Richard Thomas
Application Operations Analyst
G20, Computer Centre, Elms Road
Richard has worked in IT Services (ITS) for the last six years – five years on the Service Desk and a year in Application Services. For over three years, he’s been working on ServiceNow development. We caught up with Richard to find out more about his new accreditation as a ServiceNow System Administrator.
This isn’t your first qualification here at the University – you’re studying here too! Can you tell us about what you’re studying? I started a PhD in October 2015, in Computer Security – looking at the security of the UK and European Rail Network and designing secure systems for them.
This is further to my 1:1 in BSc Computer Science and Distinction in MSc Computer Security, also gained here at the University – and all whilst working for ITS.
So what exactly is the ServiceNow System Administrator accreditation? Well, it’s the first step of accreditation for ServiceNow. From here, it’s possible to gain qualifications in the various ServiceNow products, for example IT Operations Management or Service Management. Typically, any ServiceNow consultant will have this qualification as a minimum, as well as one or more of the specialism certificates.
How long did it take for you to achieve accreditation? Usually, it’s a three-day course you take, followed by an exam; however, I self-learned through being a ServiceNow trainee developer. This was a role that Yvonne [O’Byrne, previous Head of Quality/Service Management, now retired] and Andy [Ferguson, previous Service Desk Manager, now New Core] encouraged me to get involved with. I then chose to get certified. The exam itself looks at various parts of the ServiceNow platform, how it’s set up, and what ‘best practice’ is.
How will it benefit ITS, having ServiceNow expertise within the department? ServiceNow can do a lot of things – we’re only scratching the surface at the moment within ITS. With experienced knowledge about the platform, we can look at tools and parts of the platform which we currently don’t use. This could address problems that affect not only ITS, but the rest of the University.
ITS is becoming more focused on Service Management. How does ServiceNow help with this? ServiceNow is central to our Service Management capacity. It was originally a Service Management system, and has evolved over the years.
Through ServiceNow, we’ve built a maturity in handling Incidents and offering services to our customers – staff and students. We are now looking at how we can transform Problem and Change/Configuration Management of our assets, using the platform. We worked on the Service Design Package (SDP) last year, helping to ensure visibility and solid delivery of new IT services to the University. This was a collaboration with TESM – a ServiceNow consultancy.
Just for fun… What do you like doing, outside of work and your studies? Away from computer screens, I enjoy going to see the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (CBSO) for their film music nights, as well as watching films at the cinema.
Do you have any top tips for getting the most out of ServiceNow? The ‘Sticky Note’ homepage widget is great for common things that you need to make a note of in the platform, like Incident reference numbers. I also find making my own reports into gauges for the homepage beneficial.
How can we find out more about ServiceNow? If you have a query about using ServiceNow, it is best to log a call through to the ‘Sust-ServiceNow’ team. We will all chip in and help with advice. We’re based in G20 in the Computer Centre, so feel free to drop by and we can answer any queries if we’re around.
The ServiceNow Docs website has lots of information on how to do something, for example build a report or run a search. It can also show you what it’s possible to achieve with the platform.
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