HelpDesk

Overview

Fast and efficient management of technical support inquiries is probably one of the most significant and critical tasks for every company, which products or services are related to information technologies. Optimal organization of this business process has direct impact on customer satisfaction level — and thus also on future sales.

Multi-year experience in international software sales development projects (both in product- and service-oriented models) allowed Program-Ace LLC to integrate the best practice in this sphere into one flexible system. The result of this work was called HelpDesk.

Goal

The key challenge of the project was to make a feature-rich and reliable product with comprehensive functionality — and yet to keep it simple and user-friendly.

Originally the task was commissioned to Program-Ace team by Mindsystems Pty Ltd (Australia). Among the objectives set by the customer were:

• Full automation of all incoming inquiries collection and processing
• Development of both server and client parts
• New user interface
• Administrative module with advanced functionality (first of all, effective assignment of the tickets to corresponding specialists)
• Tracking and reminder tools (including E-mail templates and group mailing tool)
• General optimization of the process (tickets prioritization, pre-set response templates, etc.).

Target audiences

Not only has each successful product to be on the cutting edge of the current technologies, but also should it correspond or even exceed the needs of certain user groups.

HelpDesk was developed to meet the needs and expectations of 3 main groups: first of all, users of software products and services; from the other hand, it is designed to assist the daily tasks of support teams. And finally, the high-level features are aimed at the work of supervisors and administrators of CRM or technical support departments.

Generally, the system covers all the main functions of the complete business process related to the effective handling of client inquiries.

Resources and organization

The project involved several types of specialists within the Program-Ace team.

First of all, those were analysts (assessment stage) and system architects responsible for choosing the technologies and overall set-up of the product. As the result, an exact and comprehensive SRS was developed, discussed and agreed upon by both sides.

On the next stage, a team of experienced Web-developers created the key modules, which were then integrated into a standalone application by the server technologies group.

Finally, the quality assurance department performed comprehensive tests, which were followed by the standard revision and updating cycle.

Such multi-level approach allowed forming of a flexible and competent product team, which led to the successful implementation of the project.

Results

Main outputs of the project were:

1. Development of the scalable knowledgebase, which enabled significantly easier searching for necessary information
2. Creation of flexible ticket management system
3. Successful testing of the peak load capacity

According to the requirements of the three abovementioned target groups, the final version of HelpDesk (tm) included the following key features:

For the users:

• Options to add service tickets with or without prior authorization;
• Files could be attached to the ticket (if allowed by the administrator);
• Setting of priorities for the tickets;
• Ticket tracking (for instance, new comments or status changes) - plus corresponding automatic notifications;
• Profile management;
• Searchable knowledge base;
• Direct adding of tickets via E-mail.

Specific tasks of support teams were targeted by:

• advanced inquiry filtering (for instance, new only, assigned to the certain department, etc.);
• tickets acceptance module — for the pending inquiries;
• re-assignment of the tickets to other departments;
• sending of private messages to the users and tracking of ticket-related dialogs;
• knowledgebase management;
• pre-set tickets answers and advanced commenting.

System administrator’s rights also include:

• Review of all tickets;
• Assignment of the request to any member of staff or any other department;
• Management of staff, users and departments;
• Flood-protection mechanism (relevancy check-up);
• Creation of message templates;
• Editing of the knowledgebase articles;
• Management of quick-response templates;
• E-mail addresses ban-list;
• Tuning of the system’s parameters (editing of invariables, etc.);
• Group mailing.

Thus, the overall output of the project exceeded the original requirements and expectations. Active and open communication allowed the participants to work in the most intensive and constructive way, providing timely solutions for both organizational and technical issues, which appeared during the production cycle.

Perspectives

Further evolution of the product is likely to include such extensions as wiki-style knowledge management system or communication functionality (integration with forum and live chat modules, sending of reminders to cell phones).

Another sphere of possible enhancements includes new interactive features (e.g., desktop or application sharing) and multimedia-modules (voice messages, conferencing, etc.).

On the next stage, the system is likely to become a part of larger project management software focused on IT development and service branch. It is necessary to mention that the team of Program-Ace already has an experience in this domain – with such an advanced tool as AceRemoteProject™ developed and promoted in cooperation with Intel(R) Software Partner Program since 2006.

Comments

Oleg Fonarov, CEO of Program-Ace: "It is our general approach – to look for new answers for the issues which are already known for a long time. That’s where technology meets optimization of the business processes and helps companies to gain additional advantages in their internal procedures and communication with the customers."

Alexey Khlupin, team leader of the project: "New ideas were constantly born during the whole cycle of the HelpDesk’s development. The important inputs into the production process were feedbacks from the customer and our partners who work in the IT branch. This allowed us not only to find optimal technical solutions, but also to meet the expectations of target market in a best possible way."

Alex England, ITS Operations Manager of Mindsystems Pty Ltd: "I would like to take this opportunity to thank Program-Ace for their high level of professionalism and expertise, which was demonstrated consistently by the Program-Ace team throughout the project. Their attention to detail, speed of response and innovative approach toward software development make them a true market leader."