The customer was struggling with unreliable data in their CMDB, without the means to correct it internally.

Having recently moved their data into a ServiceNow instance, there were quality issues that were causing staff to have doubts about the reliability and integrity of the data and particularly the ownership of certain CIs. There was a risk of problems that could leave them exposed to audit issues, and there were general delays; when a database went down it was a struggle to find who it belonged to in order for it to be fixed. CSX were called in to provide support to an existing team, providing bandwidth and accelerating the data verification process.

CSX needed to quickly and efficiently verify this data.

In order to align with the client’s budget, CSX mobilised a Senior Consultant as team lead and three Talent Academy Analysts for this engagement. The use of more junior Analysts allowed CSX to keep costs down for the client, while providing excellent service and meeting client expectation surrounding the output of the engagement.

Once engaged, the CSX team could see a lack of clear process and an extensive list of CIs yet to be verified. They embraced the challenge and got started.

CloudStratex got the client CMDB data into shape.

Over a period of 12 weeks, the CSX team planned, coordinated, managed and delivered the data verification of hundreds of thousands of CIs in the customer CMDB. Additionally, the team were able to identify hundreds of orphan CIs, allowing the client to formally recognise them and add them to the CMDB with correct assignment groups. Through close work with the organisation’s many business units, the CSX team were able to achieve the KPIs and targets set. Along with the existing client team, CSX also provided dashboard reporting on the correctness of the CMDB.

After seeing the incompleteness of the client data verification process, the team also created an end-to-end process document, outlining each step on Skore, at no extra cost to the customer. They were able to hand this back to client at the end of the project, introducing documentation and training material for any future data verification projects.

In 12 weeks, the engagement saw more verification than the client had previously achieved.

The customer’s internal data verification team were delighted with the efficient support provided by the CSX team. Their focus on verifying 6 key areas (the company, location, support group, approval group, assignment group and location) enabled the client to trust in their data and be better prepared for incidents as and when they occurred. The client was happy with the result, and users had restored confidence in their CMDB data.

The client was left with trusted and reliable data…

This project improved the quality of the CMDB for its users, protected the company from issues with incidents or auditing, and also set up a mechanism to ensure the process could continue to move forward after the engagement ended.

… and a documented and refined process.

Importantly, the end-to-end process provided clarity to the client team taking back over the process, and indeed allowed the process to occur at pace due to its optimisation. This engagement also continued a longer term relationship with this customer, which has engaged in several projects since.  

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