Improving Operations in a Small Helpdesk System?

El Presidente asks: "I'm the department head of a small IT helpdesk in a not-quite-so-small business. The department's small in the sense that (a) there's only three people (including me), and (b) not only do we do helpdesk, but develop all the in-house systems, build our own servers, and more. We're supposed to log every helpdesk call that comes in (we've previously developed our own software for this), log notes on each call, and log the resolution. However, although I do set a good example by logging (most!) of my calls, the other two don't, even though I've asked them to do so numerous times. Although they do the job well, this is the one area that is letting the department down, and now management wants full stats on what we do every day, so obviously a full helpdesk log for each day would go a long way to prove what we do (or don't do). I don't want to come down on them with the Big Iron Fist (tm) and check up on them every few minutes, because I've got my own work to do. How can I actually get them to buy into logging calls, and not 'forget' or be 'too busy' to log things properly?"

Comments

Bring down the hammer.

[PhxBlue]

How can I actually get them to buy into logging calls, and not 'forget' or be 'too busy' to log things properly?

There's a time to be a buddy, and there's a time to be a boss.

You put to them, in plain terms: They will log their calls or you will find people who can follow simple instructions. Yes, it's a Big Damn Hammer(TM), and they may resent you for it in the short term; but your ass is on the line to get your helpdesk in order the way the company expects you to run it.

Re:Bring down the hammer.

[silas_moeckel]

Funny run a small consulting company though a midsized company CTO and I would have to wonder if it makes sense to fire the hotshot. If they generate billable hours and the customers love them it sounds like they need an assistant to deal with paperwork drudgery. I would rather add on 30k of salary expense for a low end secretary to deal with time reporting than loose a top gun guy. Technical documentation is a different story as it's billable but can still be given to a jr person to do.

Re:Bring down the hammer.

[itwerx]

I know with Remedy help desk, a ticket will take 5 minutes...

That's more of a reflection on how badly Remedy sucks than anything else. :)

Re:Bring down the hammer.

[kjs3]

Frankly, this is utter rubbish. You've clearly never had P&L responsibility. I'm supposed to take 30k profit out (obviously much more with loaded costs) just because I've got someone who can't be bothered to account for their time? Right.

But hey...let's pretend that admin salaries are pixie dust and don't count against the bottom line.

The guy that won't produce required paperwork for his manager, per his job description, won't do it for "a low end secretary". All you're going to do is add "30k of salary expense" to get one frustrated, ineffective admin and one (or more) overly entitled "hotshot" you still can't accurately bill for. Been there, done that, hired the "time accounting admin", realized that was st00pid. Do you really think someone who won't do their own paperwork is going to suddenly provide an admin sufficient doco for the admin to do it accurately? That is, unless the admins job is to stand by the "hotshots" desk and record what they are doing...

It's not about time. Please...time reporting takes minutes or tens of minutes a day unless you're a lawyer and billing in 6 minute increments. It's about "I don't feel this is important, therefore I won't do it". Life got so much better when I realized that doing the job is about doing the whole job, not just the part someone wants to do, and started holding people accountable for the whole job.

Be straight with them

[Rastl]

Are they aware that the call logs are one of the few objective measures of productivity for your department?

If not, make them aware. Charts hanging on the wall will reinforce that a bit in the beginning.

You're always going to get the "I can either fix it or log it. Choose." kind of attitude. The answer is "You're going to do both."

However, there are some exceptions.

Is there actual value in the detailed logging? Is anyone going back to use the old resolutions or report on stuff? Perhaps the answer is a streamlined logging process that gets the basics you need without making your people jump through hoops.

So the question to me is whether you have a call tracking system (pure counts) or a problem tracking system (historical data, etc.) and what value you're getting out of the time spent.

Your softwqre is letting you down

[Gorm the DBA]

Find out why they aren't logging.

Do they not log because the system just gets in their way, adds no value (suggested fixes, workflow tracking) to the process, and takes too long? Then fix/replace the software.

Do they not log because 50% of their calls are quick hit 20 second resolutions and logging takes too long? Make it so they can log a call with nothing more than "password reset - extension 2710 - Complete" and move on.

Do they not log because they are so busy taking calls they don't have *time* to log? Then you need to implement a faster system, or staff up so that they aren't overworked.

