Oxygen Help Desk

New Sponsor for Oxford City FC U13 Girls with Oxygen Help Desk

Richard Althorp — 19/12/2011

We are proud to be the new Match Kit sponsors of the Oxford City FC Under 13 Girls.

They have had a fantastic year in 2011 winning the Oxford Mail League for the 2010-2011 season and finishing this calendar year second in the table with a game in hand and trailing by only 2 points.

Also they have secured two quarter final matches in the League and County Cup competitions and amassed 201 goals for the year!

Lets hope for another fantastic year in 2012.

Advantages of Putting the Service Desk at the Centre

Mark Martin — 10/11/2011

Service Desk Analysts often have to cover a multitude of areas of requests and issues putting extensive strain on their knowledge and often with aggressive targets to hit first time resolution.

This can end up with either requests being closed with low levels of customer satisfaction or potentially a need for those requests then to be re-opened. Delays can also occur in the time to resolution leading to an inappropriate escalation to the Resolver Group or third line support agent taking up more time on our more expensive human resource.

Providing information from Knowledge Systems and historical tickets is definitely an excellent starting point; however the information can sometimes be dry and possibly confusing, even sometimes contradictory causing more delay and again to inappropriate escalation.

Recently I have been talking with existing and new customers about how they approach this and there seems a common theme which is simply to bring the Service Desk and Resolver Groups closer together enabling a free flow of information and advice increasing the knowledge at the Service Desk and therefore upping the first time resolution statistics and improving customer satisfaction.

So what does this model look like?

By visualising IT Support as Service Desk centric where our expertise radiates around their activities we can engage the Resolver Groups into a “virtual Second Line” or even do away with first, second and third line language all together and in-bed the Resolver Groups directly into the Service Desk.

This brings the Resolver Groups closer to the Service Desk and creates pathways for knowledge, which then helps with decision making when it comes to escalation and protects our more valuable resource from being drawn in to areas where not required. Operationally how it can work is either as a rota for Resolver Group team members being positioned to support the Service Desk, or possibly using the “Super User” Model elevating a Service Desk Analyst to be a specialist in a Resolver Group area such as Networking or Desktop Support.

Obviously restrictions of staffing levels apply and I am sure there are other ways of realising our goal.

From the feedback I am getting this system is working very well in achieving simple objectives, these being:-

1.   Improvement in the success rate of first time resolution
2.   Reducing the need to re-open and shortening the life cycle of requests
3.   Minimising the need for escalation the resultant being improved Customer and as importantly Staff satisfaction.

Down load our white paper on the Centralised Service Desk .

5 Things You Should Know Before Buying Your Service Desk Software

Mark Martin — 11/10/2011

Choosing the Right Service Desk Software

As your business grows and becomes more process driven existing processes can be tested to the point of failure and this may be a time to look at investing in to a Service Desk tool.

Service desk tools can be as simple as a method of queuing and giving visibility of requests to a support team. There are many tools out there to support the service desk activities and of various levels of sophistication and of course price, however before jumping in here are 5 simple questions to ask:

1) What are the over riding business requirements

Decrease in the cost of support
Improvements in service delivery
Addressing requirements of new products and services
Rapid Growth

2) What are the critical issues driving the requirement

Ability to meet compliancy requirements
Ability for customers to have access via a self service portal
Support for frameworks such as ITIL, FITS etc
Customer “must have”

3) Are there any specific “must haves” which need to be identified

Need to manage service levels
Current system not meeting needs
Ability to manage multiple customers
Enabling controls across service work flows

4) What other parts of the business could benefit from a shared tool

Customer Services
Facilities
IT
Human Resources

5) Are there human resources and finance available to support the process

License Model - "Cloud Computing" or "Perpetual License"
Is there a Project Team
Do my Business Processes flow
Do we have buy in from all relevant departments

Having answered the five questions above will give you a much clearer view of not only what you need as a Service Desk Tool, but also a measure to which you can apply in the selection of your tool provider.

Introducing the new Oxygen API v1.1

Richard Althorp — 22/09/2011

Introducing the new Oxygen API v1.1

We have just launched today our new and shiny Oxygen API v1.1 .

The API will allow developers to connect directly to the Oxygen database system and in turn connect it to third-party applications. This will allow applications to share data.

Effectively this means that whether your writing a plugin for one of your applications or wish to connect with some other data that your business relies on be it an ecommerce website, intranet, accounting system or anything else into Oxygen the API can do it for you.

Typical uses of the Oxygen API include:

Automatically adding form information from your website into Oxygen
Sending quotes and orders from your ecommerce web site to Oxygen.
Connecting to third party system tools.
Linking with critical legacy business applications

The Human Element of Service and Support

Mark Martin — 20/09/2011

I don’t think I am saying anything that hasn’t been heard before hear, but hopefully it will bring into focus how that systems and software tools alone do not make for a successful delivery of service and support. The human factor cannot ever be ignored as its impact on the success or dare I say it failure is key.

In the mid 90’s I was working for a medium sized PC manufacturer and at the time support of the end user (me) was a very hit and miss affair, depending on who, when, what, where, and even why would drive the response as to how difficult or easy, protracted or timely, uncomfortable or relaxed the process was. Times have moved since then and IT support has become a recognised profession it its own right with skills to minimise pain and maximise customer satisfaction.

When however planning the strategy for the development of services, sometimes the human element is not addressed as well as it could be which can create an element of risk to the overall project. A couple of examples being; this is what we are going to do and this is how it is going to be done, or this is the structure and we will drop people into the appropriate roles as required.

Often organisations are looking to restructure “centralising call management” though a multi skilled Service Desk often providing 1^st and 2^nd line support with 3^rd line resolver groups for the more nutty of issues. In addition this can be in conjunction with some form of framework such as ITIL which inevitably strikes a highly polarised response.

Having spent 1000’s of hours working with organisations across a diverse range of sectors, size and sophistication I have 5 simple steps that hopefully will help to bring the human and the systems into a closer alignment:

Engage Early: bringing people into the process can be daunting, but is essential. How this can be achieved is very dependent on the size of the organisation and structure, it could be as simple as have a meeting to outline the requirements or workshops across the resolver groups to identify what they do. This approach also will give you a head start with my next point.
Skills Matrix: simply enables you to understand and visuals in a logical structure what you have to play with, depending on the size of organisation this can be a formal or informal process, but it is key to address both hard and soft skills as well us understanding what the individuals view is and also their objectives.
Reflect Business Culture: I was always under the belief that once out of the Owner/Manager organisation that culture becomes diluted, however having worked with Mid and Large sized organisation I have to say they are similarly culturally diverse and therefore planning must include and reference throughout the process.
Enable Skills Transfer: I have often seen in particular the Service Desk been ‘hung out to dry’ where very personable teams of people aren’t given access to knowledge which can be used to massively improve the holy grail of service desk ‘first time fix’. On a more positive side I have also seen organisations where a virtual 3rd line sits within the service desk who’s roles are to support and inform insuring only the correct request are escalated to the resolver groups.
Speed of Change: change scares people! We need people engaged and understanding the need for the changes and then these changes need to be implemented at a pace that the organisation can support evolution not revolution. Often where organisations look to adopt a framework such as ITIL, there is a powerful drive to reach Mecca, however by breaking it down and pacing a much more successful implementation is achieved. We have worked on many ITIL ‘Lite’ projects using an ‘adopt and adapt’ approach as a staging for more rigorous adherence to ITIL in the future.

As I said in my opening sentence I am sure I am not reinventing the wheel, but if one of the points above which I have gained over my years working with customers to be useful, my job has been done.

Feel free to comment on this article as any feedback would be useful for me.

The Fear of Change

Mark Martin — 05/08/2011

The Fear of change

Of all the processes the most controversial and difficult to manage is change, we as humans in general tend to struggle with change, let alone having to deal with change that has the potential to impact the whole of the business.

Often where change is requested from one part of the business against another there can be minimal understanding of the implications of a request and more often the requester sees an issue rather than the underlying need for change, “Bob can’t get access to the account management side of our CRM software, something must be wrong”.

Broadly speaking we can break change down into five key areas:

Emergency – Very much as it sounds it is something that requires quick response, however being that these can have varying levels of impact need to be well documented and understood and even practised, as potentially this could be anything from a significant device require change through to full Disaster Recovery.
Minor – little or low impact and risk, so normally minimal process. Often this category of change is driven by business needs – change to Bob’s access rights on the CRM software for example.
Standard – These are changes that form part of the standard activities of a service team, so typically will included new starter/leave processes or move from one department to another.
Major – I have always found that the best way to envisage major change is “Project”. Large pieces of work requiring much process across many parts of the business, an example being replacing or implementing a ERP system or maybe total restructure of office space.
Significant – The best way I have found to interpret this is as an extension of emergency change in that it requires to be dealt with in a timely manner but requires extensive research and caution as the potential ramifications and risk are very high.

Having understood and classified the various types of change, we are then able to start thinking about processes required to deliver it taking into consideration areas such as authorisation, risk, urgency and how this impacts the customer.

As an example I have always found the new starter process a very good example as although it is a standard change and is repeated time and time again by organisations it is amazing how it can all go wrong!

I have seen based upon a telephone call “Hi, we have an new starter for tomorrow”. So firstly we must insure that the business understands the service levels for the new starter process.

The process often engages with many parts of the business, IT, HR, Department Manager, Estates, and Purchasing and sometimes more, often requiring multiple authorisations from both a department manager and HR. The workflows need to be considered and be designed to insure that on the day the desk, equipment, user accounts, phones are all available.

Automation of change process can drastically reduce the overheads of administration associated with them. Service desk tools such as Oxygen enable these processes to be automated across not only the service delivery teams but also where for example authorisation is required outside these such as budget or departmental authorisation can also be mapped.

A Change Authorisation Board can be created and even voting rights. This also creates visible workflows and the ability to complete multiple tasks and capture information. Give the ability to document risk, roll back and finally publish where needed in the forward schedule of change.

Get change right and you minimise the risk and therefore reduce the impact to the business. A final anecdote, I was on site with a client where we were looking to implement some changes to their Oxygen system. The previous night they had started the process of upgrading their ERP system, server and desk-tops. During the process of the rollout another department doing some change work rebooted a couple of servers which caused the upgrade to fail in a very bad way, so when I arrived there was a lot of finger wagging and “well no one told me” going on.

