The CGI USE support service is facilitating Fingrid Datahub’s service management

Fingrid Datahub’s system project is unprecedented in scale, so preparations had to be made for the go-live well ahead of time. As there are so many market parties and so much information to communicate, the support service introduced CGI USE ServiceNow when Datahub was still in the project phase.

Datahub, Fingrid’s centralized information exchange platform, went live on February 21, 2022. The construction, testing and deployment of CGI’s supplied system (Central Market Solutions) involves a large amount of communication and service management, which Fingrid wanted to manage centrally from the project phase onwards. CGI USE ServiceNow was chosen as Fingrid Datahub’s support and maintenance service system, and it was deployed in spring 2019. CGI USE ServiceNow is a cloud-based service management system, and CGI provides development and maintenance of the system as a service.

“The amended Electricity Market Act took effect at the start of 2019. The change obligated electricity market parties to submit Datahub go-live plans to the Energy Authority and Fingrid. Consequently, the was a greater need for support and a higher number of enquiries from parties in the sector, and email was not an adequate solution for these customer service needs. That is why last year was also a great time to introduce CGI USE,” says Minna Arffman, Service Manager at Fingrid Datahub Oy.

It was essential to adopt a support service system while the project was still underway, ensuring that market parties and the support service organization were familiar with working on the system in good time.

Arffman is responsible for Datahub’s customer service, communications, and stakeholder relations, as well as for drafting go-live plans with parties in the sector. For this reason, Arffman and her team have worked closely with the developers of CGI USE to ensure that the implementation of the support service system meets Datahub’s needs.

All Datahub services via a single channel

CGI USE ServiceNow is the primary channel for customer service, feedback, and development ideas for all Datahub parties. In other words, it is a centralized support service.

Market parties can contact Datahub support via a portal, which also provides a self-service knowledge base. Market parties’ messages are routed to the right support groups automatically. Users of the portal can monitor the processing of their tickets in real-time and continue communicating via the portal throughout the processing. Consumer inquiries are also routed to CGI USE Service Now. Datahub’s support organization can also manage scheduled bulletins and notices in the portal.

Datahub’s support service helps market parties in the event of questions and problems related to matters such as the Datahub go-live, certification, processes, and testing. Testing the Datahub was one of the most important functions of the implementation project, so an error management process was built into CGI USE for the Datahub testing phases to help the system development process go as smoothly as possible.

Information security is also a critical element of the Datahub, so a dedicated handling process was created in CGI USE to manage information security risks and breaches. Monitoring views allow the processors and project team to monitor the various phases of processes by displaying reports on various inquiries and service levels. An interface has also been developed for CGI USE to enable the administration of access management and the company account and user data related to Datahub in Fingrid’s own system.

“CGI USE enables us to monitor Datahub’s customer service and the service level. Monitoring the number and categories of tickets enables us to plan the resourcing of the service and identify the areas in which communication and support are needed most. When enquiries are automatically directed to the right experts, we operate more efficiently and become more transparent and flexible. It is also easy to track service hours via a single system,” Arffman summarizes.

The CGI USE implementation was built using the agile development methodology with the focus on making the service management system versatile and easy to use. Market parties and Datahub’s support organization make extensive use of the CGI USE system.

“CGI USE was deployed on a rapid timetable, and market parties have been happy with it. Datahub’s internal organisation has praised the system for its ease of use, smooth deployment, and flexibility to adapt the functionality to the organisation’s needs,” Arffman says.

With the deployment of the service management system, the ideas submitted by the Datahub organization and market parties have been placed in the development backlog, and the CGI USE development team has refined the customer’s development ideas into finished functionality while the Datahub project was still underway.

“We are constantly listening to the needs and ideas of customers and the internal organization to further refine the support service and the CGI USE system,” Arffman says.

When new services are added, integration, scalability, and reporting are key

When the Datahub goes live, CGI USE will be used to manage ITSM processes in addition to the existing processes, as well as invoicing with an external ELA billing system, so the number of system integrations will increase. The amount of operating activity, such as incident, problem, and change management, service-level monitoring, and reporting on Datahub operations, will also increase in CGI USE.

Minna Arffman emphasizes that scalability and integration are important factors in a service management system, as well as the option of easy further development to meet future needs. Arffman is happy with the collaboration with the CGI USE team: the developers are committed to realizing the customer’s visions, and they have kept to the schedule.

“In projects like this, high-quality customer service is of paramount importance, and the support service system underpins this. The platform must be flexible, and it must be possible to integrate it into other systems. Close and effective communication with the supplier is an essential factor.”

Fingrid Datahub is a centralized information exchange system for the electricity retail market that went live on February 2022. The system store data on approximately 3.8 million electricity accounting points in Finland. Datahub’s information is used by around 100 electricity retailers and 80 distribution system operators serving end-customers – electricity consumers. The system will improve the operations of every party involved – electricity consumers, electricity retailers, and the parties responsible for electricity transmission – since all data and transactions associated with the consumption of electricity are located in a single system, are up-to-date, and equally available to all eligible parties.

CGI is supplying the Datahub system, and Fingrid Datahub Oy’s operators have been closely involved in developing and testing the system. The Datahub support service uses CGI USE ServiceNow, a service management system. CGI provides the cloud-based CGI USE platform as a service, and it is developed and maintained in Finland.