Help Me!
One of the most critical functions of an IT/IS department is its helpdesk. When a department is small, it can afford to be informal, and just respond to users when they have issues. When the department is a little larger, they need a way to communicate with each other, and the users. In my department, I have two part-time Information Systems Technicians who handle much of the day-to-day issues. However frequently One of us will be called to a computer and be told “Oh, I had Chris work on my computer this morning, and now something doesn’t work” Of course, they don’t know what Chris did. It would be very helpful to me to know what he’d done as it may be a clue as to the current problem. Also, if one of them solves a problem, it is likely that other computers on the network could have the same problem, and a reference would help resolve issues faster, and more consistently. As a manager, I need some metrics to measure whether we are being effective, find trends in issues, and set staffing levels.
We have investigated several helpdesk solutions including:
- Track-it
- Help-Star
- Liberum Help Desk
- Ilient Helpdesk
Right now, we’re looking seriously at Ilient’s Helpdesk. It offers just about all of the features I was looking for, including automatic asset inventory, email notification of service calls, incoming calls via web/phone/email, and remote control. In addition it has an optional project management module which looks like it will be helpful. We’ve installed a trial version and have rolled it out to five or six computers, for the next two weeks, we’ll enter al service requests that come into the department, and track them through the system.
I’ll update this post as we test the software out.
Bill