As a service desk technician, you can gather plenty of system information prior to speaking with an end user about their service ticket. All it takes is the proper integrations between the right tools.
When someone enters a ticket stating that they are unable to access a particular website, often the first question you will ask will be, "What browser are you using?" and "What is the operating system?" You may also get more detailed with what versions are currently installed and what kind of device is reporting the issue. That is key information when dealing with a problem of this nature.
However, the end user often doesn't even know the answers to your questions.
Integrated Ticketing and Remote Control
With an integrated ticketing system, you can easily answer a few of these questions yourself, as you have access to see details on the device that reported the issue. Using a system such as this, you would be able to figure out solutions and resolve problems much more quickly -- without quizzing the end-user.
Taking it a step further, being able to click on the machine requesting service -- to remote control it, right from within the ticketing system is an ideal scenario. Given that users have multiple devices, the name of the person asking for help is no longer specific enough to offer support.
When a user submits a ticket from their home machine, and you hop on their office machine to perform service, you could wind up trying to fix a problem that doesn't even exist on that particular device. This is exactly what can happen, however, when the two systems (the remote control software, and the service desk software) don't work together.
With challenges like that in mind, SysAid wants to make sure these two systems work great together as an integrated solution. This week they introduced a remote device support tool powered by TeamViewer. Technicians can access and control desktops and mobile devices from within SysAid. The software also can launch a TeamViewer remote session directly from an incident record. The admin simply clicks the TeamViewer icon to begin a session. SysAid automatically records activities from each session.
Ticketing and Remote Control: 4 Tips
A few things partners and MSPs should look for when selecting an integration tool such as this:
- Ease of ticket entering - It should be easy for the end user to enter a ticket through the system having the issue. If your ticketing system integrates with the remote control software, but your users are still calling in tickets, it's not going to do help much to have that integration. Users will need to be trained to use the agent on their machine to enter the ticket for the integration to be beneficial at all.
- Connection time - If it takes a really long time for the system to pop up on your screen to remote control from the time you clicked it, the system will get hard to work with, fast. It can seem like an eternity waiting for a machine to pop up when the user is on the phone waiting for service. Technicians will often turn to the fastest tools -- which means they'll abandon or ignore slow offerings that consume your IT budget.
- Integration benefits - Not only should it be really easy to find the button to remote control the device from within the ticket, but the system should also make it extremely easy to work within the remote computer. Here's a related feature I crave (doe it exist yet?): I would love to be able to enter my notes in a remote control field, not visible to the end user, that will transfer back to the ticketing system. That approach means I don't have to flip back and forth to enter notes on the ticket. This goes for any onscreen chatting with the customer as well. Those chats should transfer back as notes on the ticket as well.
- Cost - I believe a company would really lean towards an integrated system if it will save a little money as well. If paying for separate solutions is cheaper than the integrated solution, and it works fine, there wouldn't be much incentive to move to the integrated system. Sure, there are productivity savings, but I'm not sure that would be enough to justify a higher cost. If the company ends up paying less and only has one vendor to deal with instead of two, the case for integration becomes almost a no-brainer.
A totally integrated solution, such as the one SysAid is now offering, could be great for a new company starting out, or a company already frustrated with their current service desk software. Something to consider for established companies, however, is the cost of changing out all of your client machines to a new solution. Most MSPs already have software installed on all machines under their stewardship, and changing that out can be a huge undertaking.
