Help Desk Software Review - Service-now.com

Here is the review of Service-now.com


Screenshot of the web-page :

From the service provider,

"At ServiceNow we call this new level of service IT 3.0.  Born on the cloud, our IT Service Management solutions help the best IT thinkers to transform from the legacy status quo to a new level of world-class IT service."

Pros :

• They are providing a wiki page with the clear explanation of all the features.
• Providing all the basic help desk functions and they are categorized based on industry, roles and service based for user- friendly navigations.
• Selecting an IT hero every month and providing them with complimentary passes.
• Follows ITIL best practices.

Cons :

• service-now needs you to install so many plugins for functions like self service, integrations and so on.
• There is not even a sign up button in Service-now website and we can’t find their official pricing details anywhere
• Service-now requires knowledge about JavaScript or some other scripting language to configure or enhance a mid to large sized deployment, since business rules, client scripts, and UI actions are all written in JavaScript.
• service-now is provided with so many plugins for every function which need to be installed with proper guidance.

For detailed feature by feature listing, check Service-now Review

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How ITIL-based IT Help Desk can help Small and Medium Businesses

Author: ManageEngine Zoho

Introduction:

 

Everybody knows Bob! Bob works in the IT department of a Financial Services company. When the Office staff have a problem, they call him and say, 'Hey Bob, I have a situation here, Can you fix it'. Bob knows all the employees by name and their assets details. He fixes all problems and runs a great show. The business is going great and the company expands adding more employees providing them more IT Services. Can Bob still run the show? Let us see how ITIL-based Help Desk Software can help Bob and businesses with IT Help Desk team similar to Bob\'s run a great show and provide uninterrupted IT services.

How ITIL can help SMBs to streamline IT Service Support?

 

Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) is a framework of best practices to manage IT operations and services. Government of Commerce, UK defined ITIL in the mid 1980s for business to efficiently manage their IT environment. ITIL \'s main objective is to align business and Information Technology. ITIL\'s IT Service Support process helps organizations to efficiently manage software, hardware, and human resource services to ensure continued and uninterrupted business. ITIL defines that the core function of IT Service is to offer 'uninterrupted and best possible service' to all users. It defines 5 processes such as Incident Management, Problem Management, Configuration Management, Change Management, and Release Management to offer uninterrupted and best possible service. ITIL does not mandate enterprises and organization to implement all the framework specifications. This freedom to choose is one of the prime reasons why ITIL is still very relevant even today to enterprises of all sizes. SMBs need to have a cost savings approach to ITIL implementation; this approach helps them to adopt the right features without getting caught in standards-sake ITIL implementations.
Here is an illustration that shows how SMBs can manage an IT environment with an ITIL-based Service Support solution. Consider an Office with users having IT and non-IT assets. Consider that IT and non-IT asset services are handled by the IT Support team and Quality of Service offered is at an excellent level. The Excellent QOS is an end result of the IT Support team and all the components such as IT, non-IT assets, and complete IT infrastructure functioning at their best. As shown in the illustration, all requests from users are classified as Incidents and problems, a workaround is suggested to ensure that normal operations and services are not affected. Problems are traced to their root cause and a Change is initiated to eliminate problems and related incidents. Using ITIL\'s Incident, Problem, Configuration, and Change Management, the IT Support staffs continually ensure that all components perform at their best level, to contribute to the Excellent Quality of Service.

Managing Chaos with ITIL

 

Most SMBs start with a modest email-based IT Support setup, but as they grow and as service requests increase, the quality of service drops drastically. The IT support team gets into a fire-fighting mode, just resolving requests to avoid service failure. Without ITIL, there is no vision to proactively identify and resolve problems before it affects service and business. ITIL provides the framework or the 'common sense approach' to IT service support so that each issue is analyzed to determine the root cause. Finally, the root cause of the problem is eliminated to prevent similar problems in the future.

