Replacement of Jira by SimpleOne ITSM at Fplus IT Holding

Client: Fplus IT Holding (Marvel Distribution) fplus.rf
Solution: SimpleOne ITSM
Integrator: COMPLETE Company LLC complete.ru

Fplus, one of the largest IT holdings in Russia, has successfully completed a project to implement the Russian ITSM system SimpleOne to automate IT processes. The company not only successfully migrated from the foreign Atlassian solution, but also received a modern tool for further digital transformation of the company.

About the customer

IT-holding Fplus (fplus.rf) – unites developers and manufacturers of hardware and software solutions for the corporate and public sectors, one of the country’s largest distributors of IT equipment and software, a logistics operator, a specialized retail chain of stores of smart devices and technologies for home.

About the Solution

SimpleOne ITSM is a Russian system for automating IT processes in accordance with ITIL practices. The solution allows you to improve the quality of IT services by automating operations and increasing the efficiency of the IT Department, Service Desk and other business processes of the company.

Important advantages of SimpleOne ITSM are quick start-up due to pre-configured processes, wide possibilities of low-code customization and scaling, integration with various systems, etc.

Project Background

Previously, Fplus used a set of disparate systems for IT service management and user support. The key platform was Atlassian’s Jira, which was used to handle most of the calls and requests. A corporate portal based on Bitrix24 was also used as a single window for interaction with the support service. Jira with 1C integration was also used to automate the processes of warranty and post-warranty equipment maintenance.

The existing tools did not allow to fully automate the management of IT services and effectively maintain business continuity. The key challenges were:

• Lack of a single centralized system to manage the entire IT service lifecycle;
• Inadequate Jira functionality to automate processes such as contract management and knowledge base management;
• Lack of integrations with internal company systems;
• Difficulty of scaling with business growth and increasing number of requests.

The company was prompted to search for an alternative solution by Atlassian’s announcement that it would no longer support its products in the Russian market. Given the critical importance of Jira for the business processes of Fplus IT holding, the management decided to migrate to a domestic system.

The company faced the task not only to replace the foreign product in time, but also to completely modernize the existing IT system to improve process efficiency, labor productivity and service quality.

“The holding company is dynamically developing, the number of employees and tasks performed by them is increasing. In this situation, the management of requests with the help of disparate systems has become inefficient. In addition, Atlassian’s departure from the Russian market jeopardized many important business processes based on Jira. We opted for SimpleOne because it offers flexible process customization and scalability to meet our future needs,

– Oleg Smirnov, Director of the IT Department at Fplus IT Holding.

Solution Selection

At Fplus, the selection criteria for a new ITSM system has been carefully considered:

1. Functionality as good as the current set of systems
   One of the key requirements was functionality at least equal to the capabilities of the previously used solution set. The company could not compromise on the loss of its existing IT service management capabilities. The new system had to not only replace Jira, but also enhance the current capabilities.
2. Domestic development from the register of Russian software
   This criterion was driven by the need to comply with import substitution requirements and minimize the risks of the vendor leaving the Russian market. The system had to be developed and supported by a Russian company, as well as included in the register of Russian software.

3. Management of the full lifecycle of IT services
   The new solution had to cover all ITSM processes: incident management, problem management, change management, asset management, service catalog, service level management, etc.
4. Flexibility of the platform in process customization and customization
   In pursuit of further digital transformation and the ability to optimize processes to meet changing business requirements, Fplus relied on a platform with extensive low-code customization capabilities without the need for experienced programmers.
5. Comfortable and modern interface
   Given the large scale of the implementation, it was intended to involve various groups of internal and external users. An intuitive interface was required for quick adaptation of all categories of employees.
6. High scalability to support business growth
   Given the prospect of company growth and staff expansion, the system must be able to increase the number of users and new services without losing performance.

After a market review and preliminary screening of platforms that do not meet the mandatory criteria, the two most suitable ITSM-systems of Russian developers were considered. The decisive role in the selection of SimpleOne ITSM played a decisive role in the vendor provided cases and examples of successful implementation of the system in companies in various industries of medium and large level. The reviewed projects included automation of processes similar to Fplus requirements, and also demonstrated the system’s ability to adapt to specific tasks of different customers. Having analyzed these examples, Fplus was convinced of the wide possibilities and flexibility of SimpleOne ITSM for solving both current and future tasks of the company.

The following were the determining factors in the selection process:

• Modern and intuitive interface, the possibility of flexible customization;
• The presence in the “box” of all necessary for the company capabilities to manage IT services, including complex scenarios;
• Flexibility of SimpleOne Low-code platform for adaptation and development of business processes in-house without attracting large resources for development;
• Actively developing product of the Russian vendor, aimed at further functional expansion in the field of ITSM and ESM solutions.
• Actively developing product of the Russian vendor, aimed at further functional expansion in the field of ITSM and ESM solutions.

Having seen the advantages of SimpleOne ITSM, Fplus made the final decision to implement this system for centralized management of IT and service processes.

Migration process

The migration to the SimpleOne ITSM system was realized in two major areas:

1. Implementation of ITSM-system for automation of internal processes of support of the customer – employees of IT holding Fplus.