Relatively straight forward if they had published a forward schedule of change this probably would never have happened!

What standards should I adhere to for my Service Desk ITIL, Fits, ISO?

e-Warehouse — 18/07/2011

A simple enough question, but the choices made at the outset can have a significant impact on not only the IT department but also across the organisation and as has been proven more than a few times, significant impact can have a hefty price tag.

We are well aware that certain organisations are driven by legislation or corporate standards that mean the choices are made already, however for the majority of us these decisions are our own, maybe with a bit of persuasion required in other areas.

The choices made will mould the structure of IT delivery and support over the coming months and years. More complex frameworks such as ITIL have great attractions being proven, respected and understood, but before deciding on the best approach ask yourself these 5 questions which should help in the decision making process:-

1. Have we the time and resource and as significantly the finances available to see the project through?

2. What are the business drivers and do they a-line with the chosen standard?

3. How will the changes impact not just IT, but the business at large.

4. What skills sets do you have already in place,

5. What processes are already in place

These are significant questions that need to be answered before driving the IT shop and wider business towards Change, and as we are all aware change is something that people struggle with.

So maybe there is an alternative, firstly if we review fully question 5 above we may be surprised at just how many process are already in place and how robust they are. If we do a gap analysis similarly we find that our objectives are more attainable than we first thought and more importantly achievable without massive investment into a framework with the associated risks that they can bring.

A large part of e-Warehouse’s consultancy resource is taken up by working with Customers to gain better control through their processes of the IT environment. We have worked with Clients on projects such as “ITIL Lite” and “Process Plus” using their existing business knowledge and a adopt and adapt approach to the varying standards.

This approach invariably leads to a rapid deployment with a strong alignment to the business requirements and the agility to apply change if necessary, all without large financial investment, which in today’s environment is a very strong argument.

Schools Help Desk Initiative

e-Warehouse — 18/07/2011

Today we have launched our new "Schools Oxygen Help Desk" Initiative, which is giving schools access to our Oxygen Help Desk software where you can not only follow FITS or ITIL, but you can also manage your entire HR, Estates and Facilities Departments with one easy to use Service Tool.

The Schools Oxygen Help Desk consists of:-

5 Operator License Pack
Installation
Configuration
Training
Technical Support
Version Protection

All of this for £995 (RRP £5770.00). For more information on this Initiative please contact victoriaE@e-warehouse.com

To see how Oxygen can help your School or College click here.

Test Drive Oxygen here.

Liquid Telecom Oxygenates its Service Desk

e-Warehouse — 18/07/2011

Oxygen Service Desk was chosen today to help support the Liquid Telecommunication Group in building Africa's next generation Fibre Network.

e-Warehouse were chosen to supply their Oxygen Service Desk after demonstrating their understanding to meet and exceed the requirements of this very specific configuration.

Liquid Telecom is a leading independent data, voice and Internet Service provider, specialising in supplying wholesale satellite and international carrier services to independent mobile and fixed telecommunications operators in developing countries.

The 5 Steps to Service Heaven

e-Warehouse — 18/07/2011

Learn how you can better manage your Service Requests with our Service Desk Tool Oxygen Enterprise 4.0.

What to expect:

* Quick overview of Oxygen Service Desk
* Demonstration of how to log a Service Request.
* Q&A

Topic:

The Simple 5 Step Life cycle of a Request for Service:

1. Request logging - via the customer using the Oxygen Self Service Portal
2. Service Desk Triage - be it "Catch and Dispatch" or "First line Resolution"
3. Request assignment - get it right first time every time
4. Resolution - I think it's resolved... but do you Mr Customer?
5. Request Closure - Another "happy" customer

Cant make this week's webinar?

Try clicking here for further webinar dates.

Why are we breaching our SLA’s?

e-Warehouse — 18/07/2011

A common enough question to ask, but sometimes not as easy to answer, we can always come up with excuses, too much workload for the staffing levels, Holidays, major project roll out, etc and provide anecdotal evidence, “I was there when Incident Ref 11023 breached and John was juggling 5 jobs all of a high priority”.

All well and good management will say, but where’s the evidence, “If you are telling me that we are under resourced, especially in the current climate we are going to need proof”

Immediately we think I need to prepare a report, but that potentially requires us to wade through a sea of closed items to fish for the elusive breached call and then find the owner and ask them why. A specific breached call over a month old, I was too busy, it was hot, someone stole my computer. Let’s be honest unless the information is captured at the point of failure we are unlikely to get the specific reason.

OK, so we need to automate the process of capturing the reason for breaching a call at the point when it happens, firstly we need to insure our people understand the reasons, benefits and objective of the capture of this data. Then we need the ability to configure our service desk tool to enable the data capture, e-Warehouse’s Oxygen simply enables the administrator to configure a process where at “SLA Breach” the call is essentially held at a breached status until a reason for the breach is entered.

If required at an operational level this information can be fed via email to the service owner, IT manager giving a real-time view of when and why breaches are occurring, so the “I hear we have had a lot of breaches today” conversation can be dealt with using actually “there were 4 breaches today of which 3 were down to ‘Rita not communicating back to the client’ the 4th looks like John was juggling 5 jobs all of high priority!”.

Oxygen then enables the breaches to be reported on and provide the appropriate evidence to be used as required, as I once told by a Director I worked with, your gut feeling 9 times out of 10 is actually the truth.

Oxygen Help Desk Multi Browser Compatible

e-Warehouse — 18/07/2011

Oxygen is a 100% Web Based application of which there is no installed client software; and now you can run Oxygen on a number of popular web browsers including Microsoft Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari.

New Reports released for Oxygen 4.0 Help Desk

e-Warehouse — 18/07/2011

Having a library of meaningful reports is imperative for any good help desk application.

Knowing how many calls you have open on your service desk at any given time, which calls are about to breach their SLA, how many calls an operator has closed, which calls were closed within their SLA threshold, how many calls had related symptoms with other calls.

Compare historical information with any previous day, week, month or year; what are the current statuses of your logged calls, what were the top error categories or resolutions categories used?

Export your reports through CSV, Excel, PDF, HTML, Rich Text Format and TIFF files.

All of this information and more is now available with the very latest Report Portal with Oxygen Help Desk 4.0.

Virgin Holidays improve call logging with Self Service Portal

e-Warehouse — 18/07/2011

Virgin Holidays re-route virtually all of their Service Requests with Oxygen's Self Service Portal.

"90% of our service requests are now logged via the Self service Portal"

Sarah Francillia, IT Service Delivery Manager

Click here to read the full Case Study

See what Oxygen can do for your Organisation

e-Warehouse — 18/07/2011

If you would like to see Oxygen in action or take a peep at some of the screen shots then click here

Oxygen aids Forestcare Emergency Response Service

e-Warehouse — 18/07/2011

Forestcare is Bracknell Council’s Emergency Response Service operating from their purpose-built control centre at Bracknell Depot. Forestcare monitor Lifeline alarms in the community and in sheltered housing and provide out-of-hours calls, handling services to Bracknell and other authorities.

Oxygen Enterprise has been chosen as the new support tool to help Forestcare offer a better service to to Bracknell Forest Council and other authorities who are supported by the Team.

Communities and Local Government deploy Oxygen SaaS Enterprise v4

e-Warehouse — 18/07/2011

"Having looked at the latest tool-sets available, including Hornbill Support Works, Landesk and Remedy, the only option which suitability met our needs was from a company called e-Warehouse and their product Oxygen SaaS Enterprise."

Julian Vincent, Service Manager, Communities and Local Government

Click her to read case study

Domino's Pizza Group choose Oxygen Service Desk

e-Warehouse — 18/07/2011

Before choosing e-Warehouse as its eventual supplier of their new Service Desk for handling both IT Service Customer Service requests, Tim Cawley IS Manager at Domino's Pizza Group explains why they decided to go with Oxygen Service Desk.

Click here to read case study.

2010 May be the most important year of your career.

e-Warehouse — 18/07/2011

2008 – 2009 witnessed the most severe economic recession in generations, and the IT industry suffered an even greater decline than it did during 2001, following the dot-com
bubble.

Yet all recessions come to an end, and this one will, too. It is now—as the recession gives way to growth—that there is great opportunity to plan for that growth and enable your organization to take advantage of a recovering economy.

Leading the IT organization in 2010 requires a clear vision for melding technology, business process and financial management into a cohesive view of IT investments and priorities.

Click here to view the Gartner Perspective: IT Spending 2010

Position your company as a Service Leader as we exit the recession

e-Warehouse — 18/07/2011

Did you know It's five times more expensive to gain a new customer than it is to keep one. In a recession, it is critical for your business to both retain every customer and maximise their lifetime value.

Acquiring new customers requires an investment of precious time and resource so retaining them is very much a key to all our success.

With fewer customers and each spending less in a recession, it is critical for your business to retain every customer and maximise their potential. An economic crisis creates the urgent need to save money this urgency sometimes hits expenses that support the customer experience.

By staying focused on the customer allows a company to save money in three ways:

1. By reducing the number of unsatisfactory customer experiences, companies can reduce the costs associated with resolving them.

2. When service suffers, the reputation of the brand is diminished through negative word of mouth, making it harder and more expensive to attract customers.

3. By delivering excellent customer self service (e.g through customer to customer online support forums and dynamic self service web portals), the company is able to deflect costs.

For, example if a customer sends an inquiry through email, will an agent in the contact centre be able to pick up the conversation when that individual later calls about the same incident? Will the customer be able to go back to the Portal and receive updates?

Improve your communications with your customer by utilising a Self Service Web Portal that integrates into your Service Management Solution.

Self Service solutions can deliver a 30-50 percent reduction in email volume and a 10 – 30 percent reduction in telephone calls, all while increasing customer satisfaction.

As an Independent Software Vendor we are only too well aware of the difficulties associated with the delivery of software products and importantly the ongoing management of customer requests, bug fixes, feature requests and software releases.

• Present up to the minute information to your customers via the web based self service portal.

• Manage your change process and software releases so the “who has what” is available at your finger tips.

• Map your Business Processes directly into the Oxygen Service Desk.

