Overview

The following are examples provided by Advisory Board members on how ServiceNow can support Higher Ed during the pandemic as we plan for Fall quarter and beyond during uncertain budgetary times. Many institutions will face budget cuts due to decreased enrollment and state government revenue shortfalls. Most Higher Ed institutions began their ServiceNow relationship with the ITSM suite of applications. The examples below focus on non-IT examples of where we could leverage our existing ServiceNow investments to demonstrate value in supporting the Enterprise, e.g., housing, food services, financial aid, sporting events, etc. By demonstrating expanded value in an existing investment we are more likely to retain budgets for ServiceNow.

Examples: 

1.) Student IDs (University of Washington)

Issuing student IDs for incoming students is typically done in person, but with the pandemic, we need to figure out how to do this remotely at scale. Students used to bring their government issued ID to an office, get their picture taken and stored in a DB, and they were then issued a physical card. 

ServiceNow likely knows how to do this remotely already, since they do it internally for their staff hiring. Could they package it for Higher Ed? E.g., use mobile app and camera to take photo and upload; make sure the app is accessible; make it usable from Service Portal as well as mobile app; configure it so that the data is not stored in ServiceNow but instead uploaded to the appropriate data sources; include an approval step so that staff can verify that the picture matches the government ID, and that the picture is appropriate (e.g. isn't a photo of Big Bird ). 

2.)  Student support with social distancing (American U)

Submitted by American University, requested by Housing & Residential Life team:  University departments are challenged with providing service to attend to student issues or concerns, while maintaining social distancing recommendations.

Could ServiceNow provide simple integration to video chat (with either Teams or Zoom, preferably both) to enable students to be present in the office, yet maintain a conversation from a distance through the Walk-Up Experience.

3.) Student health and well-being (American U)

Submitted by American University, requested by VP of Campus Life:  University leadership needs to be able to assess the health and well-being of students that have returned to campus on an ongoing basis to ascertain if they are following campus recommendations for social distancing, wearing a mask, and hand washing. If they are showing symptoms or feeling disconnected, referring them to the appropriate resources.

Can a survey be filled out that can be tightly integrated with other University platforms, so they are prompted to complete it from all major systems on a weekly basis.   

Ensure that the survey is accessible. Currently, OOB surveys are not accessible (this has been reported to the product team responsible for surveys). 

This could also be a mobile app, in addition to an app on the service portal. 

4.) Health attestations for University and non-affiliated visitors (Notre Dame)

Health attestations for university community, including on site contractors that would not have university credentials/ netIDs. Would need to have secure access to the backend data by role, and a way to integrate with HR and student systems, so that attributes such as organization, location, class lists, could be utilized.  Because most university staff (e.g., faculty for class lists) are not licensed users, a way to display the data via login without having to utilize the licensed interface would be important. 

  • Notre Dame:  +1 -- include health attestations for other guests/visitors (possibly sports fans with tickets?)
5) Contact tracing (Notre Dame)

From Notre Dame:  The University needs a way to document conversations, a.k.a. "cases", regarding contact tracing efforts in a walled off secure area similar to the HR case management suite that can be secured so that only a special team of people have access to this information.  Also, the information needs to be encrypted since it could contain personal health information and/or HIPAA-related information.

6.) ServiceNow licensing and pricing model/ use of multiple apps (UW)

In general, the University of Washington needs an easier way from a license and cost management perspective to add licensed users, and move records between record types since non-IT organizations need a non-IT-like interface. CSM has the right concept of being an umbrella for record types. It is very common at Universities for a customer to contact one department (e.g., IT for credentials), but then need to be "transferred" to another department (e.g. Financial Aid, who is facing a tremendous support increase) to coordinate support among multiple departments behind the scenes. The biggest barrier I face for adding CSM on a more comprehensive basis in non-IT is "it costs how much? wow, I can't commit budget to that right now while planning for budget cuts." 

7.) Contact Tracing via Network Information (UVA)

In the spirit of the 'meeting based' app, could SN scoped/secured applications be used to identify users who were close to each other based on network info such as:

  1. The DHCP/wireless logs, which tell you which MAC addresses were on a given subnet at a given time,
  2. The MAC/user registration database, which tells you who each MAC address belongs to,
  3. The list of subnets in each building.
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