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What's your approach to this help desk procedure issue?

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JavaJones:
I've recently been discussing small-to-mid-size business IT procedures with a few colleagues and have come up against some interesting differences in our perspectives. One issue in particular seemed worth getting wider feedback about.

In any business that reaches a size large enough to have dedicated IT resources (whether in-house or contracted), there is usually the concept of a "help desk", generally the first point of contact for user issues. Methods of contact often include phone, email, and form input (Intranet or Internet). Help desk staff usually make use of some kind of ticket/issue tracking system to help them document, assign, and keep users informed on issue handling. Some companies allow or even encourage direct access to the help desk systems used for issue tracking (obviously with limitations for user-level vs. technician level access), others prefer to keep the issue tracking system entirely proprietary to the IT/help desk staff, with all communications made directly by a help desk representative through email, phone, or in-person.

Another key differentiator is that many companies, especially in my experience web-based or web-oriented ones, either allow you to directly input your issue into a form and immediately generate a help desk ticket, or they immediately generate an issue/case number from any incoming email (my ISP Sonic.net is a good example of this). Others prefer to only ever generate help desk tickets manually, with a help desk rep soliciting required information from the user either via phone or email.

So my questions are:

* In your experience is auto-generation of tickets common (e.g. via email), and do you personally prefer that or not?
* In your experience do help desk departments often provide direct access to ticket creation via form?
* Do they allow access to viewing/interacting with the trouble ticket system and user's open tickets via web?
* How do you feel about this level of access for individual users?
I'm happy to share my own perspective of course but I hope to get a sample of yours first. :)

- Oshyan

Stoic Joker:
So my questions are:

* In your experience is auto-generation of tickets common (e.g. via email), and do you personally prefer that or not?-JavaJones (April 13, 2011, 06:23 PM)
--- End quote ---

That seems to be driven more by the size of the company than anything else. When the number of support people/clients go past a certain point ... The ticket system is required.

However it depends on the issue being reported. Our ISP had a ticketing system I just found out about a few months back. Previously I would call in issues, sit on hold, and then get someone (who had to be told the story again). Now I create a ticket online, play a few rounds of phone tag, and then get to explain the ticket's issue description to someone. ...So neither is really "faster" IMO.



* In your experience do help desk departments often provide direct access to ticket creation via form?-JavaJones (April 13, 2011, 06:23 PM)
--- End quote ---

The bigger the company, the more common abstraction becomes (the human touch/contact thing takes time). So anytime they can put something in front of you other than a body...Is a $aving$



* Do they allow access to viewing/interacting with the trouble ticket system and user's open tickets via web?-JavaJones (April 13, 2011, 06:23 PM)
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^^Not to sound like a broken record^But...^^ We have the potential to use a externally accessible customer access ticketing system. As there is one included in the Kaseya network management system we use. I just prefer not to, as I feel the I get more/better info from direct interaction with the client.

We have over 4,000 clients, we do not have a phone tree. People call and talk to people ... It's one of the things (part of the service) we pride ourselves on.


* How do you feel about this level of access for individual users?-JavaJones (April 13, 2011, 06:23 PM)
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After a certain point/size it is a necessary evil.

JavaJones:
Thanks for the response, exactly the kind of perspective I was looking for.

Personally I think a mix of auto and manual ticket creation makes sense. Auto creation from emails works fine, manual from phone. But I prefer a good web portal over both so that users can enter ticket details into a form, you can enforce fields to get useful info, and they can use the same portal to get status updates on-demand or reply (with email updates being sent to the user automatically when the ticket updates so they don't have to keep checking the site of course).

What I encountered in my discussions which surprised me was that some people viewed the users having some access to the ticket system as a "bad thing". Beyond simply preferring a different approach or feeling that the human touch was better, they actually felt that giving users that access was a problem, either a security risk, or likely to generate a lot of erroneous tickets, or something. That has not been my experience, though I'll grant that auto ticket creation by email does sometimes create erroneous or duplicate tickets, and often the info in the ticket needs to be completed by a tech anyway.

Thanks again. Anyone else with a perspective on this?

- Oshyan

mouser:
what stoic said.

When the number of support people/clients go past a certain point ... The ticket system is required.
--- End quote ---

I tend to approach all of these kinds of issues with the same philosophy, that there is almost always an overhead mental cost to be paid in complexity, and that when you only have one or two people handling support, the more minimalist the approach the better.  If you are a sole developer, you might be attracted to the formality and logic of having a ticketing system for example.  But as logical as it might seem, there's a good chance that the additional layer of complexity is just not worth it and is more of a pain and distraction than anything.

However, as soon as you start adding more people to your organization.. in fact as soon as you have a company where any given request for help might be handled by two different people, then a formal ticket system starts becoming worth it.

Ath:
Have a look at Auspex, it has a ticket system (RedMine), but only about half of the issues are logged, and the other half is reported in a forumthread or discovered by the developer, and often never put into RedMine :-[

Isn't that just what mouser and stoic are trying to say?

Small team: Small tools
Big team: Big tools
(There probably are a few more flavors :))

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