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GCN Home > 07/21/08 issue

Service as software

In choosing help-desk software, be sure to pick a program that can conform to your processes, not the other way around

By Edmund X. DeJesus, Special to GCN

Good help is hard to find, which is why you often need to provide it yourself. Help-desk applications can assist you in supporting your users, but you’ll need to supply the smarts. That starts with choosing the right help-desk application.

At its most basic, a help-desk application lets users create tickets that describe their problems. Technicians use this information to begin to diagnose the problem, fix it and close the ticket. Help-desk programs can reduce costs by solving problems that impede work, making better use of existing resources and eliminating delays.

Multiple communication channels are necessary. With most systems, users can create tickets via phone calls, e-mail messages or other means. If they are having trouble with one channel, they can use another. You can also define issues as narrowly or as broadly as you like — purely computer-related problems, trouble with phones, building maintenance, human resources and software bugs are all legitimate possibilities.

Workflow tools that route tickets to the appropriate person for assignment, diagnosis, action, verification and closing are another feature of a robust help-desk application. The solution shouldn’t impose a workflow on your organization but rather allow you to define one that reflects your process.

“Tracking is the heart of a help desk,” said Daryl Covey, hotline manager at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Nexrad Radar Operations Center in Norman, Okla. “You don’t want things to fall through the cracks.”

An optional user-accessible knowledge base can let users self-diagnose and remedy problems using validated procedures without needing technician assistance.

Another useful tool is remote access, which lets technicians log on to user machines to investigate and solve problems. For example, LogMeIn Rescue lets users give permission to technicians to run diagnostics, start and stop processes, reboot — whatever is necessary to find and fix the problem.

The big picture

It’s important to recognize that a help-desk solution is only part of an overall information technology strategy. Adding a configuration management capability lets you relate reported problems to system configuration. An asset management component, such as that supplied by Internet Software Science’s Web+Center, can help inventory and manage agency resources. Change management options can assist with planning decisions.

All these options are important, but reporting is perhaps the most useful for management purposes. One type of report involves details of the help-desk process, such as how long it takes to respond to tickets and fix problems. However, other reports can be more useful for spotting trends or patterns in the big picture of effective systems management. For example, recognizing that certain problems are typical of a particular configuration allows agencies to avoid future difficulties with targeted, preventive responses.

More news on related topics: Communications / Networks, IT Management, Software Applications, Workflow / Collaboration