Steps to implement ITIL

 

• Make a clear plan of high-level goals to be achieved with the ITIL implementation
• Implement an ITIL-based Service Desk with Incident, Problem, Change, and Configuration Management

Planning your ITIL Implementation

 

Enterprises need to plan ITIL implementation with clearly defined short term and long-term goals. This helps enterprises to stay focused on their vision with every step and on the whole move.
A simple plan with the following key points can help SMBs to stay focused and implement ITIL successfully.

• What is the Vision?
• Where are we now?
• Where do we want to be?
• How do we get where we want to be?
• Check Milestones to ensure the organization is head towards defined vision

Define Your Vision

 

Define high-level objectives you need to move towards.
These objectives can help you define and refine your goals.

Example

 

• Move towards ideal minimal cost to provide the best &
  uninterrupted services possible
• Provide 99.9service uptime
• Provide new services to users and take services to the
  next level

Where We Are Now

 

Take a baseline statistics of Key Performance Indicators.
Track statistics and trends to measure KPI.

Example

 

• Total number of incoming call volumes
• Total number of first call resolutions
• Average Service downtime in a week, month, quarter, and year.
• New services introduced
• Service Support staff distribution taking level1, level2, and level3 calls
• Total time spent by Service Support staff by level of
  issues

Where Do We Want To Be

 

Define specific goals to improve on Key Performance
Indicators based on the KPI statistics, define specific goals to
improve service. This can be considered as short-term goals
towards improving the service.

Example

 

• Reduce Incoming service calls by 40/li>
  
• Increase first call resolution rate by 20/li>
  
• Reduce the most frequent service outage

How Do We Get Where We Want To Be

 

Implement ITIL process or part of the process to reach your
short term goals

Example

 

• To reduce Incoming 40in incoming service calls
• Implement a Self-service Portal with solution to common problems users can resolve themselves
• To Increase first call resolution rate by 20/li>
  
• Implement a Help Desk solution with asset management and network monitoring software to drill into problems and resolve them faster.

Check Milestones And Direction

 

Check Milestones and KPIs to ensure you are heading
towards your vision

Example

 

Define Timelines to check the impact of short-term goals on
your KPIs

• Check how many users logged in to Self-service portal to solve their issues and analyze how it reduced your level1, level 2 calls.
• Check if your first call resolutions rates have increased
• Analyze results from User Satisfaction Survey

Implementing ITIL-based Help Desk

 

Enterprises can implement an ITIL based Help Desk for proactive IT service management and to reduce service downtime. Consider a financial services company with multiple teams of employees. Employees are spread across two floors and all employees have a workstation to run their applications. Employees access a shared resource pool of printers to print out cheques or transaction reports. Employees print cheques often as they sanction loans and provide financial reports to customers. Workstation or printer failure can be critical for business. Let us see how IT Help Desk staff can implement an ITIL-based Help Desk solution to identify and manage service requests, eliminate problems and provide uninterrupted service.

Incident Management

 

When an employee sends a request saying that he is unable to print. There can be various reasons why he is unable to print, the service staff needs to ask the right questions to understand and pin point service problems. Here are a few possibilities.

Right Questions

 

• Is the Printer configured in his machine
• What is the name of the printer he is configured to
• Are the required Device Drivers working properly
• Is the Toner Low in Printer
• Is the Printer out of paper
• Is there a Printer Paper Jams

Right Details

 

• Requestor details
• Requestor location and network connected to
• Workstation details
• Hardware and Software installed
• Printer Status & Details
• Network Status & Details

Right Answers

 

All the information is pulled out from the requestor and the support staff gets back to the requestor with alternative problems to print by anyone of the following options

• Directing the request to another functioning printer
• Configuring the printer
• Restoring the printer

An incident is an event that it is not part of the standard operation. It interrupts or reduces the Quality of Service.
In this instance a single user being unable to print, this affects the user alone and might not affect business in a big way. This event only reduces the overall QOS from Excellent to Good, so this event can be classified as an Incident.

