[Blog] Best practices to write knowledge articles
Knowledge articles play a crucial role and remain as the backbone of every successful organization that provides great customer service. When users have a question that can range from solutions to common issues, product or feature documentation, answers
[Blog] The best practices to optimize your ITAM
The primary objective of IT asset management best practices and processes is often to maximize the return on IT assets through better insights and management with a well-defined IT Asset Management (ITAM) process. However, even with the advantages it
[Blog] Top Incident Management KPIs that matter the most
Analyzing key performance indicators must be every ServiceDesk's best approach for successful results. Many of us have heard of this business adage, "You can't manage what you don't measure." This is particularly true in IT Service Management. KPIs are
[Blog] The 4 key elements of modernized ServiceDesk
Choosing the right ServiceDesk for your organization can be challenging. There are abundant software and umpteen of potential features to consider. We tend to get caught up in the excitement of assuming how all of those features might help to build a
[Blog] Boost First Call Resolution rate with these best practices
First Call Resolution, also known as first contact resolution and commonly known as FCR is one of the important IT support metrics. It refers to a team's ability to resolve a ticket — be it a question or an issue — in the first interaction with the user. It
[Blog] Understanding the differences between Help Desk and Service Desk
IT is full of jargons and overwhelmed with abbreviations. Many people have heard of Help Desk (or "IT Help Desk") and Service Desk (or "IT Service Desk") or something else altogether, but how do they differ and which one is the best for their business? So, most users often bombard us with one question: "What’s the difference between an IT Help Desk and Service Desk?". In this blog, let’s discuss the differences between a Help Desk and a Service Desk in more detail. Up until the release of the Information
[Blog] Purchase Order Life Cycle
In good old days, the purchase orders process was sluggish, to order a product the organization had to type or print the PO. It had to be routed internally between departments for approval. After the PO approval, it had to be mailed or faxed or emailed to the vendors. This old-fashioned paper method could take weeks to complete. Today PO process has been digitized, it takes very minimal time to order and complete the PO life cycle, without any human errors. A purchase order or PO is a requisition
[Blog] ITIL vs ITSM - What is the difference?
One of the most common questions we hear from people that are new to the world of IT Service Management (ITSM) is: "What is the difference between ITIL and ITSM?" This is even though most IT organizations use ITIL tools and some sort of IT Service Management (ITSM) strategies every single day, whether they actually realize it or not. People generally use the two important terms in the IT world "ITIL and ITSM" interchangeably without realizing the difference between them. This post is to help you
[Blog] How ITIL distinguishes an Incident and a Problem
There is frequently a conflict between Incident Management and Problem Management. It’s a question we still get asked all the time, is how to differentiate an incident from a problem. To address this and offer clarification, this article will identify the differences between the two, how they are related, and why it matters. What is an Incident? According to ITIL 4, an incident is an unplanned interruption to a service, or reduction in the quality of service. The main goal of Incident management
[Blog] 11 IT ServiceDesk Tasks that should be automated to boost performance and quality
In this blog, you’ll learn 10 ServiceDesk tasks that IT techs. spend time doing day-to-day which can be simplified, automated, or even completely eradicated by bringing a fully-capable ITSM solution to play. 1. Routing tickets to the right people: How often do your techs. get assigned to tickets that should have been assigned to someone else? How much time do techs. spend every morning triaging and routing new issues? Not only it wastes your team time, but it also lengthens response and resolution
[Blog] Why switching from Reactive Maintenance to Preventive Maintenance strategy is Remunerative
A famous one-liner quote explains everything about Preventive Maintenance Strategy, "Prevention is better than cure" Preventive Maintenance is a procedure devised to avert failures and extend the life of infrastructure, machines, software, facilities and various other entities. This is achieved by anticipating when there might be issues, rather than, wait for equipment to accrue issues. Thus reduces unscheduled downtime and major repairs
[Blog] Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
What is Search Engine Optimization and what it does? You may have heard about SEO, but you are not quite sure what it means and does. Or maybe you are not that sure how it helps you attain your goals. Whenever you type a question in the browser and hit the enter button, this query will go to search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo and so on. The search engine returns a number of results to the related query term. If you have ever think of why some sites rank better
[Blog] Project Management guide for Startups
Let's extol all IT project managers, who had worked over a decade. In their earlier days of IT, they would have mastered classic tools like spreadsheets, emails, and presentation software, in order to manage and maintain projects, manually performing repetitive tasks will certainly be tedious. Technology has revolutionized our world and daily lives. Today we have sophisticated Project Management with endless automation. Project Management - The Scope of planning, organizing, and controlling resources
[Blog] 8 safety recommendations for working from home "WFH"
The coronavirus pandemic has forced most employees to remain at home in most parts of the world and pushed into a novel territory "work from home" (WFH). This certainly allures the intruders to explore the possibilities to gain access to sensitive data which could be crucial to your organization and cybercrimes will increase at this time. Here are some tips to shun cyber attacks, 1. Educate employees with basic security knowledge. Say, how to beware of phishing emails,
[Blog] Responsibilities of Change Advisory Board (CAB) and Change Manager
Everyone knows change is never easy, but often quite necessary. The statement is never truer than in IT. Solid change management capability will help you boost your ITSM maturity, break out of the "firefighting mode," align IT activity with business objectives, and transform IT from a service provider to a business innovator. However, these benefits don't come easily. Change management is one of the most difficult ITIL processes to get right.