• Take total control of information and resources via “roles and views” insuring the right information is available to the right people.

• Provide detailed Customer and Management Reporting on line 24/7

For further information on how we can help you as an organisation empower your service department with Oxygen Service Desk and position your company as a service leader as we exit the recession click here.

New Report Module for Oxygen 4.0 Service Desk

e-Warehouse — 18/07/2011

Dynamic Report Portal lets you give access to both internal and external users of Oxygen.

Grant access rights based on Roles or permissions; now managers or external customers can view their own reports using the Report Portal without having to log into the main Oxygen Service Desk.

Integrated new Menu system with enhanced filters and export options allows you to build powerful and professional reports on what you need to report on.

Report on CIs to provide great asset management functionality for Change Management.

Complete new graphical charts including Bar, Pie, Line, Area and Spline.

Click here to arrange a demo of our new Reports Module.

Empower Your Business with a Self Service Portal

e-Warehouse — 18/07/2011

Oxygen Self Service Portal by e-Warehouse is the latest and greatest in the world of on demand service management business solutions.

Now you can take advantage of E-Warehouse’s cutting edge service desk solution and have your customer's reap direct benefits as well!

Cut through contact centre hold queues, email backlogs and more - give your customer's direct access to the trouble tickets and updates on their status, allowing your service and support representatives more flexibility to work towards resolving the issue, instead of answering repeated phone calls from frustrated customers.

The Oxygen Self-Service Portal empowers your business with robust functionality and CRM tools allowing your customer's access to their own service and support requests.

An Oxygen administrator can create special self-serve accounts for any customer in the Oxygen Service Management Software, which then allows those customers to login to a special self-service portal, giving them access to create cases that are instantly available to support personnel in real time; or reflect on previous cases already submitted to the system.

Click here for further information.

New Contact Details

e-Warehouse — 18/07/2011

As of Monday May 11th are new contact details can be found on our Contact us page.

Please note our New Contact Number 0845 299 7539.

Visit us at the Service Desk & IT Support Show April 28 & 29

e-Warehouse — 18/07/2011

We will be exhibiting at the up and coming Service Desk & IT Support Show next week on April 28th & 29th in Earls Court London.

Come and see why every one in the industry are talking about Oxygen 4 and see for your self.

We will also be giving away Oxygen Licenses for free on the stand.

So be sure to visit us on stand 206.

We are Recruiting ......

e-Warehouse — 18/07/2011

As we continue to grow our offering and look to expand our client base, we have two opportunities for an experienced Software Sales Consultant ideally with experience delivering IT service management solutions and an internal Telesales / New Business Executive.

Software Sales Consultant

Your main responsibilities will include presenting to clients our software through meetings and on-line webinars including demonstrating the configuration of the application. Full ownership of the sales process through to order and delivery of the solution is required. This is a 100% new business role, with the average sales order being in the region of £10,000.00. Support will be provided from regular advertising and marketing campaigns, which in turn are backed up from the internal sales support.
Experience in selling to Director’s level is essential; you will also need to achieve the software sales targets through field sales on a monthly basis, and to meet the quarterly sales targets.

You will be a senior salesperson with a minimum of 5 years in software development consulting or professional services.

Salary up to £35k DOE (Basic) £70,000.00 OTE plus phone allowance and fuel expenses.

Telesales Executive

Duties will include, telesales, making agreed number of cold calls and appointments; dealing will enquiries from customers, supporting the field sales representative with admin and providing quotations
What we are looking for:
Minimum of 2years experience of closing appointments in the B2B market
Excellent communication skills/Building rapport/Closing appointments
Managing your own database to identify/schedule/generate appointments from
Ability to maximize from marketing e-shot campaigns

In return we are offering a salary of up to £20,000.00 Basic DOE with an OTE of £30,00.00.

Please send your CV to hr@e-warehouse.com

Centralise your Service Requests with Oxygen 4.0

e-Warehouse — 18/07/2011

Enable the centralisation of your support and service requests through Oxygen 4.0.

With Oxygen 4.0 you can manage different types of requests including ITSM, Facilities Management, Customer Services and any other areas of business that require service requests. A single Central Service desk to support all your service needs.

The new Routing rule system, allows the creation of conditional rules enabling the management of different types of requests in different ways, at a very granular level.

From the “who and how” a request is logged through to the management of the escalation process and communications. Simple rules can be created to minimise human intervention and enable the standardisation of processes, which in turn has the potential to reduce cost associated with the management of requests.

• Routing Conditions

o Logging method, email, self service portal, User, Automated Alert
o Item title content
o Item body text content
o Action Type
o Status
o Item (Request) Type
o Categories
o Service
o Priority
o Organisational Member/Unit
o User/Team

• Routing Actions

o New Item (Request) Type
o New Status
o New Owner
o New Team
o New Category
o Send Email
o Update Portal

The Role System provides a system to manage the rights of users and groups within the different parts of the business, from full rights giving access to all of the system down to a more restricted view only of job queues. Multiple roles can be created ensuring users are provided with rights that enable them to complete their tasks and no more.

Multiple Views can be created and assigned to roles enabling access to Items and content that is relevant to that group or user. This ensures that users only have visibility of jobs that are specific to their needs and also enables the sharing of the Oxygen Service Desk by multiple business functions including IT, FM and Accounts or any other area that requires to manage service requests.

Personalisation allows for customisation of what kind of information is displayed in the operators console with the ability to choose the type of information within the columns.
Thus giving users access to only relevant content.

The CMDB (Configuration Management Database) gives complete control over your physical assets. The CMDB provides the tool set required to manage both IT, Facility based assets and any other business relates asset that requires management.

These assets can be managed at a very granular level and if required monitored for change, so if an unauthorised change is made the system will alert the required individual or group (depending on configuration) that this event has taken place.

Software License Management, allows for complete monitoring of software licenses. License pools are created based upon the number of available licenses, so if the total number of licenses is exceeded an automatic alert will be generated.

Action Types can be restricted to both Roles and Status of requests minimising them so only actions that apply at a certain point are available. For example if a problem has been through the internal support team and requires escalating to a third party, this action can be made available only to those authorised individuals and only when the call is at a specific status.

SLA & OLA Management, allows the creation of parent/child relationships between services, thus allowing the complete management of incidents when a support service is provided to the business on a particular SLA and the overall resolution is provided by a third party with an additional SLA. Here you can manage both the SLA and OLA.

COMs Module, gives complete management of emails and portal updates, all are logged and flagged, so that system operators can be notified that the customer, third party user or end-user has sent an update on a specific request.

Categories can be can be restricted to roles, type and status ensuring only the categories required are visible and selectable. By categorising calls correctly greatly improves trend reporting and enables on going service improvements.

Email Templates. Multiple email templates can be created and used as required. Within the templates are a large number of database fields that can be referenced, ensuring the required information is communicated.

Terminology/Localisation. Be it IT Service Management, Facilities Management or other more general Business Process Management need, Oxygen allows for full customisation of its labelled fields.

Multiple Incidences. Run multiple copies of Oxygen with one or more databases allowing for complete separation of service desks.

Quick Call Templates includes request type allowing different request types to be selected, for example a Facilities request can be selected and then routed directly to the Facilities Team.

Self Service Portal includes request type allowing different request types to be selected, for example a Facilities request can be selected and then routed directly to the Facilities Team.

Tweaked Interface making Oxygen simpler to navigate, can now incorporate multiple tabs or windows.

Building a Winning Service Desk

e-Warehouse — 18/07/2011

1 Abstract

The traditional IT Help Desk has evolved over years into Service Desk, offering a range of services to offer a more business-focused approach. The Service Desk not only handles incidents, and Service Requests, it also provides a route for customers to interact with all IT processes, including change requests, procurement, service level management, and sometime extend beyond traditional IT Services.

The overall value proposition of Service Desk has changed from simply responding to the needs of IT end-users, to realizing higher Value & helping organizations get a better ROI on ICT Investments.

This paper gives a roadmap and key considerations for setting up an efficient Service Desk encompassing the traditional and evolving expectations from the new age Service Desk. The paper shall enable the Service Desk managers either planning to set up a Service Desk or managing a Service Desk to consider the implications for their organizations.

2 Why do you need a Service Desk?

Let us first answer the basic question, as what is the need or are the key drivers for setting up a Service Desk.

2.1.1 End User Perception
In most organizations, the compelling reason for setting up a Service Desk is to respond to end-users criticism of IT department’s effectiveness to respond to their problems. The Service Desk makes it possible to deliver a predictable and consistent Delivery of IT Service to end-users. The Service Desk also makes it possible to be objective in measuring Customer/User Satisfaction which goes a long way in devising short term and long term plans for the IT Function.

2.1.2 SPOC for growing needs
While Service Desks have been a Single Point Of Contact for end users for IT incidents and Service requests, it is now evolving an organization-wide SPOC, many times for non-IT needs as well. Wherever there is a need for control and visibility, Service Desk that uses scalable technology solutions with trained staff who can empathize with callers – provides the best solutions.

2.1.3 Infrastructure Availability
Service Desks reduce downtime not only by coordinated and channelized (prioritized) efforts for faster resolution and thus ensuring a speedy resolution, but also by providing proactive/preventive information to users, which can greatly reduce the probability of repetition of such problems.

2.1.4 Higher Productivity and thus lower costs
The cost of resolution at second and third level is multiple times the cost of a similar fix at first level. Utilization of staff at second and third levels is therefore a critical driver of overall efficiency. By separating the initial call logging, investigation and information gathering from technical troubleshooting, much higher utilization of second and third line staff can be achieved. The Service Desk is also a tool for objectively measuring the productivity of IT personnel and to determine the workload pattern. This further helps in manpower planning and scheduling for optimal utilization.

2.1.5 Input to key ITSM Processes
The Service Desk provides valuable data on every item of hardware, software or professional service. The procurement authorities can use this data to determine the reliability or performance.

This data is also useful in planning the Capacity and Availability of various services and provisioning the Infrastructure accordingly. The Service Desk coordinates Changes and Releases as many Service Management Tools integrate the workflow of these processes in the conventional Service Desk tools.

As illustrated above, implementing Service Desk becomes imperative for an organization wanting to implement a full suite of ITSM processes.