Problem Management

 

The Office operations are not affected in a big way by Incidents, as only a single employee is affected in this case. But when another employee or a group of employees send requests communicating that they are unable to print. In this case, when the second incident is raised, a basic check is performed with the knowledge base for matching incidents. If there are matching similar individual Incidents pointing to a single point of failure. This might be classified as a problem as it might adversely affect business as a group of employees are affected. The Support Staff must provide resolve the situation to restore the QOS. After asking the Right Questions and getting the Right Details, the support staff zero in on the problem. Say if there is a printer malfunction that is causing the problem. The printer needs to be replaced and normal operation must be restored to affected users at the earliest.

Problems Solutions

 

Printer not configured Configure Printer / Provide detailed steps to configure printer Printer Problems Provide detailed steps to load paper, load toner, or clear a paper jam
The main goal of problem management is to find the root cause of the problem proactively and eliminate all the related incidents. The Support staff can get back configuring the workstation or rectifying or by providing users an alternative way to print.
The goal of problem management is find the root cause of the problem and to eliminate incidents and prevent further incidents related to the problem.

Configuration Management Database

 

The CMDB is one integrated database that contains all the details about employees, workstations, devices, incidents, problems, changes, and complete details of all the components in business. It provides a public Knowledge base of Known errors and solutions that help employees search and resolve minor incidents themselves with out contacting the Help Desk. It provides private knowledge base for the Support Staff get detailed reports about all assets with problem history, work-around and temporary fixes.

Requestor Details

 

• Requestor Name
• Requestor Contact Details
• Requestor Location
• Associated priority
• Associated Workstations and assets

Workstation Details

 

• Location of workstation
• Workstation type, manufacturer, vendor with complete
  request history
• Workstation Hardware and software details
• Complete associated inventory details

Associated Assets

 

• Associated assets details such as printers, scanners, and
  webcams.
• Asset Status, availability reports, and problem history

Change Management

 

Now employees are given a workaround to print, still the problem remains and points to the printer. A detailed report with workstation and printer problem history from the CMDB shows that the printer has been failing repeatedly. To eliminate the problem, the printer needs to be changed and replaced with a new printer to restore normal services. A change is initiated to resolve a problem and a proposal is raised to replace the old faulty printer with a new printer. A proposal to change printer is submitted for approval, the approver can be IT manager or COO based on the cost of purchase. A detailed plan is prepared to implement change with a roll-back plan acting as a safety net. After implementing the change, the requestor needs to verify that change was successful.

Steps

 

Explanation

 

Proposal for change

 

A proposal for change is planned based on the requestor\'s information and problem history report of the printer. The proposal for change must state, why change is required now with complete details

Evaluation of Change

 

The change plan is submitted to the approver and with an implementation plan that ensures minimal downtime during change. Example, if a new printer is installed and it might require printer configurations in all machines. Support staff needs to ensure that
change plan is implemented on non-business hours so that there is a minimal business impact.

Execution of Change

 

After the approval, the Change plan is executed

Post Implementation Review

 

After executing the change, approver(s) reviews the change to ensure it was successfully. Incase of an unsuccessful change the previous state is restored. If the change is successful it is approved

Close Change Request

 

Once the Requestors verify that implementing the change eliminated the problem. The change request is closed.
Enterprises can continually ensure excellent QOS by implementing Incident, Problem, Configuration, and Change management process to efficiently and proactively handle service requests.
Summary
Growing SMB with an expanding IT environment often struggle to provide uninterrupted IT services to users. Enterprises need to adopt a standards based solution to handle their IT services.

• ITIL can help IT support staff to control IT environment and provide uninterrupted IT Service at best QOS
• Enterprises must adopt a cost saving approach while implementing ITIL
• The Cost saving approach will help SMBs to plan and implement ITIL in the right way without getting lost in the standards
• 'Chaos Management with ITIL' shows how enterprises can plan and implement ITIL to proactively handle issues using Incident, Problem, Configuration, and Change Management and maintain excellent QoS.

