Vendor management

What You Should Know about Vendor Management

The contingent space is changing, and it’s up to CEOs, CFOs, and CPOs to understand and analyze what is happening in order to ensure that their companies are addressing the contingent workforce tsunami that is soon to come. Your on-demand, non-permanent workforce is a dynamic ecosystem—one that is subject to change and evolve at any moment. You must be prepared in order to ensure continued cost savings, efficiency, and productivity.

The contingent workforce presents its own challenges, particularly when it comes to management. When different hiring managers and department heads use different vendors to source their talent, using different processes, services, and price points, the result is a largely disjointed and ineffective model that is riddled with inefficiencies and inconsistencies that affect your bottom line. Such a model will lead to suffering supplier relationships and missed opportunities for great talent.

The Managed Services Provider’s Role

As the contingent workforce continues to grow at a rapid rate, it becomes more critical than ever for your company to get a solid grasp on how to effectively manage your on-demand workers. Turning to a managed services provider (MSP) can allow you to optimize and streamline your contingent workforce management. As this workforce grows, it becomes more complex, and as such, it requires a greater level of expertise that an MSP can provide.

An MSP can analyze and design your program, review and re-engineer your process, optimize your supply-base management, implement change management, and create active cost management that will result in better value for your dollar. An MSP can take all of your people-based transactions and create a powerful marketplace where you can create a competitive bidding process, consolidate spend, and save an incredible amount of money all while exceeding services.

Vendor Management Technology

How does an MSP provide your organization with an ROI? Apart from its valuable experience and expertise in workforce management, it also uses vendor management technology. With the right technology, your managed services provider can create greater efficiencies, higher productivity, increased compliance, and high cost savings through increased visibility.

Vendor management technology can automate and streamline the processes that support the sourcing, acquisition, management, and payment of your on-demand workforce, including requisitions, approvals, time management and scheduling, expense management, payments, and reporting.

When you have big data working on your side to track, measure, and analyze your processes and your workers, you can make more informed decisions, save time, and save money.

Why a Neutral MSP Is Critical When It Comes to Vendor Management Technology

Not all vendors or technologies are created equal. Some will allow for better results than others, and it’s critical to have a neutral MSP that will make informed decisions based on your unique business culture, needs, and goals when making suggestions and recommendations.

MSPs that remain technology and vendor neutral can ensure that all decisions are made to support your exact needs and to add the most value to your business. Having the right vendor management system is critical for your ROI. A neutral MSP will not own or operate any specific system or technology. Rather, it will use total objectivity when determining which platform your company should use.

Transform Your Business for the Better

An effective vendor management system includes the support from a truly neutral managed services provider as well as the right technology. When you let the experts handle the workforce management processes and the technologies required for you to see the best ROI, you can have the best people, the best practices, and the best technology working to achieve your goals. You can bring order to your contingent workforce and your supply chain in order to positively transform your bottom line—and your business.

5 Must-Have Features of Your Remote Monitoring Solution

As a technology solution provider (TSP), chances are you have a desire to take your business to the next level. The TSPs that are successful in this endeavor have a key ingredient in common: they are armed with the right tools for growth. The most critical tool for success in this business is a powerful remote monitoring and management (RMM) solution.

So the question is, what should you be looking for when you purchase an RMM tool, and why are those features important to your business?

The right RMM tool impacts your business success with five key benefits. With a powerful and feature-rich RMM solution in place, you can:

Automate any IT process or task
Work on multiple machines at once
Solve issues without interrupting clients, especially with the help of IT Support Naperville and other reputed agencies as them.
Integrate smoothly into a professional services automation (PSA) tool
Manage everything from one control center
To better understand why these features are so influential, let’s talk a little more about each of them.

1. Automate Any IT Process or Task

Imagine being able to determine a potential incident before your client feels the pain, and fix it in advance to avoid that negative business impact. Being able to automate any IT process gives you the proactive service model you need to keep your clients happy for the long haul.

2. Work on Multiple Machines at Once

To solve complex issues, an TSP must be able to work on all the machines that make up a system. If you are attempting to navigate this maze via a series of webpages, it is hard to keep up with progress and makes it easy to miss a critical item during the diagnosis. Having the ability to work on multiple machines at once is paramount to developing your business model and maximizing your returns.