3 Building a Service Desk

Having established that efficient Service Desk is critical to business, it should be set up as a formal business improvement project with all key attributes like Ownership, Goals, and Deliverables etc clearly defined before the start of Project. Let us now discuss key considerations and Management decisions in order to setup a winning Service Desk.

3.1 Key Considerations

• Clearly establish and articulate needs in Business term.

• Define clear objectives and deliverables from the project

• Ensure Management commitment, budget and resources are available before the
project starts.

• Identify quick wins and communicate to all stakeholders.

• Involve Customer/User in the Project Definition and ongoing Reviews specially those who are outspoken and critical of the IT Support.

• Adopt a phased approach instead of a Big Bang. However, smaller businesses are
better-off going for a big-bang approach.

• On-board the staff; take them in confidence, discuss with them the objectives and
benefits.

• Educate and Train the staff

o To be customer focused,
o To be a team player, Service Desk is all about teamwork and will miserably fail in
the absence of it.
o Active listening, showing empathy with users,
o Professionalism; not to be adhoc with users/customers, as they will come with
unreasonable demands.

• Advertise, Sell & educate the new services and usage to users and Customers.

• Identify key measurement matrices in customer understandable terms- e.g. Customer pickup response time, they must be advertised and demonstrated consistently for winning users trust.

• Standardize the user Interaction for a professional experience – e.g., have a standard
welcome message

3.2 Key Management Decisions

3.2.1 Structure of Service Desk

The term ‘Service Desk’ was originally conceived for IT support, however, it is now used to describe any Customer Support Center or part of a Support Center, which handles complex problem solving and associated processes. They are deployed in a wide variety of ways. The Service Desk Manager must decide a structure based on merits and the organizational needs.

3.2.1.1 Local Service Desk:
Departmental Service Desks specializing in the support of certain types of internal or external customers and focused on very specific business objectives. Key considerations are:

• Provide customized support for specific location-based groups or staff.

• Staff can develop a deeper level of expertise specific to the location.

• Providing support in multiple languages is easier if the Service Desk supporting each
language group can be staffed from local native speakers of that language.

• Each Service Desk provides backup to other Service Desks in the event that one should become unavailable (disaster, and so on).

• Distributing the Service Desks creates a broader labor pool to draw from.

3.2.1.2 Centralised Service Desk:
Dedicated corporate Service Desks consolidating expertise in handling internal and/or external customers and using advanced Service Desk tools with knowledge and asset management capabilities. Key considerations are:

• Users know where to call for support.

• Fewer staff may be required, which reduces training, equipment, and facility costs.

• Consolidated management overview.

3.2.1.3 Virtual Service Desk:
Large, linked networks of multi-tier support centers spanning geographies and businesses, and supported by expensive, integrated software to meet business requirements. Virtual Service Desk is increasing becoming a choice for globally spread Organization and the key considerations are:

• This structure allows a “follow the sun” approach, where 24-hour coverage can be provided, with each Service Desk working only during the normal workday for its location.

• As each Service Desk finishes work for the day, the calls are then routed to another Service Desk in a different time zone where the staff is just starting their workday.

3.2.1.4 Outsourced Service Desk:

• Large support centers (or a network of centers) built as generic facilities to provide
Service Desk services for a wide range of clients who have chosen to outsource. In the
main they focus on IT support and use expensive system solutions, although these have less functionality customization but more commercial options.

3.2.2 Communication Method, tools and technologies
The Service Desk provides a communication interface between users and the IT department. The selection of technologies and methods of communication is thus a key consideration for Service Desk.

3.2.2.1 Telephone
The most common, and often the easiest method of communicating with the Service Desk remains the telephone. Opportunities for clearer definition and explanation of an issue exist when the customer reporting the issue is interacting directly with the Service Desk analyst.

The sporadic development of applications such as IVR, ACD, CLI, CTI etc., has revolutionized the Service Desk. While the tools go a long way in improving service efficiency and agent productivity, an improper implementation may prove to be counter productive for user perception for over-complex options and messages repeated too often. Managers must carefully evaluate the technology options while implementing them, so as not to irritate the users.

3.2.2.2 Self-service and Web-Based forms
A Web-based ticketing system enables employees to initiate support requests and monitor ticket status without calling the Service Desk. This feature can result in improved productivity by minimizing call workload with self-service options for end users, ultimately saving Service Desk support staff valuable time.

The advantages includes greater Customer Satisfaction by allowing users better transaction control, low cost compared to the Service Desk manpower costs; it works beyond office hours - 24X7; and it can service a very large number of users simultaneously.

The Service Desk Manager must work for following attributes for a successful self-service Web

• Customer should be able to determines entry, exit and navigation to Service Desk

• Communication and Awareness among users
• Excellent FAQ’s (Frequently Asked Questions) so that users can be assured of a high hit-rate for the most likely issues.

• Look and feel that is compatible with other facilities made available to the user.

• Avoidance of unnecessary technical jargon.

• Metrics for usage and improvements

• Robust methods of keeping the information on the self-service site live and updated

3.2.2.3 Email
E-mail is an increasingly common method of communicating with a Service Desk. Email makes it easy for customers to submit calls to the Service Desk; however, this method can be used only for less urgent calls. If all broadcast emails originating from the IT department are routed through the helpdesk it provides a consistent interface for users, and add to positive perception.

For Service Desks which work at capacity or near-capacity at peak times, the encouragement of e-mail can be useful in helping to stagger the load and enable questions to be addressed during the lean hours of the day. However, the ability to respond well to email requires different set of skills.

The biggest drawback is that it is essentially free-format; therefore, an e-mailed call may not provide a structured report of all the symptoms of an issue or the details of a request. However,e-mail forms can be developed for users to use to document all the relevant information.

Large-scale call centers are now investing in mass e-mail-handling software to perform auto-response, auto-categorization and auto-forwarding tasks.

3.2.2.4 Mobile devices
The use of mobile devices and personal digital assistants will, in some cases offer remote workers even more choices in the means of accessing help. Broadcasts of planned maintenance,service interruptions or other messages can be done thru mobile devices. Modern Service management tools use the mobile devices for auto forwarding and auto escalation of tickets to the relevant support group/personnel.

3.3 Define the Scope and Service Levels for the Service Desk
Define and agree on the scope of Service Desk with Customer and users. The scope of Service Window should be in line with the SLA agreed with the customer. The Scope must be widely available to the users so that they are aware of what to expect (and what not to expect) from the Service Desk. Some of the key considerations while defining the scope are:

• Define the Service Desk Coverage Window

• Days and Hours Covered (Weekdays, Business Hours etc.)

• Type of Non-Business hours support (No support or only web/phone support)

• Time zone etc

• Supported Business Locations, Geographies and Languages

• Product/Platform and services – clearly define all facilities covered, e.g. Office
Automation equipments like Fax machine covered/not covered.

• Clearly define types of contacts supported

• Standard contacts for incident Calls, Service Requests etc.

• Others e.g. consumable replenishment in printers etc.

The SLA must clearly document the expected Service Level from the Service Desk. In case the SLA does not specifically mention the service levels applicable for Service Desk, the Manager must agree with customer on parameters like Call Hold, Incident Response etc. and must widely publicize them among the users.

Along with the Service levels, the Service Desk Manager must also decide and agree with customer on Charges - Per Call, T&M, Service Contracts, free service etc.

3.4 Plan the staffing of Service Desk
A Service Desk is only as good as the employees staffing the Service Desk are. The Service Manager has to balance the cost and Delivery from the Service Desk and as the staffing is one of the primary cost component, planning the headcount and profile of people manning the Service Desk becomes a key consideration.

Accordingly, the Service Desk Manager must decide on the Skill Set, Roles and Headcount for Service Desk considering the following factors as input:

• Scope of Service Desk

• Communication Methods – Phone, email etc.

• Structure of Service Desk

• Customer Expectations and SLA signed with customer on Call hold, Incident response and resolution targets etc.

• Projected Call volume for Voice, emails tool alerts etc. Projects the call volume by hours, weekdays etc., to determine load pattern and thus the shift roster needs.

• Budget and resources

• Complexity of IT Infra

The staffing once arrived must be constantly reviewed and realigned by doing trend analysis on SLA achievements, Customer feedback, work load pattern, call hold, total answer time etc.

4 The Winning Prescription
Once all the key decisions listed above are taken, the Service Desk Manager must now focus on gaining the edge and make a winning Service Desk

4.1 Manage customer expectations
Customer satisfaction is the state of mind that customers have about a Service or a Product, when their expectations have been met or exceeded over the time. Hence it is paramount to manage the Customer expectations actively, in order to achieve Customer Satisfaction. Achieving Customer Satisfaction is thus a three-step process – identify customer, understand and set the expectations and meet or exceed the expectations.

4.1.1 Identify the “Customer” and User expectations
The Service Desk Manager must clearly identify who are the customers and users and their needs from the Service Desk and IT. For Customer is someone who has responsibility for the funding of the service and hence will be more focused on Value for money. Users who actually uses the Services from Service Desk on a day to day basis will be not be concerned on value for money against high availability and Service Levels.

Among user community also different users will have different needs. An IT department running a conventional IT support desk in a BPO Organization has to satisfy the Business Head who runs a Line of Business, a Process Manager who is responsible for an operational line unit and the team leaders. In addition, there may be hundreds of agents as well as a clutch of senior lead users, and supervisory staff. Every one of these different roles has a slightly different requirement of a Service Desk.

4.1.2 Set Expectations
Managers need to be clear about whom they want to satisfy and to what extent. Trade-offs are inevitable and need to be considered carefully. Such Trade-offs must be proactively identified to the extent possible and must be signed-off with Customer. The SLA must ideally reflect such trade-offs (e.g. different category of users having different service priorities and having different Service levels) and must be publicized among users. However, despite care, not all business priorities can be reflected in the SLA and hence the Service Desk agents must understand the Business context and be sensitized for such exceptions.

4.1.3 Demonstrate Service
Where quantifiable targets have been set, care is needed to ensure that they can be met as sufficiently & frequently, as to be believed by the users – and their managers. Special care has to be taken publishing service targets which users can, in an even partial way, measure for themselves. For example, a promise to answer the telephone within 10 seconds is much better understood by a user than a commitment to resolve 80 percent of problems without external escalation.

