With over 7,600 civil servants, 378 judges, nearly 3,000 contractors, and 36 buildings, TJDFT relies on tools and IT support to keep its service running smoothly. A number of years ago the decision was made to partner with OpenText, implementing OpenText Service Manager. However, over time Service Manager carried a level of complexity which posed a challenge, as Raymundo Avelino Aben Athar, Under-Secretary for Integrated Information Technology Management at TJDFT, explains: “We wanted to introduce more simplicity, and more opportunity for our end-users to self-service and collaborate with a modern service management solution. All issues were managed by our 50 service agents in a 24/7 model and it took too long to resolve them. On average less than nine percent of issues were resolved at first contact, resulting in loss of productivity. Fortunately, Micro Focus (now OpenText) SMAX was just introduced and it offered us all that we hoped for.”

The decision to move ahead with SMAX was easy and one TJDFT made quickly. They were ready to move forward leveraging their Service Manager license investment for even faster time to value with SMAX. The learning curve for the TJDFT team was very short so they were up and running quickly, without a team of skilled developers or contractors. They created a simplified SMAX service catalogue for end-users. This contains a knowledge base for the most common issues, such as VoIP, VPN, file sharing, and others. Over 100 knowledge articles directly support end-users. Service agents use a comprehensive internal catalogue to support them in resolving more complex issues.

“Within just a few months of introducing SMAX, the first contact resolution rate went from nine to nearly 40 percent; double the target we had set for this,” comments Athar. Once the benefits of the new ITSM system became clear, many departments asked for non-IT processes to also be included in SMAX. An example of the ESM (Enterprise Service Management) offerings is in meal orders; if a court case is heard with a jury present, the jurors cannot leave the court room. A court official can now easily open a ticket in SMAX to have food delivered by a catering company. Other examples include leveraging SMAX to facilitate electronic voting at court committee meetings, order and supply stationary and office furniture, warehouse management, manage public servant travel on court business, and provide a repository of compliance documents, such as new laws and regulations. SMAX is also used for TJDFT asset management of desktops, laptops, and other employee equipment.

SMAX empowered our users with a simplified service model, and increased our first contact issue resolution rate from nine to over 45 percent. We also achieved an ongoing cost saving of 40 percent in 2020.

Raymundo Avelino Aben Athar
Under-Secretary for Integrated Information Technology Management, Court of Justice of the Federal District and Territories

SMAX steps up in a crisis

As SMAX provides entirely codeless configuration, the IT team had easily configured the solution since first deploying it to meet their evolving needs. No outsourced contractors were required and this provided significant agility; a critical factor in responding to the COVID-19 lockdown. When COVID-19 hit the world in March 2020, Athar’s vision paid dividends straightaway: “With only a day’s notice all our staff were sent home”, he says. “We were asked how long it would take for IT to support them with effective home-working. I told them ‘we are ready now!’.”

Within only a matter of days the ITSM department was able to take advantage of the codeless functionalities of SMAX and its intuitive interface to make information and automation available to the entire organization. Athar continues: “Using SMAX, we compiled a ‘work from home’ toolkit of all the relevant knowledge articles and processes, and with this fast and centralized response our users continued the provision of judicial services without any interruption.”

The availability of this toolkit became highly relevant at a time when people had to immediately start working from home and set up workspaces. SMAX played a vital role in assigning laptops to homeworkers. From home, users felt comfortable working with the existing and familiar portal and could create an SMAX request on their mobile. SMAX queried a list, generated the asset, and managed an authorization workflow so that the user could collect the laptop from the court. Everyone who needed a laptop was assigned one within just a week—unheard of in a bureaucratic environment such as the court system. The toolkit was critical for other common service requests such as VPN access and installing a token drive for digital certification, and information including tutorials on how to register access through employee numbers.

During the pandemic the team appreciated the SMAX machine learning, smart search, and analytics capabilities. Users relied on the ‘ask a friend’ and ‘feedback from other users’ features to help each other within the user community. The SMAX AI-based virtual agent ‘Max’ is also fully integrated into the knowledge base to support the users’ autonomy. When a question such as ‘how do I create a remote justice room?’ is asked on the service portal either from a webclient on a pc/laptop or from a mobile device, ‘Max’ leverages NLU (natural language understanding) and searches for documents created for this purpose. It uploads related articles dealing with the subject so that the user can select the most relevant with a simple click. “SMAX hot topic and smart analytics were useful in these uncertain times, as we could easily identify trends in the types of requests,” comments Athar. “That helped us create targeted knowledge articles to support our users, or raise a ticket to solve a commonly occurring issue.”

Simplified service model, faster resolution, and major cost savings

Justice cannot stop for a pandemic and TJDFT successfully introduced a virtual judgment platform so that cases can be tried and sentenced remotely. All civil servants working with the new platform were trained using a SMAX-managed toolkit of knowledge articles. TJDFT expects only approximately 40 percent of its staff to return to an in-office working position post-pandemic. It is vital that IT support channels evolve with the business and its users. To that end, the team has integrated instant messaging with SMAX and the virtual agent service. Integration with Microsoft Teams as part of workstream collaboration is also under investigation.

Athar concludes: “In the face of so many problems during this pandemic, our team was part of the solution. SMAX enabled our digital transformation and gave us the agility to positively respond to a shift in working dynamics. It empowered our users with a simplified service model, and increased our first contact issue resolution rate from nine to over 45 percent. We also achieved an ongoing cost saving of 40 percent in 2020.”

Using SMAX, we compiled a toolkit of all the relevant knowledge articles and processes, and with this fast and centralized response our users continued the provision of judicial services without any interruption.

Raymundo Avelino Aben Athar
Under-Secretary for Integrated Information Technology Management, Court of Justice of the Federal District and Territories

About Court of Justice of the Federal District and Territories (TJDFT)

The Court of Justice of the Federal District and Territories in Brazil (TJDFT) is a state government organization that administers legal services, including certifications, financial transaction assistance, and court services.