff member
$14 per month per student worker |
$17 per month per staff member or student worker | Each user requires an individual subscription.
Licenses are named licenses, vs. concurrent licenses, and cannot be shared (i.e., no shared UW NetIDs). |
| Onboarding and training: Pricing and scheduling | $3,100 one-time setup fee, per unit/department | $1,500 one-time setup fee, per unit/department | Service Management customers are onboarded as discrete units. This is scheduled based on the unit’s availability.
Lite customers are onboarded during pre-scheduled sessions that UW-IT offers monthly. Refer to calendar to schedule. |
| Record types | Four types: Request, Incident, Problem, Change | One type: Ticket | Different record types allow different service levels and workflows. |
| Record merge | ✔ | Used when the same record is received multiple times. | |
| Web-based intake forms | Two custom forms with workflow | One predefined basic form | Option: Watch a training video and read documentation to learn how to build your own custom intake forms for customers to fill out. |
| “Parent-child” record relationships/sub-tasks | ✔ | Divide your work into tasks for different teams. | |
| “Related-to” record relationships | ✔ | Data field allowing you to enter another record number for reference. | |
| Custom reports | ✔ | How-to documentation to build custom reports, with support if needed. | |
| Performance analytics | ✔ | Coming soon: option for dashboards to display trending data. | |
| Enterprise Service Desk (ESD) | ✔ | Option for you to have UW-IT provide Tier 1 support to your customers. Refer to the ESD Service Catalog entry. |
|
| Feature enhancements | ✔ | In general, feature enhancements will be incorporated into UW Connect Service Management only. |
Applicable to both UW Connect Service Management & UW Connect Lite
| Component | Explanation |
| ServiceNow contract | An Internet2 contract ensuring competitive and UW-appropriate terms and conditions. |
| Critical system status | Services run on UW-IT’s infrastructure, deemed “critical” for business continuity. Support for UW Connect Service Management is available Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. – 5 p.m. High-priority service interruptions are escalated for support 24×7. |
| My Request portal | Customer view of all UW Connect support records, regardless of organization. |
| FERPA compatible | Contract language supports FERPA. |
| HIPAA compatible | Business Associate Agreement (BAA) included in contract. |
| Knowledge Base (KB) | Dedicated Knowledge Base for your organization, used to associate KB articles to your support records for common support responses. [Note: this capability will be available on the Lite service in fall 2020.] |
| Templates | Used for repeatable actions, such as incorporating standard responses to common inquiries. |
| Record transferability/re-routing | Because it’s one platform, support records can be routed to different organizations. |
| UW Groups integration | Department/unit self-service subscription maintenance through membership management of service-specific UW Groups. |
| UW-IT billing | Automated billing to UW budget numbers. |
| Preconfigured reports | Basic reports are provided, based on the most commonly requested report requests (e.g., avg time to resolve). |
| Feature enhancements | Ongoing enhancements will be incorporated into the full UW Connect Service Management version. UW Connect Lite will remain a basic option, but sometimes incorporate enhancements. |
UW Connect solutions comparison
| Features | UW Connect Service Management | UW Connect Lite |
Core Capabilities |
||
| Request Management Request Management is focused on customer requests for service — whether that’s access to a service, a new item such as a phone, or information. It is distinguished from Incident Management, which is focused on “break/fix” type issues. |
✔ | |
| Basic Ticket Management Streamlined form for managing all types of work, including customer inquiries, operational activities, etc. |
✔ | |
| Incident Management Incident Management is to restore normal service operation as quickly as possible, while minimizing impact to business operations and ensuring quality is maintained. Incident records are used for tracking “break/fix” type issues. |
✔ | |
| Problem Management Problem Management represents work done to address the root cause of one or more Incidents/potential Incidents, even after the service has been restored in the short term. |
✔ | |
| Change Management A systematic approach to control the life cycle of all changes, facilitating beneficial changes to be made with minimum disruption to IT service. Change Management in UW Connect is focused on authorizing changes, and necessitates that there be a Change Advisory Board in place. |
✔ | |
| Knowledge Management Enables the sharing of information in knowledge bases. These knowledge bases contain articles that provide users with information such as self-help, troubleshooting, and task resolution. Separate workflows can be used for publishing and retiring articles, and separate access controls can be used to control reading and contributing. |
✔ | ✔ |
| Calls Available for use by high-volume service/help desks who want to capture core information about a customer phone call/walk up, without having to determine up front if it represents an Incident or a Request. |
✔ | |
| Visual Task Board | ✔ | |
| My Request Page Tasks/tickets displayed to customers on “My Requests” page. |
✔ | ✔ |
Intake Methods |
||
| Email Task/ticket generated via inbound email. |
✔ | ✔ |
| Walk up Ad hoc creation of task/ticket records. |
✔ | ✔ |
| Integration Ability to generate records from monitoring/alert systems. |
✔ | |
| Default Intake Form Intake form whose link can be posted on an organization’s website, team site, email signature, etc. Allows users with a UW NetID to fill out a web form, and generate a Request/Ticket. |
✔ | ✔ |
| Custom Intake Forms Up to two custom intake forms developed by UW-IT and/or training on how to create intake forms. |
✔ | |
Ticket/Record Management |
||
| Parent-Child relationships/sub-tasks Allows sub-tasks to be generated from a record, which is useful when multiple groups are responsible for activities that will resolve the customer issue. For incident management, the service desk would typically own the Incident record and generate Incident tasks (“ITasks”) for the groups. Additionally, if an Incident were reported by more than one person, one Incident would be retained as the “parent,” and house the communication that would be propagated to the other Incident records (the “children”). |
✔ | |
| Merging The ability to merge two records into one. This is useful, for example, when the customer has created two requests for the same issue. |
✔ | |
| Re-Routing Re-route tickets to the UW-IT Service Center if the record should be owned by UW-IT, another UW Connect Service Management subscription customer, or another UW Connect Lite customer. |
✔ | ✔ |
| Jira integration Create a Jira issue from within a UW Connect task. |
✔ | |
Metrics and Reporting |
||
| Custom reporting | ✔ | |
| Default reports | ✔ | ✔ |
| Customer surveys | Future | |
Onboarding Support / Training |
||
| Coordinated Unit/departments specify the timing to coordinate onboarding and training. |
✔ | |
| Pre-arranged monthly schedule Training arranged via a set monthly onboarding and training schedule. |
✔ | |
Price |
||
| Onboarding coordination and support (one-time, initial set-up fee) | $3,100 | $1,500 |
| UW Connect User Licensing (ongoing, monthly charge per user) | $49 (FTE) $14 (Student) |
$17 |
Add-on Services |
||
| Enterprise Service Desk Available to UW Connect Service Management customers as a for-fee service. |
✔ | |
Administration |
||
| Records retention policy TBD |
Future | Future |
| Business Associate Agreement (BAA) Included in the UW contract with ServiceNow to support departments with their HIPAA compliance processes. |
✔ | ✔ |
| Managed by UW-IT UW-IT manages the contract in concert with Internet2. Includes negotiated rates, terms and conditions. |
✔ | ✔ |
| Accessibility The web-based customer intake forms and the My Requests page are accessible. However, the agent-facing user interface does NOT yet meet accessibility standards. UW-IT continues to work with ServiceNow to address this deficit. |
✔ | ✔ |
Last reviewed August 20, 2020
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