Other pages in the review
How it works
Service desk software can have quite a number of related roles and this can be used to help a business look at problem solving in new ways.
First, issues can be presented to the service desk by clients (end users). These issues must be logged in standardised fashion and then be assigned to particular service desk staff member for resolution—depending on the characteristics of the issue.
Incidents (as they are called in the business) which need to be dealt with by service desk staff will usually be grouped by its type, assigned a priority and then be dealt with (fixed) in precisely defined ways. The word “incident” is used rather than “problem” as this word has specific meaning in the context of IT service software (a problem is the underlying cause leading to a service request).
Using these kinds of software packages supervisors are able to seek out patterns in the different incidents logged. Anomalies such as multiple complaints from a given client, a recurring fault with a particular type of hardware or failure by service desk staff to efficiently resolve an incident will be highlighted and can be specifically tackled.
Aside from dealing with issues arising directly from clients, company management and IT administrators can take advantage of the software’s catalogue of resources to manage issues. Typically the software will include a register of company people and assets. This can circumvent the need for a separate software application to maintain a company directory. Asset registers can also be used to keep track of warranties and maintenance schedules.
Critically, in order to be at all effective, the implementation of service desk software needs to be accompanied by a business culture that will support it. In fact it might even be better to say that the software is really there to facilitate an ideal business culture. This culture centres around the gathering and storing of as much information as possible about service provision—both successes and failures. Identification of potential problems depends on analysing this data so it needs to be as complete as possible. Complex guidelines have been developed to help a business implement this type of culture. The guidelines are called ITIL (IT Infrastructure Library) and are rapidly becoming universally accepted as the industry norm. All products in this review are ITIL compliant.
ITIL has been developed over many years to become a distillation of all IT management best practises. It has grown to include all the issues that businesses are likely to encounter—and continuing development gives a degree of futureproofing to systems that are ITIL compliant. The philosophy of ITIL considers the needs of IT support from different points of view including service desk staff, customers, IT administrators and business managers. With these bases covered implementing ITIL becomes plain business sense. The system (in theory) allows tasks to be done the best way every time. The real question is how do we carry it?
It is important to note that the software discussed in this review is not ITIL. Helpdesk software forms a set of structures to contain the information needed for good service provision and ensures that we take care of that knowledge and make the best use of it.