3. Solve Issues Without Interrupting Clients

One of the biggest challenges that MSPs face is fixing issues without impacting their clients’ ability to work. With the wrong tools in place, the solution can be nearly as disruptive as the issue it’s meant to fix. The right tool must allow a technician to connect behind the scenes, troubleshoot and remediate the problem without impacting the client’s ability to work.

4. Integrate Smoothly into a PSA Tool

Two-way integration between your RMM and PSA solutions eliminates bottlenecks and allows data to flow smoothly between the tools. The goal of integration is to enable you to respond more quickly to client needs as well as capture and store historical information that leads to easier root cause analysis.

A solid integration will also increase sales by turning data into actionable items that result in quotes and add-on solutions. The key areas to examine when looking at how a PSA and RMM integrate are:

  • Managing tickets and tasks
  • Capturing billable time
  • Assigning incidents based on device and technician
  • Scheduling and automating tasks
  • Identifying and managing sales opportunities
  • Managing and reporting on client configuration information
  • A solid integration into a PSA will create an end-to-end unified solution to help your more effectively run your IT business.

5. Manage Everything from One Control Center

The control center for your RMM solution should be the cockpit for your service delivery. Having the ability to manage aspects that are directly related to service delivery such as backup and antivirus from the same control center keeps your technicians working within a familiar environment and speeds service delivery. Also, it cuts down on associated training costs by limiting their activities to the things that matter on a day-to-day basis.

Success means equipping your business with the right features and functionality to save your technicians time while increasing your revenue and profit margins. Selecting an RMM solution that solves for these five influential features is the key to getting started down the path to success. What are you waiting for?


This article was provided by our service partner : Labtech. 

Best practices for software license management

Software license management is the process that ensures that the legal agreements that come with procured software licenses are adhered to.In a basic sense, it ensures that only legally procured licenses are deployed on systems.

Organizations spend a fortune on licenses every year, and a lack of management around it can result in heavy fines. In some cases, CIOs of certain organizations have been taken into custody for violating norms.

In this article, I will provide the basic concept of how software license management works along with a process map.

Prerequisites for implementing license management

1. Software Asset Management Tool – Organizations will have to invest in database software that is capable of recording various types of licenses against its respective owners. There are numerous software asset management tools available in the market, including free ones. All-in-one database tools are capable of storing deployment details of software along with license details. Popular ones on the market include FlexNet Manager by Flexera Software, Software Asset Management by Microsoft and License Manager by License Dashboard. To find a reliable vendor click here to find out more.

2. Software License Auditor Tool – The auditor tool runs over the company network, and identifies the deployed licenses across all systems of the network. The tool deploys its agents across all systems and in turn, these agents report the installed licenses to the central engine, which consolidates the total licenses residing on the network. An auditor tool that is capable of connecting through APIs with the software asset management tool should be preferred.

3. Asset inventory – Before getting into licenses, it is absolutely necessary to have an asset inventory with identified owners. The inventory must account for all systems in the organization, at least the operational ones. And, every system must have an owner or a name of someone who is accountable for what gets installed on the system.

4. People and processes – Management of software licenses does not happen with these tools alone. You also have to have dedicated license managers and processes that maintain compliance. The processes woven around software licenses must ensure 360-degree control over licenses purchased, deployed, archived and those that have expired.

Step 1: Obtain all procured license details

The starting point to software license management implementation is to find out where you currently are and what you own. You’ll store all the procured licenses identified.

Not all licenses come in the same shape and color. Here are some of the most common types:

Named user license – A license that can be used by a particular user
Volume license – A single license can be used on multiple systems depending on the purchased volume
License under enterprise agreement (EA) – Similar to volume license, terminology used by Microsoft when volume licenses exceed 250
Concurrent Licenses – Licenses that can be installed on any number of machines but can be used on a limited number of machines at any given point
OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturers) – Software license that accompanies hardware
Evaluation – Trial license which may come with limited functionality or for a definite period of time
Free License – License that is available for free

Step 2: Identify all license deployments

Once you build a baseline of licenses owned by the organization, you’ll identify the deployment of these licenses across the organization. The software license auditor tool would be a big help in identifying the deployments. Manual inventory of software licenses, even if script driven, is a big no no.

All the license deployments would be consolidated together to identify how many machines are deployed with individual licenses. In the crude example that I have displayed above, the OS license is installed on three systems while the DTP license on two.

Names of system owners are important too if you are dealing with a named user license. Asset inventory comes in handy in identifying system owners.