Do they not log because they're lazy? Then you need to come down with the big hammer. But don't assume it's this, it's probably one of the others.

If management asks, you must deliver

[farker haiku]

Simply tell management that your current tools are not up to the job that they require. State to management in no uncertain terms that while you could write a program to document the calls, or come up with a way to do it that enhanced the performance of your team, you can't set aside additional time to do that and still stay on top of your work. State that it would take you x number of hours to develop the tool to track tickets at y$ per hour, where x*y>z (z being the cost of the ticketing system you want for your helpdesk). This is called stalling.

In the meantime, while management hems and haws about spending that much money, ask your helpdesk what they'd like to see in this ticketing software. Tell your analysts that they have a choice - help decide how ticketing is most beneficial to the department, or have no say so in the whole process and have to use a tool they don't like to justify their jobs to management. They have a third option: leave before or after training their replacement to use the software they don't want to use.

Look into the following while making the decision:
1. You want to be able to identify problem users. Train them, or point out in dollars and cents how much those users cost the company by the amount of calls they make to the helpdesk.
2. You want to be able to identify common problems, so that you can proactively fix them and reduce the call volume.
3. You want to be able to identify specific hardware that is failing in the environment. This means asset tracking. This might mean changing vendors.
4. You want to be able to identify which problems are taking the most time for your analysts. Proactively fix those.

Hope this helps.

Re:change their phones

[citking]

I can't agree with this more.

I also run a small help desk (me & 5 students) that has a lot of turnover (can't keep the students forever) and very few overlapping shifts. What this means is that automation has become our friend. Help the users to create their own tickets and it'll save your staff a bunch of time.

We do this in several ways:

-E-mailing our help desk opens a ticket and fills in as much detail as it can from the e-mail address. It attempts an AD lookup as well if the domain is ours.

-Web forms. We have a couple of .asp scripts in place on our web server. One of these scripts is hooked into AD and sits on the Outlook Web Access login page. If someone needs help, their name/dept/phone/etc is all filled in for them and all they have to do is say what's not working. This keeps the person from having to fill in too much (which means they'll sometimes spend a bit more time on details rather than just saying "e-mail don't work."), it gives us accurate information, and it's conveniently located right below the login box!

-Calls are harder, of course, but I always ask my staff what ticket they are working on. If I get a blank look, they go back and go create a ticket, then resume work.

-Desk stop-bys. If possible I ask people in the offices to just create a ticket and we'll pick it up from there. If they e-mail me or a staff member directly, I'll open one for them if I have time, otherwise I ask them to do it.

-Voicemails are sent to us by our phone system as e-mails which, when sent to the desk, open their own ticket. So not only is the entire VM archived, but it is accessible even if it gets deleted or is purged from VM after 15 days. Plus we can send the VM ticket to others as necessary.

We use Numara Footprints for our system and I like it. It's pretty easy to use, customizable, and pretty expandable.

My final thought to all of this is to embrace automation. Anytime a computer or another person can make a ticket for you saves you a bit of time (excluding those with the "it doesn't work" phrase in the details).

Hope that helps!

"If you didn't log it, you didn't do it."

[The Monster]

You have a little chat with the guys in the department. You tell them that lawyers keep track of how much time they spend working on each client's cases. It's called 'billable hours'. An associate who doesn't produce them in sufficient quantity gets fired. It's just the way it is.

Blame it on the beancounters. "I need these stats to be able to justify our jobs. If I can't show the Guys in the Ties that I need both of you, they'll make me get rid of one. If it comes to that, we'll lose the one who logs the least hours working trouble tickets. It probably won't even be up to me at that point."

Every phone call or trip to an employee's cubicle is an 'event' or 'activity' that needs to be documented, even if just with a sentence fragment (Asked Jane to reboot her workstation and call back if further errors.). Make sure your system accounts for who you're supporting. When budget time comes, you might be able to show that the lusers in one department generate a disproportionate number of support calls, because they insist on being local admins with the power to install extra crap you haven't tested. Your fourth person's salary might come out of that department's budget.

But the big win will come when you can data-mine your system and find patterns. "That GPF is only showing up on workstations with Foo version 3.6 build 2405 using the Barf-o-matic 2010 video card with the xZyzzy chipset."