SAManage IT Management Blog

This post is part of a series on using the SAManage help desk software. Other posts in the series include Introducing Your New Help Desk, Working with Tickets, Personalizing Your End-User Support Portal, and Customizing Your Help Desk.

Receive New Tickets Via Email

Your users can now submit support request and tickets via email. The SAManage solution comes pre-configured with a unique email address for your help desk. Any email sent to that address will appear as a new ticket in your help desk.

Collaboration on tickets between help desk technicians and end users can also easily take place via this unique email address.  For example, when a help desk technician reviews a new ticket, they can add comments requesting additional information from the user.  These comments will be automatically sent – in the form of a reply email - to the user who originated the request.  When the user receives this email, they can than respond by just replying to the email. All email replies and discussions will be fully tracked in the help desk system, added as additional comments on the original ticket.

Configure The Email-to-Ticket Option

Configuring your new help desk feature is fast and easy.  Simply navigate to the help desk setup section to view your help desk email address, which is a unique address specifically for your account. Next, you’ll need to setup an automatic redirect within your existing email system, so all support emails are automatically forwarded to your unique help desk email address.

For example, if you want support@acme.com to be the primary address for sending and receiving new support requests, you can configure a forwarding rule in your email system to route all mail sent to support@acme.com directly to your unique SAManage help desk email address. Once configured, any emails sent to support@acme.com will immediately appear as new tickets in your SAManage help desk system.

Receive help desk tickets via email

You can use the new email-to-ticket feature in conjunction with an external URL, to provide your users will multiple convenient options for submitting new help desk support requests.

Support Your Existing Business Processes

To further extend your new SAManage help desk solution across your company, and to ensure full support for your existing business processes, you can use the ticket-types capability with the new email-to-ticket feature.

For example, you can setup your new help desk system to send acquisition or software installation requests to unique email addresses.  This will ensure that these types of requests are automatically assigned to the right stakeholders within your company. As a result, you can streamline your help desk processes and completely integrate your new SAManage system with the way you currently do business.

This post is part of a series on using your new help desk software by SAManage. To learn more about the SAManage IT management service, visit our Web site and sign up for your own account today.

SaaS-based IT Management and Help Desk Software

Discover how on-demand IT Management and Help Desk software from SAManage can help you gain instant visibility into your assets and improve your service levels.

Sign up for a free trial of SAManage.

Working with End Users

Adding New End Users

A new user account, complete with contact information and associated assets, will automatically be created in your help desk system the first time an end user submits a support ticket. This new account will have a specific role – help desk requester – that will allow the user only to submit tickets or to access the support portal. Help desk requesters will not be able to access or utilize others features and functions of your help desk software.

Opening and Tracking End User Requests

All support requests received from your end users will appear as new tickets in your help desk system. When creating support requests, users will be required to include their email address. This address will then be used to provide status updates until the issue is resolved.

Communicating with End Users

Your new help desk system will automatically notify the end user when any changes or updates are made to his/her support request. For example, the end user will receive an email notification when his/her ticket is assigned to a help desk technician, when a status or priority change is made to the ticket, or when the issue is resolved and closed.

Help desk technicians can also communicate with end users by adding comments to the ticket. These comments are captured and stored along with the ticket, so that complete history of the incident is available if needed. The end user will receive an email notification when a comment is added to his/her ticket, and he can respond to the comment if required. End user responses will also be linked to the ticket and stored in the system.

Help Desk Software Ticket Comments

Using the Support Portal to View Tickets Status

When an end user creates a new support ticket, the notification email they receive will include a URL that will direct them to the online support portal. From here, they can log in and view the status of their ticket(s) at any time. They can also make changes to open incidents, or leave comments or notes for help desk technicians.

Through this portal, users can track their issues in real-time, on their own, without assistance from support staff. This leaves the help desk team free to focus on more important tasks related to investigating and resolving critical issues. It also provides for an effective and convenient way for users to communicate and share information with their support technicians.