Step 3 and Step 4: Compare license purchase vs. license deployments

In most cases, you should be able to tell if your organization is in software license compliance or not by comparing the procured licenses against deployed ones.

(As I mentioned earlier, named user licenses can be in non-compliance even if the number of installations is under control but against a wrong set of people.)

Step 4: Uninstall or procure licenses

If you are in compliance, there is nothing to fret. If you’re not, there are two logical choices – purchase more licenses or uninstall software from certain machines.

What next?

In this blog, I’ve given you ways to get a snapshot of what to expect with license compliance. But how do you ensure you remain in compliance at all times? There are solutions and processes to ensure that an organization stays in compliance at all times. I will introduce them in my next piece.

managed print

Select the Right Managed Print Service

We are moving toward the world of digitization as all businesses heavily rely on digitizing data. However, this change has not affected our mentalities and even today all the important, as well as routine, business activities and information is in hard copy. Not only that, but the use of print has been a difficult habit to change. A recent survey found an average 14% of global company revenue is being wasted on document related activities, owing to inefficient printing practices. In order to eliminate such expenses, it is important to adopt a Managed Print Service.

What is MPS and how it can be beneficial?

“Managed print services (MPS)” is a service offered by the external provider to manage and optimize document output and meet the printing needs of the entire firm. It also takes care of all the devices associated with the need for printing like printers, copiers, fax machines and multifunction devices.

MPS can not only reduce print related expenses, but it also helps to gain predictability about the expenses and gain better visibility. However, in order to avail the optimum benefits it is important to select the right MPS provider that can help the company to reduce the repair and maintenance costs. Below there are 5 tips that will help you to select the best MPS provider:

1. Should be able to provide multi-vendor support

Generally a company is expected to have all the same printing related equipment, but there can be exceptions. Hence, it is important to select an MPS provider that can provide services for all the type of equipment and should have the necessary expertise for required services and repairs. They should be able to provide necessary IT expertise for a wide variety of equipment.

2. Provide good customer experience

The MPS provider should be dedicated to improving the efficiency of print infrastructure, keeping in pace with the changing needs of the office. They should focus on improving the performance of the customers and enhance employee productivity. As per the survey done by IT advisory company Quocirca, it was found that 30% of the organizations viewed printing as a critical component for their business. Hence, it is important that the provider should be able to make printing a hassle free process and boost the company’s productivity.

3. Meet the demand for mobile printing

With the changes in the modus operandi of the businesses there is an increase in the demand of mobile printing. The businesses are functioning in a non-traditional environment and it has lead to an increase in the need for mobile printing. The MPS provider should be able to offer the apps or extensions that can fulfill the needs of mobile printing. They should be able to provide smart managed print services that can optimize and streamline the processes as well as workflow.

4. Should focus on enhancing the productivity

The MPS provider should not only focus on providing the print solutions, but should also be able to manage it more effectively and efficiently. They should be able to analyze the information regarding the printer usage and make necessary changes or recommendations in order to increase the fleet efficiency. It should be able to provide the required services as per the changing needs of the business. They should be able to streamline the workflow and provide cost effective solutions.

5. Maintain flexibility and consistency

The MPS provider should be ready to evolve and change as per the changing needs of the business and help them to face the challenges. Some companies may want to opt for a single vendor, while others might opt for multiple vendors. The MPS provider should be flexible enough to provide the solutions as per the needs of the company. Moreover, there has to be a consistency in standards of delivering the services across several locations over a span of time.

Summary:

The advantages of adopting MPS are way beyond reducing printing and paper usage. It can help your firm to streamline the process and workflows by managing fewer devices, fewer pages and lowered costs. It also helps you to enhance the knowledge of worker productivity and manage the increasing information and data.

What can be considered ‘warranty management’ for a managed IT service?

In the plethora of IT offerings companies are faced with, products and services have become extremely competitive not only with regards to price, but also in offering their assurance that what they offer is of good quality, will last in time and can deliver on its promise. As this has become the norm, no business would dare buy hardware or software that came without a written warranty. But how can organisations have some sort of guarantee of quality and efficiency when what they want to buy is not a product but a service?