The caller who waits on-hold for over a minute in three successive calls will simply conclude that the Service Desk’s claims are not credible.

Some large-scale call centers, unable to provide a live agent immediately, calculate an estimated queuing time and advise the caller so that he or she can decide whether or not to hold on. Wise suppliers construct the algorithm so as to be most likely to improve upon the estimated delay; excellent expectation management.

4.2 Knowledge Management for Service Desk
Data are the individual known details; Data becomes information when structured in a particular way, and knowledge is the outcome when insight, context & experience are added to it.

Successful leveraging of knowledge is the combination of the ‘involvement of trained staff with true insight and experience, with the delivery of relevant data and information into their hands, using Modern Service Management Tools. Some on the Knowledge Management aspects that are relevant for the Service Desk Managers are:

4.2.1 User identification
The ability of Service Desk to identify the calling user and to retrieve key attributes without having to ask the caller can not only drastically reduce the processing time and improve productivity, but can enable a personalized user response resulting in high Customer Satisfaction. Much of this data is traditional for Service Desks and is now regularly auto-filled through screen popping CTI applications. The challenge however is to keep the information regularly updated.

4.2.2 Configuration Database
The Service Management tool must assist the agent to look into the caller’s circumstances without disrupting the customer dialogue. The agent should be able to see what equipment and software is installed, how it is configured and networked to other components and system elements. The key here is to implement Configuration Management Process and the ability of Service Management tools to link the Configuration Items with users.

4.2.3 Transaction History
A significant proportion of issues raised by IT users have some relevance to a previous query and hence it is important to keep updating the call diary or the transaction history for the user.

The agent should be able to access the caller’s previous calls, or previous calls on a similar problem, or for the same asset.

4.2.4 Customer Needs and Requirements
The requirement for IT support are captured in a Service Level Agreement and if it mandates a differential service level for various categories of users, the Service Desk must maintain user information indicating service/priority category. The implications of Service Levels must be stored widely in escalation thresholds and penalty trigger-points all over a Service Desk system.

4.2.5 Known Error Database
As the ITIL best practices suggest, IT Service Desk, must have having access to known errors and resolution data. Modern knowledgebase uses navigation methods to find quickly the answer to multi-attribute questions and might even use advanced model-based or case-based retrieval of specially built, and constantly updated archives. It is now possible to buy pre-built third-party
problem resolution databases or knowledgebase for widely distributed products.

4.3 Communication within Helpdesk
In a multi-Shift Service Desk, disseminating information, knowledge and work instructions to everyone is a tough challenge. The risks of not keeping everyone involved and informed are high, ranging from low morale, to analysts providing inaccurate or obsolete information to users/customers. Though communication within the Service Desk is something that will be largely driven by the specific needs, a few of the critical considerations are:

Create a Shift Handover Process – Have a standard agenda and template for Shift Handover Notes.

Have a regularly updated Bulletin Board; preferably Web based having some fun content besides having all Service Desk critical updates.

Have formal review meetings with a fixed agenda such as:

Daily: Exceptions/SLA Breaches, all open incidents

Weekly: SLA Reporting, major Incidents, Service Breaches, complaints

Cutting Costs with Service Management

e-Warehouse — 18/07/2011

There has never been a more compelling reason to adopt the best service management practises than having to make the most of lean IT budgets. As the song use to say, “When the going gets tough, the tough get going,” and service delivery departments are as hard headed as they come.

While the techniques of investment appraisal have long been used in IT to evaluate the business benefits of spend on development projects, they are rarely used by IT services departments because the linkage between investment levels, return on investment (ROI) and the ongoing costs of delivery has not been properly articulated. This is a pity, because the cheapest service is almost always the most effective – as it cuts out waste and delivers value!

The official ITIL version 3 definition of a service is a means of delivering value to customers by facilitating outcomes customers want to achieve, without the ownership of specific costs and risks. What this means in practice is that a service should achieve what the customer wants, at a price they are prepared to pay and without worrying about it going wrong. A service that doesn’t worry the customer when it goes wrong is well managed if it doesn’t jeopardise their business goals and they have trust in the delivery power. This isn’t new, but is far from current industry practice as evidenced by the continual wave of outsourcing (and new in sourcing) deals being reported.

A major survey carried out recently of 2,600 service projects in 550 different companies returned some surprising results. Over 75 percent of these projects were completed in order to improve customer service, and yet only 12 percent of them had yielded any form of financial benefit. Of course not all projects will show a financial return, although it could be argued that the cost of poor service will lead to loss of customer confidence and so addressing this concern will show a benefit – although the organisations concerned did not generally take this into account in their submissions. Many projects were felt to have some financial justification, although there was little or no evidence provided of a detailed, robust or consistent ROI process to demonstrate the value. Despite this measurement of value derived from these projects was thought to be important in 37 percent of the companies surveyed.

What could you do to cut costs while dramatically increase Service Management?

How about updating your IT Service Desk Application with one that will not only look after your ITSM (IT Service Management) but can also be deployed in other areas of Service Management such as Facilities.

Oxygen Service Desk empowers organisations with a fully automated ITMS enhancing service quality, making best use of available resource while improving the efficiency of IT operation.

Rapid Implementation:

Typically with one of our Consultants we can install and deploy our Service Desk in as little as two days.

Integration:

Integration with Microsoft Active Directory using the same database, Active Directory also allows you to assign policies, deploy software, and apply critical updates to your organisation. This data can be imported and synchronised meaning that there is no need to invest large amounts of time re-keying information.

Further integration with systems management tools and other business applications provide Service Desk operators with access to live and complete information about users and assets increasing the speed and accuracy of incident management.

Web Based Self Service Portal:

The Oxygen Client Self Service Portal enables customers to take ownership of their own incidents, logging, tracking and accessing self help through the Oxygen Knowledge Base, all via a web browser. Our Clients and Service Desk Operators can also publish their own documents, in virtually any format including, HTML, Microsoft Office documents, AVI’s and PDF's.

Flexible Licensing:

Every module within the Oxygen Service Desk is included there are no additional costs. That includes Incident Manager, Problem Manager, CMDB, Service Level Management, License Manager, E-Mail Manager, Active Directory and Client Self Service Portal.

We were also the first company to offer a true on-demand SaaS (Software as a Service) license Model. Unlike most companies Oxygen is an original 100% web based developed application.

Perpetual licenses are also available as either named or unnamed (concurrent).

To test drive Oxygen click here.

SaaS Security in Scary Economic Times

e-Warehouse — 18/07/2011

Research and consulting work clearly show that today's turbulent economic environment is fueling greater customer interest and adoption of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions.

A combination of macro-trends are driving companies of all sizes to consider SaaS alternatives to traditional, on-premise software applications to better achieve their corporate objectives.

Think Strategies has produced a useful CIO's guide The SaaS Primer to help businesses better understand new on-demand software services.

Download file

Oxygen SaaS Service Desk starts at £39.99 / month, please call and ask for a FREE trial.

Europeans get hot for software-as-a-service

e-Warehouse — 18/07/2011

European organisations are increasingly ready to invest in software as a service (SaaS), according to the findings of a recent end-user survey.

Analyst house IDC surveyed 2,077 CIOs and IT decision makers in organisations with more than 20 employees in Western Europe. It found that 37 per cent of respondents said they would invest in SaaS in the next 24 months to replace or supplement existing enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems.

On the customer relationship management (CRM) side, 35 per cent said they would replace or supplement existing systems in 24 months; 32 per cent said they would do so for supply chain management (SCM) solutions.

Last month, Forrester revealed that 16 per cent of enterprises had adopted SaaS as of 2007 - an increase from 12 per cent the previous year.

"A surprisingly large proportion of companies are planning an investment in SaaS for replacing or supplementing the functionality of existing ERP and CRM solutions within the next 24 months - 37 per cent and 35 per cent respectively," wrote Bo Lykkegaard, research director for European Enterprise Applications and Services at IDC.

"IDC considers that this result has more to do with intentions than concrete plans with allocated budgets. Also, IDC believes that the indications of SaaS investment mostly reflect plans to supplement rather than completely replace existing ERP applications."

"Another surprise is the higher proportion of respondents planning to invest in SaaS for ERP compared to CRM," wrote Lykkegaard. "IDC considers the SaaS maturity of CRM to be four to five years ahead of the SaaS maturity of ERP. IDC believes that the results are biased by the general adoption of ERP and CRM with ERP being adopted more broadly than CRM."

"The SaaS implementation plans in ERP and CRM are very alike if we compare the results by country, by company size, and by industry. In terms of country, Germany and Spain have the highest proportion of respondents planning to invest in SaaS. In terms of company size, the '500–999 employees' segment shows a higher propensity to invest."

Lykkegaard told CIO sister title Techworld however that the use of SaaS in Western Europe is currently still modest, but there is strong growth potential. "Western Europe lags behind the US," admitted Lykkegaard, "normally between one and three years depending on segment and market."

"Within Western Europe, the UK, Nordics and Benelux are typically first to adopt, closely followed by Germany and France," he wrote. "However the survey shows that all of Western Europe are prepared to adopt and plans to do so."

IDC apparently believes that the software industry has moved beyond the educational phase of software on demand, and companies of all sizes and all industries have recognised the associated benefits of the delivery model.

Fujitsu Services deploy Oxygen Service Desk

e-Warehouse — 18/07/2011

Today Fujitsu Services rolled out Oxygen Enterprise.

SaaS Penetrates the IT Department

e-Warehouse — 18/07/2011

One of the biggest barriers to SaaS adoption within many organizations has been resistance from IT departments worried about the reliability, security and viability of these on-demand alternatives.

Some IT professionals have even been concerned about losing their jobs if SaaS solutions succeed in eliminating the complexities and costs of deploying and managing business applications.

To read more about IT professionals' changing attitudes toward SaaS, and further analysis of the shift in the SaaS market from point solutions to platforms, click on the link below:-

Download file

Ambercat jumps ship on Leap Year

e-Warehouse — 18/07/2011

Ambercat Systems will cease trading as of February 29 2008.

This is not a good omen for for their existing client base and potentially leaves many customers in the dark and without any support on their Service Desk Application.

Many new and existing customers have also been burdened with recent investment in either upgrading or investing in Ambercat's Service Desk product.

