Help Desk System How to Deploy them Author

Help Desk System How to Deploy them? Author: Stephen Grabowski

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)

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

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

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

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…

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)

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

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)

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

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

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)

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

Solutions

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 casebased help-desk support system • Evaluation and revision of the case-based help-desk support system • Utilization of the case-based help-desk support systems

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

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