Best practice is designed to understand the utility and warranty of any investment and it is important the distinction between the two is understood. The utility of an investment is the recognition of whether it is ‘fit for purpose’; the warranty goes beyond that to recognise whether your fit-for-purpose product is actually fit for use.
Firstly, it is important to understand which aspects are central in defining what can be identified as ‘warranty’ for a managed service. A good track record is of course imperative for the Service Provider, but this does not necessarily mean a very large number of clients of all types and sizes. Larger and widely-known Service Providers are not automatically the best choice for an organisation – can they understand your particular business, give you what you need and deliver the most cost-efficient service? You will find that a provider which is specialised or has relevant experience in dealing with organisations that are very similar to yours in type, size and needs might be the best choice for you. So this is what you should look at as a guarantee: a provider that has successfully carried out projects for clients that are similar to your organisation.

At the same time, it is important that the provider does not offer you an out-of-the-box solution for ‘all organisations like yours’. You might be similar in your structure and needs to other organisations, but this does not mean that you do not have some important differences. For example, NHS clinics all have similar needs and structure, but are very different in the way they deal with them – most clinics will use customised software and have different types of end users. The same is true for financial firms, from banks to private investment or currency exchange firms, where efficient and tailored IT is a vital element for their success. In fact, every sector is vastly different, so in a selection exercise, be sure to understand the Service Providers you are talking to can offer positive evidence that they have supplied similar solutions. Further to that, Service Providers that service a wider range of sectors will typically have a greater advantage in providing bespoke or ‘tailored’ solutions for your organisation.

These aspects are crucial in your choice of Service Providers, but what can guarantee the quality of the actual service itself? This mainly lies in the Service Level Agreement (SLA), which outlines agreed levels of performance monitored through certain metrics such as First-Time-Fix rate, calls answered within a set time, Abandonment rates, etc. These targets need to be consistently met, and if they are not, the Provider will be in breach of the SLA, which can have a financial impact. Consistently missing targets might mean the Provider losing the client and, in the long run, their reputation as well. With these metrics in place, it is in the provider’s own interest to perform at their best and not incur in fines or contract termination.

The choice of SLAs can make the difference between real and perceived efficiency and inefficiency. It is good practice to spend some time deciding, together with the Provider, what metrics to adopt (some will be more relevant than others) and where to set targets. Metrics have to be very detailed – setting a typical ‘70 % First Time Fix rate’ on its own is not enough. Ask yourselves: what counts as FTF? It normally refers to simple and common issues dealt with by Service Desk staff; but should printer cartridge replacement be considered a FTF even if it’s done by desk-side engineers? If some end users insist in a desk visit will it not be included in the FTF rate? This allows to have a clearer picture of how efficient of inefficient the service is and to understand if a managed service solution is right for your organisation or should be somehow modified to improve performance.

These metrics need to be tangible and agreed before they are incorporated into a live service.

In conclusion, we could say that a ‘warranty’ for a managed service should cover both the Service Provider and the service offered. It is a guarantee of quality if the Service Provider has the right track record for your company and the appropriate SLAs are in place, as well as fines and penalties for breach of the agreement. Only by carefully choosing the Service Provider which will manage your IT service it is possible to achieve efficient IT which is able to support and enable business success whilst bringing cost savings and general efficiencies to working practices.

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This piece has been published on ITSM Portal.

veeam

Migrating to the cloud backups

We have already talked about how secure backups can be in a cloud environment and what the cost may be of not leveraging the potential of DRaaS. The next step would be to start thinking about how to migrate your infrastructure or backups/replicas to cloud backups and at what scale it has to be done. We will review the main points that you need to consider and check prior to initiating your move into the world of cloud.

Who can benefit from the cloud?

The short answer is a bold one: Everyone. Regardless of the size of the operation, there is a good incentive in road mapping your migration over to the cloud as it brings a whole new level of accessibility, scalability and long-term cost savings. But what does that really mean?
When it comes to conventional disaster recovery sites, it’s hard to plan everything beforehand because you have no way of knowing when the disaster is going to strike and at what scale. You’re only as flexible as the hardware that you’re provided with. Any additional capacity would require time and more money to acquire and install.
That’s where the cloud steps up the game. You are presented with a variety of options that allow you to build a flexible DR environment with the ability to grow and shrink its capacity at will. The only price you’ll pay is for the actual hardware in use, thus granting an incredible scalability that is ready for any DR needs. Not every provider possesses such ability at a full scale, but there’s plenty of options to pick from based on your particular needs.
The two approaches Veeam has for businesses with on-premises deployments wanting to get backups or replicas to the cloud are Backup as a Service (BaaS) and Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS). These approaches utilize cloud and service provider technologies which are flexible enough for any use case and you can avoid the cost and complexity of building and maintaining an offsite infrastructure.