Help Desk Software Email Notification

Managing Your End Users

To view a list of all current end users, go to your Setup screen, and then click on Users. You can make immediate changes to user information from this area. For example, you can update a phone number or add the end user’s full name. You can also grant access to other services and features within the SAManage help desk software.

We recommend that you periodically review your account’s list of help desk requesters, to ensure that all information is correct and up-to-date.

SaaS-based IT Management and Help Desk Software

Discover how on-demand IT Asset Management and Help Desk software from SAManage can help you gain instant visibility into your assets and improve your service levels.

Sign up for a free trial of SAManage.

Maintaining Your Knowledge

As your help desk technicians review and resolve support requests, they gather a lot of knowledge and lessons learned. This insight could include a procedure to most effectively resolve an incident, a workaround, a recommended configuration for an asset, or a suggestion made by a technician to the ticket requester. The creation and collection of this knowledge consumes a significant amount of resources. Therefore, making it easy to access and utilize during the course of future support requests will help your organization reduce the time it takes to resolve an issue, and as a result, minimize support costs and provide better service to your users.

Use Case for End-Users

Knowledge can be made available to customers, who can utilize it in a “self-service” capacity, searching for a possible solution to their problem before they contact the help desk. This empowers your customers to quickly and conveniently address their own issues, and requires them to contact your help desk only when they cannot find an appropriate solution on their own.

Use Case for Help Desk Technicians

Help desk technicians can use the solutions database to search for existing knowledge about an incident they are currently reviewing. They can locate solutions related to their incidents in progress using keywords and free text.

How Solutions are Created

Solutions are dynamically created each time a help desk technician resolves a ticket. The ticket subject, description, and resolution become part of the solution itself, making it easy to search for solutions based on keywords in the future. We strongly recommend as a best practice that you require your help desk technicians to enter a detailed resolution when a ticket is resolved.

Help Desk Tickets Resolution becomes a solution

Modifying an Existing Solution

Existing solutions in the database can be easily modified. Simply click on the Solutions tab to locate the solution you wish to update, then select edit to make appropriate changes. Or, you can select delete to remove the solution from the database. Note that deleting a solution is a permanent action, and the solution will no longer be available to search on. However, you can re-create a deleted solution by going back to the original ticket and resolving it again. This will re-create the solution in the system, using any resolution on the ticket.

Searching for Existing Solutions

You can use the universal search feature to rapidly locate an existing solution. Start your search by using a keyword, any text that existed in the original ticket’s subject, description, or resolution, or any text that has been modified. When the search results matching your criteria, are displayed, simply click on the result to link to that specific solution.

On-Demand IT Management Software

Discover how SaaS IT Management software can help you gain instant visibility into your assets and know exactly what you have.

Sign up for a free trial of SAManage IT Management service.

This post is part of a series on using the new SAManage Help Desk Software. Other posts in the series include Introducing your new help desk, Working with tickets, Personalizing your end-user support portal, and Customizing your help desk.

Configure an Easy-to-Remember Address

Your new help desk software allows you to create a private URL that will give your users access to the support center from any Web-enabled location. Clicking on SAManage Help Desk Setup will enable you to customize your end-user portal by changing the name, adding your logo, and setting up a simple, easy to remember custom URL (for example support.acme.com). This URL will take users directly to your portal. Learn how to personalize your end-user support portal.

Ticket Types and Auto-Assignment Rules

When users submit tickets to your help desk, they can indicate the nature of their request using various ticket types. For example, an incident describes a problem they are experiencing, while an acquisition is a request for a new asset such as software. You can easily customize these ticket types, or even add your own, to better align them with your business processes.

Configure Help Desk Ticket Types

When customizing your ticket types, you can also choose a default assignee, such as a specialist from your support team. All new tickets of that type will then be automatically assigned to that staff member. This enables you to streamline your support processes by having dedicated specialists receive tickets based on their area of expertise. It will also significantly reduce the time it takes to complete a support request, so you can provide faster, better service to your customers.

