In a perfect world of IT Help Desk Automation all software issues will be either fixed manually or detected and proactively eliminated.
Most of the top call volume driver issues (incidents/service requests) are owing to organization specific custom workflows, user and usability related issues which cannot be always handled with script based routines limited to infrastructure management.
Without understanding of the top call volume drivers, simply checking myriads of settings, versions & parameters in the name of self-healing is an inefficient approach and doesn’t achieve desired outcomes of automation. Should you then spend all your money on trying to automate end point issues even if the impact is low? Or should you try to balance Self-heal and Self-help automations to create a stronger ROI?
In context of IT Help desk, let’s look at an example where we can either implement a fully automated self-healing approach or give users the ability to self-resolve based on the probability of occurrence of the issue.
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An use case for IT Help Desk Automation- Unable to schedule Skype meeting from Outlook
Most of the people in IT work culture, would have faced this issue of unable to schedule Skype meeting from Outlook, there could be various reasons for this issue including below:
· Skype add-ins not enabled in Outlook
· Correct version of outlook not installed
· Corrupt registry items
An experienced & skilled IT Help Desk engineer:
· Must first find the Skype version
· Must check if the right version of Outlook is installed
· Figure out which registry items are corrupt and how to fix it probably taking some expert help, read more here.
Deciding the type of solution for IT Help Desk Automation
The root cause here is known, ideally we would want to put this in a self-heal i.e detect and fix category of solution.
However, ticket analysis indicates that the occurrence of this is less than 0.5% per month.
In which case a feasible option will be to make such solutions available to users before they log an incident or even if they log an incident, enable engineer to remotely fire the solution on the impacted systems immediately. This will be much more efficient than the Self-heal agent constantly checking say the registry items or required Add ins.
Points to ponder while deciding Self-Help vs Self-Heal Solutions in IT Help Desk
1) The call volumes of the issues(incidents/service requests)-
If the call volumes are not huge, selecting a self-help solution, would give a better ROI and a positive business case, rather than spending a huge amount on automation, which seem to be relatively costlier.
You can decide based on the frequency and the impact on occurrence of the issues.
2) Workflows-
If the workflow of your solution, involves a user-centric resolution, it is better to go for self-help.
Some examples are-
Mail archival– (Here users need to enter outlook profile credentials and manually select mails, select the folder, where the archival is required and name the outlook data file. So the solution cannot be fully automated)
Unable to read digitally signed emails– (As to read IRM (Information Rights Management) protected mails users need to install AD RMS policy templates separately, so the solution cannot be automated)
Anakage self service is made for Enterprise users to self-resolve issues reducing up to 40% of the tickets on the help desk support. It is an offline application, which can be installed in Mac and Windows machines. We call it offline, because it does not need the internet to run solutions.
For issues which are repetitive, like temp folder clean-up or compliance check, we have an automated platform, called Proactive CoBot, which can detect issues and fix it, by itself, before the user even knows about it.
Click here to get in touch with us to know more about how we can help you implement a successful HelpDesk Automation.
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