E-Warehouse is offering support with a competitive upgrade and as much as a 100% discount on license costs.

For further information please contact Victoria Eggleton at victoriae@e-warehouse.com.

What does ITIL mean to different people in the organisation?

e-Warehouse — 18/07/2011

When I ask people whether they use the Information Technology Infrastructure Library
(ITIL), there seems to be a polarized view – some love it, think it’s saved them from
unnecessary pain, and support it; some run a mile, telling tales of fear, uncertainty and
misery.

How can a collection of things that seem to be such a good idea polarize users
to that extent? I think it’s all about the implementation.

ITIL claims to be the most widely accepted approach to IT Service Management in the
world, and has risen above other standards like ASPL and COBIT because of it’s nonproprietary,
comprehensive and process driven approach. The financial industry was an
early adopter; it started in Europe and is now conquering the world.

IITL focuses on four main objectives:

• An increase in the customer focus of IT organisations
• An increase in the quality of the IT services
• Reduction in overall IT Service Costs
• Improvement in process thinking in the IT organisation.

It does this through the definition of a common service management language and
standardized processes. Here’s the rub: ITIL doesn’t say ‘how’ to implement ITIL, and I
think that’s the root cause of the differing opinions.

ITIL divides the support organization into two big sections – Service Support and
Service Delivery, and a bunch of sub-functions and an irreverent summary of them
could be:

• Service Support - typically the management functions to keep day to day operations
running smoothly – has within it:

• Incident Management – think of them as the paramedics – they get the patient on
the stretcher, stand clear - all working again, service restored, hurrah,
chuck the patient to the Problem Managers and be done with it. With a focus of
service recovery they are not bogged down by the need to find root cause.
Mostly likely to be heard saying ‘Just reboot it’.

• Problem Management – the forensic department whose goal is to find out what
went wrong, make it all better and stop it from happening again. Problem
Management can get to dislike Incident Management as Incident Management
can trample all over and contaminate the scene of crime. Likely to say ‘We could
tell what happened if they hadn’t rebooted it’.

• Change Management – the troublemakers. Without change managers changing
things we know most of the problems the Incident Managers have to recover and
the Problem Managers have to investigate would not have happened. Everyone
dislikes the Change Managers unless they are Very Good. Likely to say ‘Calm
Down Dear… It’ll be OK, I had it tested’.

• Release Management – if the Change Managers are disliked, the Release
Managers are several times worse – they get to change lots of things at the
same time in large bundles. Need to replace every laptop in your organization to
run Vista? Bring in the Release Managers. ‘Trust me, I’m a Release Manager’.

• Configuration Management – every organization needs trainspotters and these
are they – happy when everything has an asset tag, and never happier than
when tending their Configuration Items in their Configuration Management
DataBase. A piece of software has a new security bug? You can ask the CMDB
for a list of everywhere that it’s running that piece of software, and then pass the
list to the Change Managers to fix.

• Service Desk – the acceptable face of the IT department – people you phone and
mail when it’s all gone horribly wrong. Their job is to ignore and frustrate you
unless you are Very Persuasive. Buying them chocolate can often help.
On the other hand, sitting in shiny offices with dark shades on in a darkened room are
the Service Delivery staff:

• Service Level Management – the lawyers of the IT department – if you want a
agreed recovery time for your service you speak to them – they’ll draft Service
Level Agreements and Operational Level Agreements, negotiate underpinning
contracts with suppliers and maintain and improve IT business service quality. Or
they’ll make a pig fat by weighing it. ‘You want how much uptime!’

• Financial Management – You want another server, another building, to write off
deprecated equipment, a calculation of Net Book Value, and an understanding of
absorbed and unabsorbed costs – they are your pals in integer mathematics.
‘How many beans would you like to make five?’

• Availability Management – your friends in floating point mathematics – statistics,
graphs, charts, Service Outage Analysis, Fault Tree analysis, Component Failure
Impact Analysis, they are there to spot trends to save you from sleepwalking into
unavailability through predictable failures. ‘I’m telling you, that thing needs
replacing, now…’

• Capacity Management – crystal ball specialists to save you from sleepwalking
into unavailability through bad sizing. How much is your data/network/processing
growing each month – when will it all come crumbling around you? Someone in
IT needs to know the company business strategy and plan accordingly. ‘You
want it to do what?’

• Continuity Management – wizards and warlocks - when badness occurs how do
you get your production up and running again? They have cunning plans and
clever tricks, and regular tests to maximize the chances of your business
continuing even if a Very Bad thing has affected your IT department. ‘We’re
testing our business continuity, please report for work at this bunker tomorrow…’

IMPLEMENTING ITIL

The way to eat an elephant is, of course, one mouthful at a time (apparently, I have not
personally eaten an elephant, but you know what I mean). There is no one way to
implement ITIL – it just says ‘you should have this function’, now you, using your vast
experience of the IT industry have to go and do it.

There are broadly three ways to implement ITIL;

• One process at a time (could be a job for life followed by the presentation of a
carriage clock and retirement to a little cottage in the country)

• Clustered implementation of inter-related processes (for instance Service Desk,
Incident Management and Problem Management first, with other management
structures following later seems to be a popular strategy)

• All at the same time (a recipe for overwhelming a support organization, or
causing elephant induced indigestion and the aforementioned disgruntlement).

IT Service Management of course needs to consider the people aspect of the inner
workings of the IT organization – in the long term no-one changes their behavior unless
there are considerations for the performance system (this is not the ‘management
performance system’, that lovely thing that tips numbers into our bank accounts
periodically, defines vacation policies and if we’re lucky showers us with employee
discounts, I’m talking about the performance system that we work inside, whether we
acknowledge it’s existence or not – it’s the thing that drives us do wrong things even if
we know it’s the wrong thing to do - if it’s not implemented properly).

During the implementation the ‘how’ also needs to be worked out. This is both a
strength and a weakness – a strength in that you can implement ITIL to suit your own
environment, and a weakness in that two ITIL compliant organizations may not easily
be able to talk to each other if they’ve implemented ITIL defined functions completely
differently.

If there are Problem and Incident Management functions they both need an effective
Situation Appraisal and Root Cause Problem Analysis method defined and implemented.
ITIL doesn’t say how to do these functions; it just says that you should. ITIL helps
intercommunication by defining terms; “incident”, “service request” and “escalation”. By
extending ITIL’s defining terms and selecting the same method of Problem Analysis as
many other ITIL compliant organizations you can create advantages for yourself and
your customers that are bigger than the sum of the parts.

ITIL – HOW IT SUPPORTS THE IT SERVICE INDUSTRY

Given that ITIL was originally forged when British government determined that the level
of IT service quality provided to them was not sufficient, and has been developed over a
number of iterations, the thinking is proven and refined.

By ITIL keeping vendor neutral, it has given organizations the flexibility to implement
ITIL where they see the best benefit for themselves, which in turn starts with a clear set
of improvement objectives.

By providing a comprehensive set of best practices and consistent definitions of key IT
terminology and processes across the industry, it is being taken up by an increasing
number of large support organizations – and the probability of it becoming a global
standard increases every day.

Reproduced by kind permission of White Kepner-Tregoe Inc
http://www.kepner-tregoe.com/pdfs/KTPDFs/ITIL2007.pdf

REXAM Beverage Can UK choose Oxygen Enterprise Service Desk

e-Warehouse — 18/07/2011

"Rexam Beverage Can UK Ltd were looking for an on demand tool, that would satisfy its immediate requirements for a Help Desk ticketing tool. We had 30 days to turn around a solution from the start, and we needed to incorporate ITIL best practice into our operation.

E-Warehouse were selected after a review of features, flexibility (SAAS), and price point. The SAAS feature was key to our requirements, as we needed to operate from multiple locations, with a small team, and working 24 x 7 x 365. The ability to keep detailed notes, co-ordinate activity between the distributed team at all hours, whilst not experiencing any downtime was paramount.

Oxygen staked a claim on its own merits, the product sold itself to us, along with the hosted solution, we had no difficulty in appointing E-Warehouse on our programme.

Since the implementation, E-Warehouse have continued to take a pragmatic and flexible approach to our technical and operational needs, for example customisation of dashboard views, and reports. Turnaround on issues and requests has been good, and what you would expect from a passionate company like E-Warehouse.”

Jonathan Chapman
Global Service Management Manager
REXAM Beverage Can UK Ltd

The importance of Business Processes

e-Warehouse — 18/07/2011

We all know how important processes are in the management of IT and the benefits that can be gained.

A simple rule being a process should be definable, repeatable, and measurable. Great time and cost savings can be made even by the simplest of process, where would the automotive industry be without process and planning and at what stage of the build would you put the wheels on the car?

With this very much in mind Oxygen has been designed to allow the simple mapping of processes into the service desk application, typically they are either linear or parallel requiring either a series of events or multiple events at them same time, or a mixture of both, Oxygen can manage them all.

A typical example and commonly repeated process in any company using Information Technology is the “new starter”.

The first part of this process is typically a “Request Form” which is usually completed by the HR Manager.

With Oxygen Service Desk this can be completed through our new “New Web Portal”. Having been received by IT the request will go through various stages, firstly it may be authorisation by management, followed by perhaps the Procurement or an IT Administrator to check that the company has the correct IT equipment and that it is available and if not look to procure new hardware or software (another process in its own right).

Most probably there might be the need to create an Active Directory account or similar and Email account. Further application accounts are then required and finally this needs to be delivered to the new user at a certain date and time, recorded and signed off.

With Oxygen you can manage this whole process and many more.

The Fast Track to Service Management Success

e-Warehouse — 18/07/2011

To successfully compete in today's marketplace, small & medium sized businesses must run efficiently. The right technology solutions can help SMBs to do this by improving business operations, employee productivity and profitability.

However as their dependence on information technology grows, it becomes more difficult for IT Service Desk personnel to adequately support end-users and the solutions that keep the business running smoothly. Unlike larger enterprises, SMBs frequently lack the IT resources to manage the growing array of hardware, software and systems necessary to support the business, and provide adequate levels of service to users.

Web-based, software-as-a-service (SaaS) or on-demand solutions can provide SMBs with a fresh approach to solving this dilemma. A SaaS service desk solution offers IT managers the feature-rich, real-time functionality they need without the burdens of deploying, managing and supporting costly hardware and software in house.