A Few Use Cases to Get You Started:

Here are a few examples of commonly-used ticket types:

• Acquisitions – These tickets should be routed by default to the purchasing manager, or any other supervisor that is responsible for reviewing and approving requests to buy new software, hardware, peripherals, and other technology assets.
• Install – These tickets should be assigned to specialists responsible for installing new hardware or software item.
• Network Support – Network technicians that handle related issues should be assigned to these tickets.
• Emergency – When immediate attention and/or response is required, tickets should be routed directly to the help desk supervisor. The ability to define ticket types allows you to align your help desk activities with your internal support process, so you can boost productivity and optimize utilization of your internal resources.

Select Your Time Zone

You should select you default time zone based on the location of your help desk. Dates and times are recorded on each new ticket that is created, as well as on any changes to tickets, such as the addition of new comments, or any modifications reflected in the audit log (for example, changes to ticket status). Synchronizing your actual time zone with the time zone reflected on your tickets will provide you with more precise insight into when updates actually occurred, and allow you to more accurately determine how long it took to process and handle each ticket.

Configure Help Desk Timezone

This post is part of a series on using your new Help Desk Software by SAManage. To learn more about SAManage IT Management service, visit our website and sign up for your own account.

SaaS-based IT Management and Help Desk Software

Discover how on-demand IT Asset Management and Help Desk software from SAManage can help you gain instant visibility into your assets and improve your service levels.

Sign up for a free trial of SAManage.

This post is part of a series on using the new SAManage Help Desk Software. Other posts in the series include Introducing your new help desk, Working with tickets, Personalizing your end-user support portal, and Customizing your Help Desk.

Using the End-User Support Portal

Your users will be submitting new tickets, and checking on ticket status, through your custom help desk portal, which you can brand with your company name, logo, and an easy-to-remember URL. All your users will need to create a new support request is an e-mail address, and a summary and description of their issue. They will also have the option to select the ticket type, provide the name of the affected asset, and indicate the priority of the request and a desired due date, to convey urgency to the help desk team. Once the new ticket is submitted, the user will automatically receive a confirmation e-mail, and the new ticket will appear in your help desk system.

Help Desk End-User Portal

Configure an Easy-to-Remember URL

Your new help desk software allows you to create a private URL that will give your users access to the support center from any Web-enabled location. Clicking on SAManage help desk setup will enable you to customize your end-user portal by changing the name, adding your logo, and setting up a simple, easy to remember custom URL (for example support.acme.com). This URL will take users directly to your portal.

Help Desk Setup

To create your easy to remember URL, you must create a custom URL redirect record with your domain host. In most cases, this can be done by simply signing in to your DNS management console, and looking for DNS Management or Name Server Management. Next, create a new record with an easy-to-remember URL (for example, support.acme.com), and set that record to redirect visitors to the external help desk URL as defined in SAManage.

Publish the new URL (support.acme.com) to your users, and ask them to use it to submit any new help desk requests. When users type the support.acme.com URL into their browser, they will instantly be taken to your new help desk environment. It’s as simple as that.

This post is part of a series on using your new Help Desk Software by SAManage. To learn more about SAManage IT Management service, visit our website and sign up for your own account.

This post is part of a series on using the new SAManage Help Desk Software. Other posts in the series include Introducing your new help desk, Working with tickets, Personalizing your end-user support portal, and Customizing your Help Desk.

New tickets

New help desk tickets are created when end-users submit support requests through the personalized support portal. These support requests become tickets in the organization’s help desk:

Ticket Assignment

Auto-assignment rules – depending on the help desk setup, new tickets can be automatically assigned to owners within the support group based on auto-assignment rules. When a new ticket is created in the help desk software, the auto-assignment rules are checked against the ticket’s properties to verify if it meets a criteria for an existing auto-assignment rule. If the criteria is met, the ticket is assigned to a support specialists for resolution. Both the ticket requester and the assignee get notified via e-mail when the ticket is assigned.