Within the framework of this direction the following processes were realized:

• Manage calls and requests from internal users;
• Incident management and rapid response to failures;
• Problem management for system root cause analysis;
• Knowledge management;
• Change management with risk assessment;
• IT infrastructure asset management based on CMDB.

The key challenge was a quick start, which required re-engineering of the support business processes to bring the processes closer to the benchmark, which was successfully accomplished by a combined project team of representatives from IT holding Fplus and system integrator KOMPLIT. The fast start-up required seamless migration of data from previous systems, including the migration of tickets from Jira. For this purpose, the integrator implemented a temporary integration between Jira and SimpleOne ITSM, as well as full integration with the global catalog and the company’s internal knowledge base.

2. Implementation of warranty management processes for sold equipment based on the ITSM system.

For this area SimpleOne integration with 1C system was implemented to synchronize contractual data on equipment and warranty service statuses. This allowed to create a centralized process for managing support requests under warranty with tracking of terms and appropriate automation.

The project work was organized into several sequential phases:

• Phase 1 (March 2023): Contract conclusion, requirements detailing, ITSM system prototyping, SimpleOne solution deployment in the customer’s IT infrastructure.
• Stage 2 (April-July 2023): Customization of processes and integrations, customization of interfaces and forms according to requirements, final testing. Training of employees and successful launch of SimpleOne ITSM into production.
• Stage 3 (August-January 2023): Development of internal user support processes, interface optimization based on the experience of the first two stages, implementation of change management processes, IT assets based on CMDB.

At all stages, the project was accompanied by SimpleOne and KompLIT specialists. Full system customization, process adaptation using Low-code tools and training of Fplus employees were carried out.

“The task was ambitious – to unify the disparate support, knowledge base and warranty processes in a new system in the shortest possible time. Together with the Customer we carried out data migration and automation of more than 10 business processes with a deep level of adaptation to the Customer’s specifics. Thanks to the capabilities of the platform, we solved a number of non-trivial tasks on integration with other IS, finalization of the user interface to speed up and simplify data entry, automatic creation of tasks within the framework of query processing, etc. As a result, we not only fulfilled the basic project goals, but also implemented additional wishes of Fplus, significantly optimizing their business processes”,

– Ivan Stashko, Business Development Manager, COMPLETE Company

Thanks to the coordinated work of the customer, vendor and integrator teams, as well as the use of SimpleOne’s flexible development tools, the migration project was realized in a short period of time.

Project results

At the end of the project realization in IT holding Fplus achieved the following results:

1. A centralized system for managing service processes was introduced
   The company now has a single consolidated system to support internal users and manage IT services at all stages of the life cycle. This allowed to significantly optimize the work of the IT department and increase the efficiency of interaction with customers.

2. Migration from a foreign solution
   One of the key goals of the project was to replace Atlassian Jira with a domestic system after the departure of a foreign vendor from the Russian market. Migration to SimpleOne ITSM closed this issue, providing the company with a stable and promising platform of Russian development.

3. A single window for internal customers was realized.
   The SimpleOne ITSM solution has become a single point of entry for all services and services provided by the Fplus IT department to its employees. The centralized portal provides convenience of work, provides users with the most complete information about the created requests and inquiries, knowledge base, provides full communication between the user and support services.

4. Warranty service processes are automated
   The customer-critical process of managing warranty service for sold equipment was fully implemented in SimpleOne ITSM and integrated with contract and supply chain accounting systems. This has increased transparency and efficiency in working with customers.
5. The continuity and preservation of accumulated data was ensured.
   All historical data – ticket database, assets, knowledge, contracts, etc. – were transferred to the new system. This allowed to preserve the continuity of processes.

At the moment the number of users of the system is about 2500 people. The system has a significant potential for further scaling.

System development plans

The IT holding Fplus has formed extensive plans for further development and improvement of the IT service management system.

The first direction is to build up the capabilities of the ITSM system itself to cover more of the IT department processes. The immediate plans are:

• Implementation of software development management processes to automate the lifecycle of software product creation and change;
• Transition to a resource-service model of IT service delivery for transparent accounting of resources and costs;
• Development of knowledge management processes

The next step will be a full-fledged transformation of the ITSM system into ESM solution SimpleOne (Enterprise Service Management). This will make it possible to extend IT service management practices to all service departments of the company.

It is planned to integrate into the ESM-system the processes of logistics, HR-service, administrative, financial and accounting departments. Centralization on the basis of the SimpleOne platform will ensure transparency of services, optimization of operating costs and improvement of service quality throughout the company.

In addition, Fplus is considering the possibility of supplementing the IT infrastructure with a specialized solution SimpleOne ITAM for lifecycle management of all IT assets – from planning and procurement of equipment to its write-off.

“This project was a prime example of a complete transformation of service processes based on our platform. Previously, Fplus did not have a single full-fledged ITSM-system, only a set of disparate systems solving separate tasks. In fact, a completely new complex of IT service process management was created for the customer from scratch, with a plan for transformation into an ESM solution. The system covers not only internal support, but also customer warranty service, which is a key process of the distributor”,

– Sergey Chukanov, CEO of SimpleOne