The white paper below begins with a discussion of the challenges that SMBs face in managing and supporting the IT solutions they need to run their businesses and examines the obstacles they face trying to effectively meet service management objectives. It then explores strategies for selecting a service management solution and how the SaaS approach can help SMBs meet these support challenges without increasing the burden on overworked IT personnel. Finally, a case study is presented that illustrates the effectiveness of this approach.

Download file

The College of West Anglia deploys Oxygen Service Desk

e-Warehouse — 18/07/2011

The College of West Anglia is one of the largest and most successful education and training providers in the Eastern Region as well as being in the top 10% of colleges in England.

Based on four campuses - King's Lynn in Norfolk, Milton and Wisbech (2)in Cambridgeshire - and with local learning centres in Downham Market, Fakenham, Sheringham and Hunstanton.

Reseller Opportunities

e-Warehouse — 18/07/2011

We are currently looking for new Partners to work with us both in the UK and US markets.

Having built up a number of strategic partnerships with organisations who provide consultancy and implementation services within IT Support, we are looking to form new partnerships. To find out more about becoming an Authorised Solution Partner, please contact us.

Want to know more about Software as a Service?

e-Warehouse — 18/07/2011

Many independent software vendors (ISVs) are recognising the benefits of offering software
as a service (SaaS) as an alternative for their customers and once the teething problems have
been overcome there are a number of long term benefits for both parties.

Read Quocirca’s recent whitepaper.

Download file

e-Warehouse gets to SaaS market first with NTT Europe Online

e-Warehouse — 18/07/2011

The IT service desk is a behind-the-scenes function in every business – but one that’s vital to the delivery of effective customer service. So e-Warehouse knew that a reliable hosting platform was critical to developing a hosted version of its service-desk software product.

e-Warehouse is an established provider of IT service-desk software, and has always made a point of listening closely to its customers in order to set itself apart from the competition. In late 2006, when an increasing number of users began asking for a Software as a Service (SaaS) version of its Oxygen software, Managing Director Richard Althorp knew he had to respond quickly.

Demand for SaaS has been growing rapidly given its obvious user benefits. Because SaaS software is delivered over the web, rather than being installed on local servers, users enjoy simplified deployment without the costs of installing, configuring, maintaining and scaling their own systems. Instead, customers benefit from the economies of scale that a SaaS provider can offer, and pay a predictable ‘utility’ price each month.

In 2006, SaaS products were already popular in areas such as CRM. But the IT service-desk market had no such pay-as-you-go offering, meaning e-Warehouse had the opportunity to create a world first.

Seizing the opportunity

“We were always going to develop a SaaS model for Oxygen,” explains Althorp. “But the market was requesting it so strongly that we made it a top priority.”

Althorp knew that e-Warehouse had to develop Oxygen’s SaaS offering carefully if it was to succeed. Traditionally, software providers that experimented in the early days of SaaS, more commonly referred to then as ASP, failed to deliver because their applications were poorly suited to being delivered over the web and the functionality suffered because of this. “We knew that Oxygen, as a natively web-based product, would be fast and stable. But I always say that there are two critical factors for SaaS customers: first, is the application robust, fast and feature rich? Second, how well does the hosting infrastructure hold up?”

It was for these reasons that Althorp turned to NTT Europe Online (NTTEO) as hosting provider for the new SaaS solution. “The NTTEO name is very important in making our customers feel comfortable. We have blue-chip clients and an aggressive global growth strategy. That’s why we needed a global business partner – and there aren’t many providers around who could offer what NTTEO offers.”

A comfortable fit

NTTEO was to factor highly in Althorp’s ambitious plans for growth and service levels. “We know that the NTTEO infrastructure could deliver the service levels we needed, because it is built with tier-one equipment from vendors such as IBM, Sun, Checkpoint, Nokia and Cisco,” explains Althorp. “Speed was also a big part of our decision. The very low latency of parent company NTT Communications’ worldwide backbone means that we can grow to cover America, Australia or South Africa without worrying about compromising Oxygen’s performance.”

“Equally important was NTTEO’s attitude towards process and security. “Unlike other providers, we map our product to many business processes and frameworks including ITIL. Our customers appreciate the commitment to best practice in security and information management.” Althorp continues: “That’s why we need to be associated with like-minded organisations. NTTEO’s ISO27001 certification for information security management shows that they share our commitment to doing business methodically, to the highest standards of security and data protection. It makes me – and my customers – feel comfortable.”

The SaaS offering became available from the start of 2007, and customers began signing up for pilot implementations immediately. e-Warehouse is initially running two servers with Windows and SQL Workgroup, with up to 20 clients per server. The first projects have gone live and are running without any problems.

Encouraging results

The feedback has already been extremely positive. “Customers aren’t just pleased with the simple deployment, anywhere access and cost savings they get from SaaS. They’re also genuinely astounded that they get access to the complete feature-set of Oxygen – they’re used to web applications being ‘cut down’ versions of the perpetual license software. So our mission now is to educate the market that SaaS is really enterprise-class, when you’ve got an application like Oxygen that’s designed for it.”

Customers are starting to trust SaaS with their critical service-desk processes – and that trust is built by NTTEO, as Althorp explains: “I know that NTTEO focuses on business-class hosting and managed services, so it’s easy for me to trust my business to them. I know that we come across as a more credible provider for our customers with NTTEO as a partner.”

Bright future

Althorp is excited about the future. “Sophisticated service-desk functionality is now available to smaller businesses, with the world’s first pay-as-you-go model for incident management. As SaaS becomes more established, we anticipate very fast growth in the next 18 months. We look forward to a great future in partnership with NTT Europe Online."

Register here for our FREE Webinars

e-Warehouse — 18/07/2011

We run a series of free webinars to help you better understand how you can utilise Oxygen Service Desk in your enviroment. For a current up to date time on our webinars please call 0118 929 8326 or email info@e-warehouse.com.

IT transformed by ‘Y2K’ hysteria

e-Warehouse — 18/07/2011

How the emergence of the IT service desk changed the management of business processes and provided accountability for IT investments

For any business, ensuring value is gained from an IT investment is paramount but for the SME and other fast growing businesses, the need is particularly acute. Yet, despite this, it’s only relatively recently that the IT function has been subjected to the kinds of formal processes that govern other aspects of a business, such as sales, marketing, administration and finance.

Introduction of business processes into IT
It all began in the lead-up to the millennium, when mass hysteria and fear over what would happen to IT systems when the world entered the 21st Century predominated business chiefs thoughts. Would all networks collapse? Would companies be able to cope and deliver their services? Extensive media hype led companies to invest heavily in hardware and software tools to address potential problems. IT teamss had money thrown at them by the business and they bought accordingly.

However, organisations soon realised this was an error. The lack of business processes used in IT at the time resulted in unnecessary expenditure on a massive scale and business responded by developing processes to make IT more accountable and manageable. IT departments needed to know everything about their systems and integrate themselves fully with the wider organisation. They had to make wholesale changes and become a facilitator of the business; not only delivering a better service but also saving and making the company money.

IT geeks becoming business savvy?
Before this shake-up, the perception of the IT department was that it loitered in the background, occasionally surfacing to respond to problems with the system. IT dealt with user requests and system issues as they came in and this became the established approach to helpdesk delivery. Users within the business would call the IT department with a problem and technicians would endeavour to fix it as quickly as possible, with responsibility being passed from one person to another depending on the scale of the problem. This not only made it very difficult for the IT department to track the history of an incident but also to prioritise jobs effectively. The IT department needed to change how it was being perceived and the only way they could do this was by introducing formal management processes.

The IT director and manager has necessarily become more business-savvy and transformed from the ‘technical geek’ into the ‘strategic thinker’. Like any other part of the business, IT needed to improve its business processes. Previous less structured approaches to service had put the IT department under considerable pressure by making it impossible to set deliverable expectations and communicate them effectively to the organisation. They had to start communicating in a common business language that the whole organisation could understand.

As a result, service management has become critical in enabling IT to take a business driven approach to its management. IT directors and managers are increasingly looking to demonstrate the strategic business value generated by their department and deliver a higher quality service in line with the needs of the organisation it serves.

Emergence of the IT service desk
The key to the helpdesk maturing and evolving into the service desk was the emergence of the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL). The approach was initially developed by Government departments as a framework to address IT service support and delivery issues and has subsequently been adopted by the private sector. In both the public and private spaces, it provides a systematic and professional approach to the management of IT service provision.

ITIL’s introduction has been vital for the development of business processes because it has established a set of guidelines and a common language for IT operations. This includes service delivery, problem resolution and solving customer enquiries, a language the whole business could understand.

Adopting this framework has helped IT departments manage their processes more efficiently and this in turn has reduced costs, improved productivity, use of skills and experience in the team and boosted customer satisfaction through a more professional approach to service delivery.

The formalisation of IT processes has spurred development in the systems designed to manage the helpdesk function. These service desk solutions are now playing a central role in facilitating, rather than dictating, business processes.

One of the key benefits of the service desk is that it has enabled the IT department to implement, monitor and manage service level agreements (SLAs) for its internal clients. SLAs can been allocated according to roles and responsibilities and can then be categorised under headings such as ‘critical’, ‘high’ or ‘medium’. This criteria can then be cross-referenced with the applications/assets these individuals need to perform their core functions. For example, remote access for a field engineer may be assigned ‘critical’ ranking because without it they can’t perform their job. In practical terms this means the IT department is now better placed to ensure its services are aligned with the requirements of the organisation.

It’s the implementation of these systems that can help IT managers record and evaluate the number of incidents their users are experiencing. Before IT departments improved the management of their processes, they ticketed isolated incidents and a problem couldn’t be identified because the incidents had no linkage or life-cycle. The introduction of the service desk has expedited this process, logging issues in a knowledgebase which is automatically searched when calls are logged to identify trends and previous resolutions. This ensures that time spent on more complex queries is maximised.

All these best practice processes make call handling as straightforward and effective as possible, both for the service desk and for the customer. By maintaining a detailed audit trail of call actions it ensures that anyone can rapidly familiarise themselves with the history of a particular query and pick up where the previous technician left off.