So, how hard is it to migrate to the cloud?

What’s important to remember is that migrating data to the cloud is not a one-day feat and is a project that will require planning and a timeline. However, depending on what data management software you use, getting data offsite to the cloud can be a very simplified experience.
Migrating to the cloud certainly doesn’t require you to drop all the investments in your existing DR infrastructure, should you have one. If you’re already running an on-premises infrastructure, then you know that any hardware has its lifecycle and will eventually be replaced. So, you can plan to move your servers and applications to the cloud environment as the time for hardware renewals shows up on the calendar.
If you’re just starting off at the stage of designing your infrastructure then it would be even more beneficial, as you are getting high-class disaster-proof hardware used on Enterprise levels of operation at an affordable price and right-away at your disposal. No need to worry about building and maintaining your own DR site, all the more so about the time to set everything up from scratch.
In any case scenario, Veeam® has the tools to make your migration to the cloud as easy as your daily backup tasks. In fact, even though Veeam Cloud Connect Backup and Replication are used for archival purposes and providing continuous synchronization, they’re a perfect instrument for migrating your infrastructure to the cloud without any hassle.

What should be migrated first?

The first contenders are the servers that will fully benefit from the flexibility and added performance of the cloud. But, not every server or application needs to or can be migrated right away. You need to plan it in the way that won’t obstruct your production performance more than usual hardware migration or upgrade. It’s important to make sure the migration to the cloud won’t cause you trouble during the process or after the completion. That can be done by testing the performance of servers or applications in the lab to find out about any hiccups beforehand. Sometimes an existing set of dependencies, like an on-site SQL database or Active Directory, can make it harder to simply move some applications without correcting their workflow.
In such scenarios the use of hybrid cloud might be helpful. In a hybrid setup one part of your cloud infrastructure is private and running under your full control on-premises and the other part is in public cloud, making use of all the servers that are easily moved to cloud or will benefit from it the most.

Where do you start?

No matter the size of the infrastructure, Veeam Cloud Connect offers a solution to fully control and easily migrate on premises data to highest standard cloud environments – requiring no network (VPN) setup or change to the customer environment. And whether you plan on implementing a big bang migration strategy or the trickle migration strategy, Veeam Cloud Connect allows for both methods.

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This article was provided by our service partner Veeam

Intel igb/e1000 driver showing dropped packets on the interface

Recently I ran into a strange issue where the Intel NIC was showing dropped packets on the interface. This particular server was having other issues (performance-ish type) so we were eager to get to the bottom of this.

Symptoms and interesting finds…

  1. ifconfig shows dropped packets only for RX
  2. The sum of rx_flow_control_xon+rx_flow_control_xoff from ethtool -S exatly matched #1 above. The count was reset at some point and we didn’t figure this out until later. Rebooting the server helped getting our minds clear and reset this.
  3. While tcpdump is running the dropped packet count would never increase.
  4. tcpdump wouldn’t show whatever was being dropped. I guess this is why they are dropped, no?

A solution, though not perfect was finally discovered. Disable BPDU/STP on the switch. The environment only had one switch so it wasn’t huge issue. On the Cisco the command was:

no spanning-tree vlan 1,100,168,216

Some interesting resources on this:

  1. Title : #477 igb driver, flow control packets being dropped?https://sourceforge.net/p/e1000/bugs/477/
  2. Title : Mystery RX packet drops on SLES11 SP2 every 30 sec
    https://forums.suse.com/showthread.php?1320-Mystery-RX-packet-drops-on-SLES11-SP2-every-30-sec

 

client onboarding

6 Steps to Client Onboarding Success

Client onboarding is the first time new clients get to see how you operate. It’s when first impressions are formed; impressions that could have a lasting impact. And if you don’t deliver on promises that were made during the sales process, what impression do you think they’ll be left with?

To make sure your client relationship starts off on the right foot (sorry lefties), you just need to follow a few simple steps.

1. Have a Plan

I’m always surprised to learn just how many people fail to use a project plan. I can’t stress this enough; a templated project plan is key to transforming your client onboarding process from mass chaos to a seamless, automated process. Outline every step that has to take place from the date the contract is signed to service go-live.

