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Help Desk SystemHow to Deploy them?

Author: Stephen Grabowski

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The Three Service Levels of a HelpDesk System

End User

Hotline (Level 1)

System Administrator, ApplicationSpecialists (Level 2)

Maintenance and OEMs (Level 3)

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Benefits of a Help Desk

Technicians do not have to re-derivesolutions to problems

This wastes company resources

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Structure and Representation of aHelp Desk System

Attribute Value Pair

Good for answering trivial question

Good when users of the help desk system areinexperienced

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Structure and Representation of aHelp Desk System Cont.

Object Oriented Representation

Structure of the technical system to be diagnosed canbe represented in the necessary degree of detail

Symptoms can be clearly related to the object towhich they belong to

The semantics of the problem description can becaptured and used for selecting appropriate prior

experience A high retrieval accuracy can be achieved

Discussed general OO representation in class

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Case Model (Problem)

The Topic

The area in which the problem is located hardware, software, network, printing service etc

The Subject The physical object that the failure is related to

Specific software, printer, router, etc

The Behavior

The way the subject behaves Wrong print size, screeching sound, no dial tone, etc

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Case Model (Situation)

A set of attribute-value pairs describingsymptoms that are important to diagnosethe fault

Contain the minimum amount of info requiredto diagnose the problem (independence,completeness, minimalist)

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Case Model (Solution)

Contains the fault and the remedy

Composed of text or hypertext links

Can include links to more detail description

Can be a result of various situations

Each complete path from problem tosolution becomes its own case

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Kinds of Cases

Approved cases

Opened cases (everyone can see)

These case are separated into a casebuffer (opened) and a main case base(approved)

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User and Roles

Help desk operator Lowest access rights

Use application on a regular basis to solve problems

Case retrieval and case acquisition Experience author Responsible for case maintenance and case approval

Checks for redundancy and consistency

Experience base administrator Creates and maintains the domain and case model

Administer users and access rights

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Client/Server Architecture

Allows all users to get the same up to dateinformation

Eases the maintenance of the domainmodel and the case base

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Retrieving Problem Solutions withHomer

Two modes

Manual User can enter as much information about a problem as

wanted and then invokes a retrieval method

All matching case are retrieved

Automatic The system retrieves matching cases after every item

entered

Solutions are displayed in the bottom view bydecreasing relevance (CCBR)

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Feedback

Can be retained by pressing the retainbutton

Opens a case entry interface

Operator can make final modifications

Document why the case should be keep

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Solutions

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Case Browser

Used by the experience author to managethe case base

Case creation

Case copy

Delete case

Approve case

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The Development of the HomerSystem

Managerial Processes Goal Definition (realistic)

Hard criteria (measurable) Problem solution quality

First call resolution rate, average cost of solution

Process quality Avg time to solve problem, avg # of escalation Organizational quality

Speed up in operator training, flexibility of training

Soft criteria (subjective) End-user satisfaction

Availability of the help desk, friendliness

Help-desk operator satisfaction Workload, work atmosphere, repetitiveness

Corporate aspects Preservation of knowledge

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The Development of the HomerSystem Cont.

Awareness creation (operators & managers) Sharing knowledge will cause benefit in the future

Will be able to solve more problems then they currently can

Experience management is based on an establishedtechnology (M)

Needs continuous management support (M)

Tool Selection (consider long term, $) Operating system

The complexity of the technical domain (home, networked

applications) Experience of operators and users

Organization of help desk

Project goals

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The Development of the HomerSystem Cont.

Organizational Process During SystemDevelopment

Project team and initial domain selection

Help desk personal experienced in domain System implementers

Keep members constant

Test users (experienced and not)

Domain

Training the project team Trained in modeling, filling, and maintaining the knowledge in

the system

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The Development of the HomerSystem Cont.

Development of knowledge acquisition andutilization

After development these need to be analyzed

Knowledge sources and formats Processes that allow efficient acquisition

Qualification of personal

Three roles Help-desk operator

Experience Author

Experience base administrator

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The Development of the HomerSystem Cont.

Technical processes during development

General IT related processes Similar to other IT projects in many aspects

UI and integration are different

UI needs to present the right info, at the right moment, at thecorrect level of detail

Needs to be developed in accordance with user level (E, 1, 2,3)

Needs to have interface to a different user identification

database

Trouble ticket system (should be integrated with UI)

Record, manage, trace, escalate and analyze receivedcalls

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The Development of the HomerSystem Cont.

Initial knowledge acquisition

Three goals

Training the project team in knowledge acquisition

Initializing the knowledge in the system

Collecting enough help-desk cases

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The Use of the Homer System

Managerial processes during system use

Organizational processes during systemuse

Knowledge utilization and acquisitionprocess

Training the help desk operators

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The Use of the Homer SystemCont.

Technical processes during system use Continuous knowledge acquisition and maintenance

Case buffer -> main base Contain info necessary and sufficient to solve a problem

Described on a level that the end user can understand Verify case

Correct, relevant, applicable

Before entered into case base Its a viable alternative that does not exist in base

Can it be subsumed by another case Can be combined with another case to create a new one

Will case cause an inconsistency

Case already available in case base

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Overview of the Design andMaintenance of a Help-Desk system

Project planning and initialization

Implementation of a rapid prototype

Evaluation and revision of the prototype

Implementation of the integrated case-based help-desk support system

Evaluation and revision of the case-based

help-desk support system Utilization of the case-based help-desk

support systems

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Evaluation of Homer

Performed by INRECA II

Benefits for help desk operators

102 problems of which 45 trivial or directed to the

wrong help desk Homer solved 18 (32%) Time to solve without = 141 min with = 9 min

Results better than expected

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Summary

Help desk systems help solve problems faster

give more people more knowledge

Building long and difficult

need to convince people go give up their

knowledge Maintaining Requires constant maintenance