Help Desk System How to Deploy them?

1. Help Desk SystemHow to Deploy them? Author: Stephen Grabowski

2. The Three Service Levels of a Help Desk System • End User • Hotline (Level 1) • System Administrator, Application Specialists (Level 2) • Maintenance and OEMs (Level 3)

3. Benefits of a Help Desk • Technicians do not have to re-derive solutions to problems • This wastes company resources

4. Structure and Representation of a Help Desk System • Attribute Value Pair • Good for answering trivial question • Good when users of the help desk system are inexperienced

5. Structure and Representation of a Help Desk System Cont. • Object Oriented Representation • Structure of the technical system to be diagnosed can be represented in the necessary degree of detail • Symptoms can be clearly related to the object to which they belong to • The semantics of the problem description can be captured and used for selecting appropriate prior experience • A high retrieval accuracy can be achieved • Discussed general OO representation in class

6. 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…

7. Case Model (Situation) • A set of attribute-value pairs describing symptoms that are important to diagnose the fault • Contain the minimum amount of info required to diagnose the problem (independence, completeness, minimalist)

8. 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 to solution becomes its own case

9. Kinds of Cases • Approved cases • Opened cases (everyone can see) • These case are separated into a case buffer (opened) and a main case base (approved)

10. 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

11. Client/Server Architecture • Allows all users to get the same up to date information • Eases the maintenance of the domain model and the case base

13. Retrieving Problem Solutions with Homer • 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 by decreasing relevance (CCBR)

14. Feedback • Can be retained by pressing the retain button • Opens a case entry interface • Operator can make final modifications • Document why the case should be keep

15. Solutions

16. Case Browser • Used by the experience author to manage the case base • Case creation • Case copy • Delete case • Approve case

19. The Development of the Homer System • 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

20. The Development of the Homer System 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 established technology (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

21. The Development of the Homer System Cont. • Organizational Process During System Development • 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

22. The Development of the Homer System Cont. • Development of knowledge acquisition and utilization • 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

23. The Development of the Homer System 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 the correct 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 received calls

24. The Development of the Homer System Cont. • Initial knowledge acquisition • Three goals • Training the project team in knowledge acquisition • Initializing the knowledge in the system • Collecting enough help-desk cases

25. The Use of the Homer System • Managerial processes during system use • Organizational processes during system use • Knowledge utilization and acquisition process • Training the help desk operators

26. The Use of the Homer System Cont. • 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 • It’s 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

27. Overview of the Design and Maintenance 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

28. 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

29. 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