queston for help desk /1st liners

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do you log jobs for every call or only the ones that need to be escalated and can;t be fixed at 1st line?

cheers.

 

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The 1st line IT support job that I start at the end of the month requires that all calls are logged including the problem and how you resolved it.

Kraven

 

This was a question that came up at our last IT meeting!

The Help desk stated that all jobs have to recorded, partly to keep an history file on that caller and partly to show the Finance dept what they do with their time

 

I haven't actually worked on a IT helpdesk. However you log all calls that you receive. That way as UCM said you always have a history of that call and if there is any problems that do arise then it is fully documented and if you've done everything you could it basically covers your arse as well.

 

yeah, that's what i suspected...

however, where i work, i noticed that quick advice (such as "no that's not possible) and password resets are usually not logged since the desk can get quite busy, and the quicker they get these kind of calls out of the way (as in near a few seconds), the quicker they can get to the next caller in the queue.

although the desk should follow official lines on call logging, i believe that the help desk manager leaves it to the operators' discretion regarding quick calls like the above mentioned.

 

ALL calls must be logged!!

If you don't you have no idea how much work the helpdesk is doing! So can't get your staffing/skill mix right. Can't charge your customers for the activity you are doing.

Shall I go on?

 

mate - password resets - are you saying that you can reset the users password within few seconds?

pw resets should not be rushed, yes - reset the password within the AD takes 5 seconds, but how about security? Seriously, each company must adopt some policy whereby they call handler must ask the user some sort of security questions to verify the caller, if not, bigggggggggg security breach!

And what Sandy mentioned is very true - this helps ITSM alot!

 

I'd actually follow the official line, it will come back and bite you as the manager could claim they never said don't log certain calls.

 

Password resets take seconds in my job, and no we don't log them. But then there is only two of us and about 1500 users, most of which are kids whose accounts are locked down to the hilt.

 

I've never worked on a Helpdesk, but I can appreciate the benefit of logging all calls that come through.

We don't log support issues at my work place (only a small company of 50+ users) but it would help immensely if we did. I have noticed that a user may have a problem, we may spend a couple of hours finding a solution and sorting it out but there's no formal documentation. I try to keep notes on all problems I deal with, but the other support guy doesn't. So when he's away and a previous problem occurs, I have to spend more time looking for a solution, when it could have taken me 2 minutes to read through some logs.

That said, we have been assigned to creating our own helpdesk application but due to our workload it's been side lined. The funny thing is that if we did have the application it would probably help us work more efficiently and have more time to do other things!

 

Have a look at SysAid. We use it at our place and it's very good for a freebie.

 

Exactly! I log also every call, and if I can't solve the problem, I forward it to other group and put worklog all troubleshooting steps.

 

yeah, i don;t work on a help desk so i don;t know official lines but i;ve noticed the majority of the helpdesk staff don;t log all calls.

as i;ve never come across another help desk, i don;t know what people do or don;t do in other organisations.

we have about 4000 users and 6 helpdesk staff.

i work 2nd line desktop and sometimes another user grabs me for a quick fix. i usually do this without logging a job. the boss has said we can do this and no one's ever told me that i had to log a job if i decide to fix another issue whilst on another call.

i guess each place has it's own guidelines and flexibility on these rules/guidelines.

 

If I logged every single job I do on our helpdesk I would have a hell of a lot less time to actually fix things and get jobs done. The helpdesk at our place is not a formalised thing really, we put it in place so we could monitor jobs and show pretty graphs to our boss now and again.

 

Helpdesk at my school consists of a knock on the door followed by me shouting "what"! Its a there and then fix. If anything is going to take longer then it gets wrote down on my 'to-do' list.

 

Exactly our policy 2, log a call for every issue.

It also means there's a record of the work you're doing so workload can be tracked.

 

Being on the subject of 1st line support, Im due to start my job at the end of the month, What sort of hours do you guys usually work? (8 - 4, 9 - 5 etc) I forgot to ask when I was at the interview.

Kraven

 

Where I work, whoever works on the ticket logs their info, if any. Whoever resolves the ticket, closes the ticket.