Databus Issue: 2004 2 04/01/2004
Help Desk
Scott Vanderlip PresidentFrom Evaluation to Implementation
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A properly deployed help-desk software product, for an IT support organization, can often be the single catalyst that helps to optimize the overall effectiveness simply by forcing process and organization into the chaotic world of IT support.
Evaluation
Lets face it…is your support organization operating in the most efficient and effective processes? Does the person with the loudest voice get the best service? Can teachers and staff quickly create work orders that are evaluated, dispatched, and followed up? Do your school administrators and staff feel satisfied with the level of support provided? Is there a well-defined process by which support work orders are dispatched, tracked, and managed by the support staff? Are you able to create reports tracking technicians and trouble areas and check technician accountability? When a difficult support issue is solved, is it documented for future reference in a searchable knowledge base? Maybe your support organization needs a help-desk software solution!
Case Study – Oxnard Unified High School District
Stephen Wolodkin, director of information technology at Oxnard Unified High School District, found his support process needed to be evaluated when he first started his job there. Originally the support process consisted of a set of seven cell phones. Every morning, techs would come in and take one of the seven cell phones. School district employees were provided a list of seven phones numbers and were instructed to start at the top of the phone list and call until they got an answer.
Stephen quickly identified the need for a better process to track and manage their IT support help desk. The Web+Center product was chosen. Stephen describes his situation as:
“Prior to using Web+Center, the end-users dialed the cell phone numbers of our techs in sequence until somebody answered the phone! We needed a simple, budget-friendly, Web-based solution that we could deploy rapidly to remedy this situation. Web+Center was chosen and deployed very quickly and we have loved using it ever since.”
Selection
If you decide to automate your support organization with a help-desk product, the choices are often overwhelming. A quick Web browse of the vendors listed on the www.HelpDesk.com will give you a partial list of vendors.
Web-based or Client-based application?
The first choice one should consider is whether the product will be Web-based or a traditional Windows/Mac Client program. A Web-based product offers immediate access to anyone with a browser, while a traditional client-based program will require software installation on individual machines making upgrades and initial deployment for all planned users of the system difficult and time consuming. In today’s Internet connected world, where universal connectivity is often available for both home and schools, a Web-based system will typically offer substantial advantages over a client program based application.
Features and Cost
Help-desk packages vary from free or low cost to hundreds of thousands of dollars. When evaluating a system, it’s always important to find one that best fits your support processes and requirements and budget. Although many help-desk packages may offer attractive bells and whistles in their product, these added complexities and increased data-input requirements might actually prevent a successful implementation of a help desk system. A balance has to be made between help-desk program complexity and data-input requirements versus the ability and willingness of the techs and customers to use the system. If it takes 10 minutes to create a single trouble ticket, the system may be un-acceptable and not used by support staff or customers. If extensive training is required, and no training time or budget is available, an expensive investment in help-desk software may sit on the shelf for years before deployment. It might be valid for some IT support organizations to envision a two-step evolution where a simple help-desk system could be installed to quickly obtain a higher level of automation into their IT support organizations. A second planned phase would utilize a more comprehensive help-desk package configured in a more centralized environment across multiple departments.
Some help-desk implementations fail when attempting to involve too many departments and buyoff and agreement on processes becomes the bigger issue and not the software itself.
The true cost of the software should be carefully compared when shopping for a help-desk product. Pricing and annual support costs are often difficult to extract out of vendors and, while initial per tech seat costs may appear cheaper with one vendor, it may turn out to be more expensive when including per customer licenses or Web-based features or add-ons. Additional customizations or deployment costs should also be carefully calculated before purchasing a software product.
Deployment and Implementation
Implementing a software help-desk solution often goes well beyond the simple automation of work orders into a database.It also forces many organizational changes and improvements not originally planned. Implementing a help-desk solution forces organizations to evaluate their processes, priorities, and support resources. A new automated software help-desk solution might be the catallyst for much needed change. It might be a way for an organization to help bridge and create better multi-departmental collaboration and cooperation by all sharing a common support database. Others can easily justify the cost of a help-desk system by using its reporting tools to show decision makers the level of work required for technicians and how additional tech resources should be funded.
Finding the budget and purchasing the software may be the easy step compared to deployment of the help-desk product. Help-desk products often fall into two types: a “toolkit” approach or an “out-of-the-box” solution. Often higher-end help-desk “toolkit” products require some level of customization/programming before any functionality can be extracted from the product. This additional cost and time is often underestimated in the original deployment plan and budget and many help-desk projects sit on the shelf due to lack of funding or technical resources for this additional initial configuration and deployment step. Out-of-the-box solutions can usually be configured with internal support staff, but may lack some of the customization options of a toolkit-based system.
Deployment should be carefully planned and phased. While working with many educational IT departments, tech acceptance of the help-desk solution and their perception and appreciation of a system that makes their job easier and less stressful is important to any successful launch. It’s important that the system is not perceived as a method to monitor technician performance, although many help-desk systems have the ability to obtain statistics on work orders and technician performance. A good help-desk product should be viewed by technicians as a tool to help track and dispatch support work orders and a collaborative way to share knowledge and experience and distribute the workload.
Making the customer part of the solution
A well-designed help-desk product should have the ability for the support customer to be part of the solution by offering a searchable knowledge base of common support issues and questions and a way for customers and staff to easily create their own support tickets. With a Web-based interface, most users are able to navigate simple Web forms with fairly high success rates to submit a trouble ticket or find answers to frequently asked questions or common problems.
The system should also have some form of automatic e-mail notification to keep the customer in the loop without the tech having to make a phone call. Many help-desk systems have options to keep users continually informed with e-mail notification messages so that users do not feel that their support issue has fallen into a “black hole.”
Customer surveys provide the ultimate test for a support organization. Often simple improvements to the process and organization can be identified by customer surveys and resolved, creating better working environments between IT support staff and users.
Successful Implementation
A successful help-desk implementation is realized when your users feel their support issues are timely created, tracked, dispatched, and solved. The techs should feel that their jobs as support technicians are run by thoughtfully managed support processes that allow for a collaborative environment that fosters experience and growth.
About the Author
Scott Vanderlip is president of Internet Software Sciences, a company specializing in Web-based help-desk software. He can be reached by e-mail at scott@inet-sciences.com or by phone at (650) 949-0942. Internet Software Sciences is based in Los Altos, California.
Internet Software Sciences offers a Web-based help-desk product called Web+Center that is very popular with K-12 and higher education users. Over 25 percent of California community colleges use the Web+Center product to automate their IT support organizations. Many K-12 CETPA users include San Francisco USD, Pasadena USD, Madera COE, Oxnard UHSD, W. Placer USD, Golden Valley, and others.
The Web+Center product can be evaluated on-line or downloaded from the Internet Software Sciences Web site at: http://www.inet-sciences.com.