Ticket Queues – many support organizations use a shared ticket queue. When ready to handle a new ticket, the support specialist selects a ticket from the pool (usually the one that has been submitted first) and change the ticket state to “accepted“, taking the ticket out of the queue. Once saved, the ticket is assigned to the support specialist and the ticket requester gets notified via e-mail that the ticket is now assigned.

Collaborating on Tickets

As support specialists are working on tickets, quite often they require additional information from the user. This might be further clarification on the root cause, a request for additional information or simply gathering more data that would help point to the right direction to handle the issue. Support specialists can use the ticket to communicate with the user and request the missing information by leaving comments on the ticket. When a new comment or question is added to a ticket, both the ticket requester and the assignee get notified via e-mail. Ticket requester can login to the support portal and add the information required directly to the ticket, removing the need for the common phone tag and endless e-mail exchanges and helps keep an audit log of all activities on the ticket. The comment author can modify or delete the comment at any time.

Collaborating on Help Desk Tickets

Resolving Tickets

When the issue is resolved, the support specialist can change the ticket state to close. This would bring up a new section to capture the resolution (“invalid”, “works for me”, or “will not fix” are a few) and the description. It is highly recommended to enter a resolution description so that all knowledge learned during the process can be safely preserved and could be utilized in future support requests. The ticket requester gets notified via e-mail that includes the resolution details.

Resolving Help Desk Tickets

This post is part of a series on using your new Help Desk Software by SAManage. To learn more about SAManage IT Management service, visit our website and sign up for your own account.

SaaS-based IT Management and Help Desk Software

Discover how on-demand IT Management and Help Desk software from SAManage can help you gain instant visibility into your assets and improve your service levels.

Sign up for a free trial of SAManage.

Your new help desk software is a click away! With no software to install or servers to provision, you can implement your new SAManage help desk in just a few clicks and immediately improve your service levels.

Using the new help desk, IT help desk teams can receive support requests through a personalized support portal, distribute tickets among team members and associate tickets with assets (computers or software). By providing quick access to asset’s current hardware configuration and service history from a single console, help desk teams can reduce the time it takes to resolve support requests and provide a better service to their users.

Here are just some of the things you can do with your new help desk service:

• Empower your users to submit support requests via your personal support page.
• View all pending tickets, sort tickets by state, type, owner or due date.
• Add comments and resolutions to each ticket to capture knowledge.
• Receive email notifications on ticket updates and better communicate with the requester.
• Automatically assign tickets based on ticket types to spread the workload among your team members.
• Associate tickets with assets to track end-to-end asset service history.

Using the Help Desk – End Users

Your users submit new tickets and check on ticket status through your organization’s custom help desk portal. You can customize the portal with your organization name and logo. Then set up a simple, easy to remember URL address (such as helpdesk.acme.com) that redirects visitors to the your portal URL.

That’s it! publish the new URL address to your users and ask them to use it to submit requests to your new help desk.

Help Desk Portal

All that is required from the user to create a new support request is an e-mail address and a summary and description of the issue. The user can optionally select the ticket type and related asset name. Users can also set the priority to indicate the urgency of a request or enter a requested due date. Once the new ticket is submitted, the user automatically receives a confirmation e-mail, and the new ticket shows in your help desk.

Your new help desk software by SAManage makes it easy to communicate with your users. Each confirmation e-mail include a link to the help desk portal where the user can view all his tickets, check on a ticket status, and submit new tickets. When a ticket is updated with new comments or a ticket’s status changes, the requesting user receives an e-mail summarizing the changes to his ticket. That way, your help desk users are always up-to-date with the status of their support requests and can quickly provide any additional information that may be required. Automating the communications with users allows your support team to be more productive, freeing more of their time to work the issues.