[Blog] Transforming User Experience
Visuals give us a better understanding of not just the content, but what is behind the content — easier, faster, and clearer than just a cluster of written words. Why User experience matters for an Enterprise Software? The success of any application depends on how usable is the product to the user and how easy it is for your user to interact with. Let us take a look on how ServiceDesk plus interface provides an updated look and usability improvements. Themes for Requester Self-Service Portal:
[Blog] Do you think Change management is important? Why or why not?
Change management is an imperative ITIL process as it helps organizations foresee the benefits even before implementation. This process is responsible for assessing overall impacts, planning, and approvals for the implementation of changes and ensuring minimal disruptions during the transition. Lately, organizations see change management plays an important role during the implementation of new technology. Change management has become a formal way of communicating with their users to tell them why
[Blog] Keys for improving the End-Users' Self-Service Experience
When a user has a problem, he doesn't want to spend hours on the phone trying to fix it. I recently had to work from home and faced an issue with network connectivity that halted my project work. I wanted to fix the issue ASAP as I was running too close to the deadline to submit the project. I didn’t want to reach out to the service provider which would test my patience. Immediately, I checked the service provider's online articles that helped me fix the issue in no time and I felt it was more convenient.
[Blog] Importance of SLA in an IT organization
Working in an IT Organization we often come across the term SLA "Service Level Agreement" A quick guide on SLA and its benefits. SLA definition : Service Level Agreement is usually a formal or informal agreement between the tool vendor and the end-user of the service. It provides a clear picture of the timeline for customer's expectations while contacting the support team. When you purchase a new product let say a TV, which has a huge market. It's always tough to pick one. Some brands are top
[Blog] The Principle component of a HelpDesk Tool
Nowadays there are plenty of Helpdesk tools available in the market, they come with a wide range of features. Organizations deploying the Helpdesk tool should know the key components of a tool. An increase in users and retaining them are a crucial part of an organization's success story's. Yes, It's always important to set the right focus and understand what exactly your customer needs. Popular research on best ITSM tools states building a perfect Knowledge Base takes 70% of your support team's
[Blog] 8 significant stages of Asset LifeCycle
Every organization has assets. Your organization must be having assets too and managing them is always a challenging exercise. This is why the term life-cycle is very crucial in asset management. IT assets are generally managed using IT asset management (ITAM) software and a key process within asset management is the understanding of the asset life cycle. This gives the organization complete visibility and control of its IT assets. Here’s an interesting fact: In a recent analysis by Deloitte, it
[Blog] FCR's benefits in an organization
FCR - "First Call Resolution" is a vital metric of an IT organization, some refer it as the Pulse Rate. FCR directly or indirectly reflects your organization's growth. How does FCR work? When a user lands in a situation that's new to him/her or he/she is unsure about the situation. The next step he reaches out to his colleagues/friends to discuss the situation or he calls to the product support, hoping for a solution. When the support executive understands the situation in the first place and provides
[Blog] Incident and Service Requests: What's the difference?
What degrades the quality of IT service the most? The lack of a streamlined service process in the organization. This directly affects IT efficiency and productivity, besides the end user’s perception of IT. A substantial way to drive your IT organization's maturity to the next level is to identify and separate your standard requests break-fix type of incident tickets from service requests. Many people assume that a "How-to" question is an Incident. As per ITIL v3 definitions, "a request for information
[Blog] How Survey statistics help your business grow
When running a business, it's always good to know, How do we perform? and How the users value us? Our view and opinion as a product developer, marketers, investor, support executive or any organizational employee will certainly differ from the user's perspective. All we needed is to bridge the gap between the two communities. Most of the organizations fail at this point from knowing what users really need. There are plenty of failure stories that had affected the reputation of popular companies.
[Blog] Are you facing low disk issues on ServiceDesk Plus server ?
In any IT organization running business applications contribute constant data growth on the application installed drive. Data management is much essential on a longer run, to avoid low disk space issues. In the case of ServiceDesk Plus, It primarily deals with ticket management. The tickets can carry data such as inline images, file attachments, conversation, etc. ServiceDesk stores theses data in 2 different places, in the Installation directory, and the Database. It's not always that data need
[Blog] Benefits of streamlining the helpdesk with self-help
The self-service portal offers end-users first-line support and encourage them to find information, request services, and resolve their issues faster and directly without involving any helpdesk technicians. Whether you already have a service portal implemented or just exploring the benefits, they can be a critical piece for your helpdesk service strategy. Integrating self-service portals as part of the helpdesk offer greater benefits by providing self-help. For instance, many end users are now tech-savvy