Future steps
With ITIL now an established framework, working towards standards such as ISO20000 is likely to become a major priority for IT departments. ISO20000 comprises two distinct documents: a specification for a service management system and a code of practice. Together, these form a top-down framework to define the features of service management processes that are essential for the delivery of high quality services. As time goes on, more service providers and vendors are likely to adopt this as a means of demonstrating their expertise.

IT fights back
The millennium bug looked like it was going to crash head-on with IT and destroy everything in its path. Instead, it provided the ‘IT geek’ with an opportunity to fight back and emerge as a ‘strategic thinker’. By taking a business-driven approach and becoming definable, repeatable and measurable, the IT department has come round in full circle from being a perceived drain on budgets to a true facilitator of the business.

Visit us at this years Service Desk & IT Support Show on 24-26 April

e-Warehouse — 18/07/2011

Visit Europe's largest event for helpdesk, IT service management and business support professionals at Olympia, London.

Doors open at 09:30 - 16:30.

We will be exhibiting on stand 321 and will be showcasing the worlds first "pay-as-you-go" SaaS hosted service desk as well demonstrating other products in the Oxygen Service Desk suite of products.

Come and see what everyone in the industry is talking about and sign up on the day to Oxygen SaaS for FREE for three months.

Microsoft and BT are to launch an online marketplace for hosted applications, aimed at small-business customers.

e-Warehouse — 10/06/2011

The BT Applications Marketplace forms part of Microsoft's concerted push into the field of "software as a service" (SaaS), a delivery mechanism whereby software is remotely hosted and usually paid for on a monthly subscription basis, rather than hosted on a company's own server and paid for up-front.

There will be an element of survival of the fittest here, and customer demand will win out.

Karl Noakes, Microsoft

SaaS is seen by some as ideally suited to the SME market because of the reduced risk it offers, as well as the way in which it lets customers quickly drop an application that is not working for them in favour of another. It also provides an opportunity for independent software vendors (ISVs) to access large corporations.

However, it is also seen as a threat by IT departments in some small firms, which note that purchasing decisions for SaaS are generally made by business rather than IT managers, and fear their jobs could fall victim to what is essentially a form of outsourcing.

On Wednesday Microsoft announced the launch of its "Partnering for the Future" initiative, involving the creation of a new channel of partners for the company ranging from application developers to telecommunications providers and hosting companies. The move follows on from the November introduction of the two-day SaaS Incubation programme, which is designed to bring software vendors, especially those developing applications on the back of Microsoft's Live platform, into the SaaS fold.

The Microsoft-BT linkup will be based on Microsoft's SOA-based Connected Services Framework (CSF) service aggregation platform. According to Claire O'Halloran of Microsoft's partner development group, applications that customers can expect to see include "commodity apps" such as those for human resources, CRM and payroll, but also niche applications geared at the likes of estate agents and dentists. One example of a vendor that seems likely to be part of the marketplace is Nitrosell, which supplies integrated e-commerce applications.

On Wednesday, O'Halloran said her team was currently introducing ISVs to BT and putting them through a "Dragon's Den" pitching process. Official registrations for the marketplace will open in March, and the service should become available soon after.

"BT has customer reach [and] we have a bunch of ISVs that have traditionally been more sales-led, but are wanting to move to being marketing-led," explained Karl Noakes, director of partner development and marketing for Microsoft. "There will be an element of survival of the fittest here, and customer demand will win out." Around 30 SaaS applications are expected to be available through the marketplace at its launch.

Those ISVs whose products prove particularly popular could see their products incorporated into BT's own portfolio under the BT brand, said O'Halloran.

Oxygen SaaS Express revolutionises SME IT service desk delivery.

e-Warehouse — 10/06/2011

The new solution provides pay-as-you-go access to e-Warehouse’s application for just £1 per incident, with no installation required or additional costs incurred.

The pay-as-you-go model is available to any business making up to 50 helpdesk calls per month, enabling them to reap the benefits of e-Warehouse’s versatile, ITIL compliant application.

Also available as a hosted service or an installed solution, the suite of
e-Warehouse products enables businesses of all sizes to lower the cost of delivering outstanding IT service.

Business Processes – Making IT accountable for the SME

e-Warehouse — 10/06/2011

For the SME, gaining value from an IT investment is paramount. Yet, despite this, it’s only relatively recently that the IT function has been subjected to the kinds of formal processes that govern other aspects of a business, such as sales, marketing, administration and finance.

Before this change, IT had a very reactive approach to service delivery, dealing with user requests and system issues as they occurred. Users within the business would call the IT department with a problem and technicians would endeavour to fix it as quickly as possible, with responsibility being passed from one person to another depending on the scale of the problem. Not only did this make it difficult for the IT department to track the history of an incident, it also made it impossible to prioritise jobs effectively. IT needed to change and the only way it could do this was by introducing formal management processes.

The IT director and manager has transformed from the “technical geek” into the “strategic thinker”. Like any other part of the business, IT needed to improve its business processes. Previous less structured approaches to service had put the IT-department under considerable pressure, making it impossible to set deliverable expectations and communicate them effectively to the organisation.

As a result, service management has become critical in enabling IT to take a business-driven approach to its management. IT directors and managers are increasingly looking to demonstrate the strategic business value generated by their department and deliver a higher quality service in line with the needs of the organisation it serves. The formalisation of IT processes has spurred development in the systems designed to manage the helpdesk function and service desk solutions are now playing a central role in facilitating, rather than dictating, business processes.

This shift has enabled IT departments to implement, monitor and manage service level agreements (SLAs), which are allocated according to an individual’s role and responsibilities and then cross-referenced with the applications/assets that they need to perform their core functions. In practical terms this means that the IT department is now better placed to ensure its services are aligned with the requirements of the organisation.

These systems can help IT managers to record and evaluate the number of incidents their users are experiencing. Before IT departments improved the management of their processes, they responded to isolated incidents which meant a problem couldn’t be identified because the incidents had no linkage or life-cycle. The introduction of the service desk has expedited this process, logging issues in a knowledgebase which is automatically searched when calls are logged to identify trends and previous resolutions. This ensures that time spent on more complex queries is maximised.

By taking a business-driven approach and becoming definable, repeatable and measurable, the IT department has come round in full circle from being a perceived drain on budgets to a true facilitator of the business.

IT Service Desk Supports Frontline Carers for Leonard Cheshire

e-Warehouse — 10/06/2011

e-Warehouse software helps charity create IT SLAs to improve delivery of frontline services to 21,000 disabled people throughout the UK

As with any service provider of its size, IT plays an integral role in ensuring that clients' needs are met. Leonard Cheshire uses its systems to co-ordinate and manage the provision of care and support for more than 21,000 people throughout the UK, which makes the IT department’s ability to respond to any issues promptly and effectively an absolute necessity.

Prior to its work with e-Warehouse, the charity had no internal IT helpdesk facility in place to deal with user requests and system issues, as Carole Thornton, Systems Analyst with Leonard Cheshire, explains:

"We'd handled the helpdesk function comparatively informally by using a shared mailbox for logging support requests. We had some processes for dealing with the issues as they came in, but it was incredibly difficult to track the history of an incident or prioritise jobs effectively. Not only did this put the IT department under considerable pressure, it also made it impossible to set deliverable expectations and communicate them effectively to the rest of the organisation."

Realising that service desk software could play a major role in boosting the efficiency of the IT department, Leonard Cheshire decided to implement a formal facility to actively manage and improve the service to their internal users.

Introducing the service desk

Six solutions were subjected to evaluation before e-Warehouse's web-based Oxygen product was selected.

Oxygen has been supporting the Leonard Cheshire IT department since it went live in January 2006. The web-based software is installed on a single server, located in Millbank, and supports 2000 employees throughout the country. The helpdesk is manned by four staff who provide front-line support to users for support requests, such as password resets and installing printers. The 18-strong IT department offers specialist support to resolve more complicated issues. In addition, some problem management activities involving on-site engineer visits are outsourced.

One of the key benefits of the system is that it has enabled the IT department to implement, monitor and manage service level agreements (SLAs) with its internal clients for the first time. SLAs have been allocated according to the severity of the problem and fall under the heading of critical, high, medium or project, all of which will receive a response to their call or email within an hour of their first contact.

In practical terms this means the IT department is now better placed to ensure its services are aligned with the requirements of the organisation. For example, Leonard Cheshire is running the “LEO project”, a nationwide system to assist in the management of the provision and coordination of everyday, essential care for disabled people in their own homes. Staff involved in the LEO project may be assigned 'critical' ranking for their SLA, as Thornton explains:

"Our systems are used to coordinate the schedules of visiting support workers, so it’s vital to ensure that any period of time that the systems are not running effectively for these workers is kept to an absolute minimum. The people managing these frontline workers meet the criteria for critical SLAs and using Oxygen means we can now prioritise, escalate and track calls to the service desk far more effectively than with our previous approach.”
Since the software went live, e-Warehouse has continued to work closely with Thornton to ensure the product supports Leonard Cheshire’s requirements. A number of features published in the latest version of the Oxygen product, version 3.6, were developed directly as a result of feedback and input from Thornton and her team, such as integration with Active Directory to reduce the administration associated with updating user details.

Reporting and forecasting

Leonard Cheshire has used Oxygen’s detailed reporting functionality to ensure that the work of the IT department is more accountable, particularly to senior management. In addition to generating business and operational reports to identify where there are resource issues and system problems, it has also enabled the organisation to measure staff performance.

“The figures generated in the Oxygen reports present a clear picture of staff productivity, which we’ve now incorporated into the appraisal process to help set clear targets and objectives for the team. We also get detailed technology reports, which helps us to identify re-occurring pain points and inefficiencies in the infrastructure and will enable us to present a compelling case for future IT investment. Without Oxygen, we would not be in a position to do any of this,” concludes Thornton.

About Leonard Cheshire

Leonard Cheshire exists to change attitudes to disability and to serve disabled people around the world. The organisation's principal activity in the UK is the provision of services in support of disabled people in the widest context, including care homes, supported living, domiciliary support, day services, resource centres, rehabilitation, respite care, personal support and training and assistance for those looking for work.

Leonard Cheshire is headquartered in Millbank, London, and operates in more than 150 locations throughout the UK.