I’m thrilled that we’ve finally announced the availability of the new Ivanti Neurons platform! It’s been a long journey involving huge efforts by all parts of the Ivanti organization over recent years to get to this point.

There is a powerful and close relationship between the Ivanti Neurons platform and Ivanti’s Enterprise Service Management and IT Service Manager capabilities. As you’ve now seen, the Ivanti Neurons platform delivers hyper-automation bots for self-healing, self-securing, and self-servicing. All of which directly enhances (nay, I’ll say transforms) what an IT service desk does, how it does it, and the service it delivers.

To know more about autonomous service desks and the future of service management and of service management professionals, check out my virtual SITS webinar.

But in this post I’d like to focus on the self-servicing ability of the Ivanti Neurons platform.

Self Service Today: Embracing Omnichannel Support

When we hear about self-service, we might think “self-service portal.” But it’s much more than that. I’d like to break this into two areas: self service today and self service tomorrow. 

It’s now widely appreciated that people are different, and we all use technology in ways that suit us. We value choice. And we want the same personal choice from our IT or enterprise service department. Some people prefer to call a phone number, some like to search on a website. Others like to chat with real people and some like to chat with bots. Some use email, others use Slack, and still others use Teams—anytime, anywhere through lots of channels. And of course, offering a choice of self-service interfaces for employees and end users is important.

At Ivanti, we’ve continued to expand the self-service and communication channels we offer with our solutions. We’re excited to continue to do so. Virtual agents, chatbots, automatic phone systems, mobile apps, and even connectors to more than 2,000 cloud applications via our Zapier connector. We’ve added new mobile self-service chat into mobile apps in our latest release, and there’s more to come. Some say we provide the widest range of choices for end users to communicate with IT and get help.

But what about the future?

Self Service Tomorrow: Beyond Omnichannel to Self-Servicing and an Ambient Experience

Self-servicing? In a way, it’s the ultimate proactive “shift left.” Let’s use a story to explain. 

Recently my dishwasher stopped working—"Error E15” (for all of you dishwasher geeks). In the old world, I would have phoned a repair person who would look up the error in a battered old manual, identify that I needed a new water pump, travel to buy the replacement pump, and then come to my house to fit the pump.

But in today’s world, we love self-service. I looked up “Error E15” in Google and discovered I needed a new pump. I bought the pump on Amazon. It was delivered to my door the next day and, surprisingly, I actually fitted it myself.

Now, instead of it costing me hundreds of pounds and taking a week or two, it cost me only tens of pounds. It did take a lot of my time, however. I had to do the virtual legwork, and it was me—not a service person—lying on the kitchen floor in a puddle, trying to unscrew a pump from the dishwasher while the dog kept licking my face. Yuck.

So, what’s a self-servicing environment? We’ll continue with the dishwasher analogy although it won’t hold water for much longer. (See what I did there?)

A self-servicing platform would have remotely asked my dishwasher if any components were nearing an end of life or in need of servicing. In turn, my dishwasher would report back that the pump was nearing failure. A new pump would be ordered and shipped automatically. And if dishwashers were like IT, then the dishwasher would fit the pump itself. And that’s where the dishwasher analogy fails, so let’s switch to IT and real life.

Ivanti Neurons: Self-Servicing

Here’s a true story of a real Ivanti Neurons platform customer applying self-servicing to transform their business:

Ivanti Neurons is able to query laptop battery health. If a battery in a laptop returns less than 15% recharging life remaining, then a ticket is created automatically in Ivanti Service Manager. That ticket follows the required workflow rules and … automatically contacts the laptop supplier with the location (address), the serial number of the laptop, and the requirement to ship a replacement battery. A day later, a ring at the doorbell and there on the doorstep is a new battery. Remove the old one, clip in the new one in. Solved. This is IT that’s self-servicing. No incidents nor need to even use any of those multiple self-service channels.

But we can get even more clever than that. With Ivanti Neurons, a lot of good IT can be shipped automatically over the wire. And that’s a lot quicker.

Let’s say you use a software product a lot and it’s approaching end of life (or a new internal update is available). Or perhaps it’s been replaced by a new or updated tool approved by IT. Ivanti Neurons steps in and installs that new version, automatically.

An Ambient IT Service Experience

What’s an ambient experience, you ask? This is something we’re familiar with using technology in our personal lives already.

Ambient technology adjusts automatically, often silently, around you. Get in your car and then what? Seat, music, and lights adjust to your saved preferences. Approach your house? The front door unlocks as the app and lock confirm your identity. Walk into your house? Lights and curtains and music adjust to your saved profiles for time of day and your physical location. Need to know something important and relevant to you? Your wristwatch pings with a notification. That’s an ambient technology experience. And the Ivanti Neurons platform makes that possible for the individual working anywhere (probably at home).

Ivanti Neurons with Ivanti Service Manager:

  • Understands context – The location (live, on a map!); the user; their devices; their profile; their services and needs.
  • Personalizes delivery – Understanding language, culture, and the working environment. Want your updates by app pop-up or text message or automated phone call out? In your language? No problem.
  • Provides an ambient experience – Issues are detected proactively and corrected automatically. Needs are anticipated and fulfilled before the user is impacted. Outages and incidents are prevented. Satisfaction is improved.

Why report a fault when the fault is already detected and has been corrected? Why request something you need when the requirement is already recognized and already shipped or installed?

Join Us on the Journey 

You’ll need a solution that will guide you to an ambient self-servicing future. We invite you to join us on this journey. Start by reading and watching information about Ivanti Neurons, and check back regularly as we expand the self-servicing capabilities of Ivanti Neurons.