Getting back to Bob, ITIL can help Bob manage IT Services, no matter how big his IT environment expands. It can help Bob and his team, resolve problems faster and prevent a few from even arising.

Acknowledgements

 

Thanks to Javier Garcia Arcal for his reviews and comments.
Javier Garcia Arcal is an independent Senior ITIL Consultant, he consults for large government and private corporations in Spain. He collaborates with Nebrija University handling part time courses on PMBOK (Technology Project Management). With his extensive experience in ITIL, Javier works part time as a trainer helping aspirants take the ITIL Foundation Exam. He is a major contributor at  and forum. Contact Javier Arcal at javier.arcal@gmail.com.
For comments on the White Paper get in touch with Alex D Paul at alexdpaul@manageengine.com
Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/software-articles/how-itil-based-it-help-desk-can-help-small-and-medium-businesses-3687758.html

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SaaS Help Desk Software Reviews / Best SaaS Help Desk Softwares

Nowadays, in all industries, every small and large enterprises are switching from on-premise software applications to SaaS services, of which the highest priority goes to help desk management services.  Since not all the SaaS help desk softwares are efficient to meet the organizational needs,  before considering any of the SaaS help desk providers, you need to carefully evaluate the SaaS help desk vendors for some key help desk features.

Here i have listed the best SaaS help desk software reviews available in the market (not specifically in any order).



ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus On-Demand

 " Service Desk Plus On-Demand is a SaaS help desk software with asset management that is delivered as software as a service on the cloud. Combining the SaaS advantage with a plethora of features for IT help desk management online, it enables the IT organization to provide best-in-class ITSM service to their users at unmatched value for money. By featuring the ITIL best practices that include Incident Management, Problem Management, Change Management, ServiceDesk Plus On-demand helps to streamline the IT processes and improve productivity."

Samanage

"SAManage is a SaaS based service desk solution that makes it easy to manage your users support requests. Users can submit new requests via email or your self-service portal, manage end-user service and support requests, collaborate with users and IT team members and deliver better IT service to your users. with no software to install, you can customize your help desk quickly and empower your users to submit support requests via the web."

Livetime

"LiveTime Help Desk is the Web 2.0 Help Desk system for small to medium organizations. Based on LiveTime Service Management platform, Help Desk provides access to many ITIL compliant service support features required to efficiently manage a modern Help Desk at a reasonable price."

 Webhelpdesk

 "The Web Help Desk is a high performance web application designed as a 100% browser-based solution. The Web Help Desk's browser-only focus guarantees a rich, powerful cross-platform application regardless of your operating system."

BMC Remedyforce

"With IT service management best practices built right in, Remedyforce is a smart step up for organizations that need a service desk solution. Automate your service desk processes and help your users help themselves"

Kayako

" Kayako on-demand is hosted in the kayako cloud and scales with the size of your helpdesk and organization. No need to maintain your own hardware or server administrators with latest backup and contingency technologies."

Zendesk

"Zendesk is a SaaS delivered help desk solution that provides a backend service for small to medium sized help desks. Some features include fully customisable tickets, RSS feeds for both tickets and views, tagging of all helpdesk attributes, self-service portal, tickets are email integrate, SLA tracking, knowledge base etc."

Helpdesksaas

"HelpDeskSAAS is a Help Desk Software-as-a-Service for customer service and support.  It lets you to automate help desk processes, record and manage online customer requests, and assign tasks to your team members. It also enables email integrations, workflow rules, automatic notifications, client self-service portal etc.

AJhelpdesk

"AJ Help Desk SaaS provides simple and effective help desk services to your customer support system. It covers customer support, ticket system and online help depends on your business needs. AJ Helpdesk SAAS is an economic, easy to use and useful tool for the growth of all type of business."