2. Use Time-Saving Automation

Using an IT automation platform, such as ConnectWise Automate (formerly LabTech), can cut hours off of the manual engineering tasks many of us still do today. Let’s look at some of the places you can shave a few hours from the client onboarding process.

3. Optimize and Secure Endpoints

Automate detects more than 40 different antivirus (AV) vendors, so let it handle the AV rip and replace process. As part of the security rollout, you’ll also want to deploy a second opinion scanner, such as HitmanPro, to automatically scan for and remediate any security issues your AV software might miss. Follow that up by deploying desktop optimization software, such as CCleaner, to get those systems running smoothly without a technician ever having to touch a single desktop.

4. Software Deployment

You’ll need to make sure common applications, such as Adobe and Java, are installed and updated. You can automate this task. Using some simple logic, the Automate script engine can easily search for missing or outdated software and then install or update accordingly. No more combing through reports or visiting each desktop to find out what’s there and what’s not.

5. Policy Deployment

Missing a critical error at any stage of the game can be detrimental; missing it during onboarding is simply unacceptable. Automate intuitively detects a machine’s role, determines which policies should be applied and automatically applies the right ones. Never again get that awkward phone call from your new client asking why their email isn’t working, and you didn’t know about it because someone forgot to apply a monitor template.

6. Educate Your Sales Team

After your project plan is in place and your automated processes are built, it’s time to educate your sales team. Let them see how the onboarding process works and how long it really takes, so they can set realistic expectations from the start.

Best Practices

8 Essential Steps to Implement IT Best Practices

In the past, we’ve defined best practices and looked at how they benefit your business. Now let’s talk about how to implement best practices so you’ll start seeing results.

Implementing best practices is just like any other project you take on. Success comes from accounting for every detail. Make sure you have these 8 things covered when implementing best practices in your IT business:

  1. Do Your Homework: What companies come to mind when you think of great employees or stellar customer service? Think about companies both inside and outside your industry that you admire and find out how they do what they do: hire employees, provide customer service, or anything else that catches your attention.
  2. Share Your Information: Make sure your employees understand the best practice you’re implementing―what it is, why it matters, and how they will benefit.
  3. Define Your Metrics: Know what you’re measuring so you can monitor and report on progress. Want to cut response time by two minutes? That’s your metric.
  4. Manage Change: Most people resist change. Make sure you have a plan in place to mitigate people’s fears. This applies to all stakeholders, including customers.
  5. Modify for Your Business: Your business is unique. Don’t be afraid to take the best of what you find and make adjustments to fit your specific needs.
  6. Involve Everyone: Your employees will be most affected by best practice implementation, so make sure they’re on board. Ask for input and be open about feedback.
  7. Align Business and Customer Needs: Even if you call on outside consultants or other experts to help you select and implement best practices, you know your business best. Don’t implement any best practice unless it aligns with your business objectives and customer needs.
  8. Evaluate and Refine: Your work isn’t done once you implement a new best practice. You have to continually evaluate progress even after implementation is over. As your business changes, refine your best practices to make sure your business and customer needs remain aligned.

Growing your business with best practices means happier customers, more productive employees and a better bottom line. Use these 8 tips to streamline best practice implementation, so you’ll see results fast.

Top 5 Best Practices for your Help Desk

A Help Desk is designed to be the first point of contact for customers when they have requests or problems with their technology services. And you, as the technology service provider are responsible for addressing those issues as quickly and efficiently as possible. It is essential, then, to ensure a strategic method of managing this single point of contact for requests and issues. This will include tracking inbound and outbound ticket processes, escalation procedures, and ticket resolution.

Good luck finding clients that are ok with issues slipping through the cracks and hanging out there for extended periods of time. People just won’t stand for it, so to ensure this doesn’t happen, check out our Top 5 Best Practices for your Help Desk.

Everything is a Ticket – All incidents and requests must be a ticket to properly capture all work performed, regardless of length, nature, or severity of the request.

Keep Customers in the Loop – Leverage Closed Loop to communicate with the customers. You should be updating them on progress and the status of their service requests.

All Roads Lead to Rome – Rome being your service boards, everything ends up as a service ticket on your service boards regardless of the source. The service board is what then controls your next step through workflows.

My Life is My Service Board – Help Desk employees work service tickets on their assigned service boards in order of assignment and the service level agreement’s priority, urgency, and impact.

All Time, All of the Time, On Time – All employees must enter all time worked, on everything they work (all of the time), as it happens (on time).