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.

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.

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."