Service-now

" Service-now is the SaaS help desk software for enterprise IT management. The application was built to support the automation of ITIL processes such as incident, problem, change, release, request and SLA management. ServiceNow redefined the service desk with intuitive usability and the introduction of social IT."

I may have missed out some best saas help desk software reviews. Please use the comments section to share some some best saas help desk software reviews. Post your suggestions and feedbacks.

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Online Help Desk

The most effective way to run a help desk is only through online. Through online help desk software, you can easily run an effective and streamlined help desk for your company.

Online help desk softwares are said to be in On-demand model, ie with no software or hardware to buy, install, maintain, or upgrade, it prevents you from burdening into hardware and software maintenance processes. There is no need to download the product, rather it can be used with a single sign up to get instant access to the software.

However, there are some criterias, we need to check before buying any online help desk softwares. The three factors which is the must for any online help desk software are

Security Policy  -  To manage your help desk and assets without any data hacking or losing, check out security policy in any online help desk software whether it follows all the secured processes to keep your data and assets secured.

Here is the architecture of popular online help desk software in the market.

Source : Online help desk

ITIL Best Practices : Check whether the online help desk software supports ITIL compliant service modules to streamline your IT management processes, based on industry proven best ITIL practices.

User-Friendly : You need to check whether online help desk software is built with easy to use web based interface, built in features as per your business requirements with transparent pricing options.

Check out the online help desk software reviews and demo or use the trial period to know about the software, before buying it. Please share your comments, suggestions or feedbacks.

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Help Desk Solution

Help desk solution is the one which helps to manage all the complex databases containing your customer details, call logs, inventory details, problems, solutions, sla and so on.

Help desk cartoons

Eventhough there are so many reliable help desk solutions available in the market, you need to decide first, whether to go for hosted or cloud based solutions, as per your business requirements. This selection is purely based on your budget and the number of employees in your organization. Cloud based help desk is best suited to small organization as well as low budget businesses whereas the hosted help desk is suited for large organizations.

However, you need to check out certain essential key features before choosing any it help desk software for your business, as per your present and future requirements.  The top 5 essential features, you need to check in any help desk solution are,

Help desk solution

• Storage space (memory) which fits the help desk of your organization since the storage space increase as the organization grows.


• Secured FTP based file access since security is the most important factor for any help desk solution.


• 24*7 help desk support so that help desk can be accessed at any time.


• Simple usage which help you access the help desk without any expert guidance and any kind of complications. 


• Free trial before purchasing the help desk solution since you can work, analyze and check whether the help desk software has the ability to improve your productivity, even before purchasing the help desk solution for your business.

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Free Help Desk Software

From many IT service management providers, you can get free help desk software for effective business management at relatively no cost of service. When a product is given free, you can easily find some lack of trust and feature limitations. However, you can go for some 30 day free trial period as given by ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus, before buying any help desk software for your business to achieve real profitability and efficiency.

ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus helped them save $86,000

With reliable help desk softwares, you can get the following benefits

• Effective self service portal with trouble ticket management


• Email to ticket conversion


• Robust Knowledge base


• SLA management


• Help desk integrations


• Help desk with asset management software


• ITIL rich features


• Effective help desk reporting


• Inventory management and so on.

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Web Based Help Desk

Every business need help desk software to tackle customer demands and to answer their queries from time to time. It is more convenient when the help desk software is web based so that it can be accessed from anywhere and from any computer in the world.  

Source : Web based help desk

In web based help desk software, all kinds of help desk features like help desk ticketing, knowledge base, self service portal, asset management, asset tracking, SLA, Po tracking, contract management etc comes web based with easy to use, user-friendly navigation.

By using the web based help desk software, you will get a professional help desk dashboard with seperate logins for admin, requester and technician for effective ticket management system included with all the help desk features.

Check out the web based help desk demo here. 

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