Using the Help Desk – Support Specialists

Your support specialists use the new help desk software to effectively resolve support requests. Specialists can assign tickets among team members to share the workload and align the help desk with your internal support process. Specialists can update the ticket status, add comments, or request additional information from the user. When a ticket status changes or a new comment is added to a ticket, both the ticket owner and the ticket requester get notified via e-mail so they can take immediate action.

Each ticket has an audit log of all changes throughout its lifecycle, so you can easily see what steps were taken to resolve the problem:

Ticket comments and audit

When the support specialist is ready to resolve the ticket, he changes the ticket state to closed, select the resolution type and enters the description. The ticket resolution is a description of the steps taken by the specialist to resolve the issue in the ticket. Once the ticket is resolved, the ticket requester gets a notification email letting him know that the ticket is now closed with the resolution as entered by the specialist:

Help Desk Ticket Resolution

The ticket resolution and the steps taken by the specialist to resolve the issue are saved as a solution in the help desk software, so the knowledge is captured and can be later  retrieved to resolve similar issues in the future. More on that in future posts.

This post is part of a series on using your new Help Desk Software by SAManage. To learn more about SAManage IT Management service, visit our website and sign up for your own account.

SaaS-based IT Management and Help Desk Software

Discover how on-demand IT Asset Management and Help Desk software from SAManage can help you gain instant visibility into your assets and improve your service levels.

Sign up for a free trial of SAManage.

SAManage Adds Help Desk Software to On-Demand IT Management Suite

Integrated SaaS-based IT Asset Management and IT Service Management Helps Organizations Gain Control, Reduce Cost and Enhance Service

SAManage, a leading provider of on-demand IT management software, today announced the addition of a Help Desk module to its integrated SaaS-based IT Management suite. Leveraging the software-as-a-service delivery model, SAManage customers can now take advantage of an integrated IT Help Desk at no additional costs.

Using the new module, IT help desk teams can receive support requests through a personalized portal, distribute the work load among team members and associate tickets with assets. By providing quick access to asset’s current hardware configuration and service history from a single IT management solution, organizations that use the SAManage solution can reduce the time it takes to resolve support requests and provide a better service to their users.

The new Help Desk module is the most recent addition to the SAManage IT Management Suite. SAManage provides secure, on-demand IT management services that help organizations simplify the management of IT assets, gain better control, reduce IT costs, eliminate risks and improve service levels. As IT departments at companies of all sizes are challenged to keep up with the growing risks brought about by a rapidly-expanding and increasingly diversified IT asset base, SAManage automates and simplifies the daily tasks associated with establishing IT governance, control and compliance. By delivering IT Management as an affordable on-line service, SAManage empowers companies of all sizes with capabilities that were previously available only to large companies.

“Help Desk is a critical IT function that is tightly integrated with Asset Management and has a huge impact on user satisfaction as well as on IT costs,” said SAManage CEO, Doron Gordon. “The addition of the help desk module to the SAManage IT Management Suite was driven by customer requests and represents an important milestone for the company as we deliver on our SaaS-based IT management vision.”

Key features of the new SAManage Help Desk module include:

• Company Portal – Users can submit tickets via a personalized support page and log in to the portal to view real-time ticket status
• Team Collaboration – IT help desk teams can view the entire group’s tickets and share workload with other team members
• Knowledge Capture – Comments and resolutions can be added to each ticket to streamline issue resolution and maintain information repository
• E-mail Integration – Email notifications on ticket creation, updates and new comments makes collaboration easier
• Asset Service History – Tickets can be associated with assets for end-to-end tracking of asset service and repair history
• Customized Support Flow – Ticket types and auto-assignment rules can be customized to optimize the support process

Pricing and Availability

SAManage IT Management suite is available immediately via the SAManage website . SAManage Help Desk is included in the subscription service priced at $20 per computer/year with volume-based discounts available.

Online IT Management Software

Discover how on-demand IT Management software from SAManage can help you gain instant visibility into your assets and improve your service levels. Sign up for a free trial today.