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Launching a helpdesk

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by namco 2 views

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Hi,

I've recently started working at a new company that has undergone a series of unorganised relocations, has a flaky infrastructure over 7 sites, no it policies and is undocumented. We are currently looking at many support calls however there is no helpdesk system or even an official method to contact IT.

I am looking to launch a method to contact IT, and see this as simply being an email address until the infrastructure has been reorganised to a stage where it can accept a full blown helpdesk.

The main issue for me is that launching even the email address method may result in an overwhelming response which we could not deal with, causing end users and management to lose faith almost immediately and hinder the deployment and acceptance of any future system.

We urgently need to organise support tasks, could it be that the system could be launched with a carefully worded email to explain the situation? or would I be better to wait until we are in a position to cope with, schedule and prioritise the responses?

Thanks for any info you can give.

3 replies

by howard_nyc

#1: create special e-addresses on MS Exchange, with permission set for any member of the group "IT TEAM" allowed to open it

#2: everyone on the helpdesk will be able to gain access to all those new e-addresses (File / Open / Other User's Folder)

#3: on the help desk manager's computer, create forwarding rules that will move certain messages to specialists; . . . examples: messages sent to "help_telephone@company.com" would be copied and forwarded to the telephony specialist; . . ."help_app_name1@company.com" would be copied and forwarded to the project manager for the application "app_name1" for his (her) handling;

#4: every specialist will be under orders to respond within one hour of receipt of their copy of the message traffic; when they respond via e-mail to the user, the help desk manager will be CC?ed by name;

#5: every Friday (no earlier than 5:00PM), someone will move that week?s traffic from each e-address inbox into a MS Outlook folder named ?YYYYMMDD?; this will ?clear the deck? for the new week;

#6: then someone will export that week?s traffic of all e-addresses for review to an external database (File / Import and Export / export to file / next / MS Access / next / <> / next / <> / next / finish)

#9: perhaps ? from MS Access you would add a column for ?PRIORITY? that could be hand populated based on the problem, who sent it, how old it was, etc. ?. perhaps ? you would add a column for ?STATUS? (open, resolved, suspended, researching, etc.)

#7: from MS Access you will be able to sort on any or all of the following? the e-address the messages were sent to?. The originating e-address (who authored it)? the message header text?

#8: by clumping the traffic by author, you can determine? who is the source of the most traffic? the most important personnel? etc.

#9: perhaps write a report that will print out all the traffic, as either summary or one message per page?

#10: retain each database and follow up with specialists on Monday to see what is their status on each issue: open, resolved, suspended, researching, etc.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

suggested list of e-addresses...

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

help_telephone@company.com

help_Outlook@company.com

help_Word@company.com

help_Excel@company.com

help_NewEmployeeAccountNeeded@company.com

help_TerminateEmployeeAccountNeeded@company.com

help_printers@company.com

help_scanners@company.com

help_app_name1@company.com

help_app_name2@company.com

help_app_name3@company.com

help_Other@company.com

help_Emergency@company.com

help_RestoreCorruptedFile@company.com

help_BuyNewSoftware@company.com

help_InstallNewSoftware@company.com

by jmgarvin

Start your help desk in phases. Start with building A and then move on to building B and so on. This way you are not over whelmed, you can fix the major technical issues at each building one at a time and you are producing results.

The only problem is fairness....you have to decide on the buildings and the time frames.

by namco

Thanks for these responses guys - the phased approach sounds good and as we are spread over multiple sites i'll give that a go. As I said, i'm not looking for a complex, fully blown helpdesk solution at the moment, just a structured way of contacting IT support. The main problem is I know we may be inundated with enquiries from the work go and I don't want a slow response to these calls to make this look like a failed initiative. Therefor my main concern is launching this method whilst communicating that it wont actually speed up the resolution of any problems and doesn't offer an SLA, but will allow the IT team so priorities, organise and communicate - this in turn will improve the service.

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