The following topics discuss some of the important aspects of Team Helpdesk system, and how these aid helpdesk technicians and managers in performing their tasks productively and efficiently to support ever-growing issues/queries from end-users:

Helpdesk ticketing in Outlook & SharePoint Log in cases from varied sources Automatic emails to support cases Support Request form in Outlook & SharePoint Conversation Threading - Get the Complete Picture Assign technicians to cases on the fly Find information at your finger tips Integrate a HTTP gateway or Skype for SMS Make calls via Skype or phone Send automatic notifications Technician Web Access Knowledge base Customer Web Service Asset tracking & management Summary Reports and Statistics - Reporting, Charting, and Data Analysis Outlook views Export cases to a database of your choice

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Team Helpdesk extends your Outlook as an ideal platform to collect, track and resolve trouble tickets while sharing this information with your entire team, all with ease. By adding help desk functionalities and automation in Outlook, Team Helpdesk enables technicians and support agents to work with support request in the same way they do with emails.

Moreover, Team Helpdesk leverages your existing Microsoft resources such as MS Exchange server, SharePoint Server, Internet Information Server (IIS), Active Directory etc, and hence, no specialized skills or software or training are required.

More and more organizations are integrating their CRM and ERP systems with SharePoint - to allow employees to access to information and documents from anywhere. Team Helpdesk integrates Microsoft Outlook seamlessly with your SharePoint portal to store copies of support cases in a configured list, facilitating remote technicians and other stakeholders to view, track and work on support request in a web browser, thus realizing the benefits of the helpdesk company-wide.

Support technicians can quickly and easily publish support cases to SharePoint without the requirement of any configuration changes, nor the need for installing web-parts or solutions to your SharePoint site. Team Helpdesk makes use of the Windows SharePoint Services to read and write data, thus supporting updating remote hosted SharePoint as well as on-premise SharePoint installations, all from Outlook.

Support cases generation can be automated by allowing Team Helpdesk system to monitor any number of mail-enabled public folders or shared mailboxes. This is particular useful when you have a dedicated support mailbox account (for example support@yourcompany.com).

Additionally, caller information can be automatically scanned and saved to the caller list for CRM purpose.  

Team Helpdesk can be configured to intercept incoming emails from any number of shared mailboxes and mail-enabled public folders and automatically generate support cases out of the emails. Processed emails then can be moved to another folder or can be moved altogether to the Team Helpdesk email history folder. Contact information is automatically populated and the summary and description fields are filled in. If a default problem category or type, technician and service level (SLA) are associated with this monitored folder or mailbox, Team Helpdesk would automatically assigned the values for these fields to the newly generated case.

In the Outlook support request form, there are various sections such as time spent, email history, notes, assets, custom fields and related cases that technicians can easily navigate and work upon. Contact fields are accompanied by relevant buttons for making quick correspondence to the contact such as email, phone calls or simply sending SMS. Fields such as problem category, type, status and department are available in drop down format (configurable by the helpdesk manager) so as to limit the choice the technician can select for such fields.

Managers can assign the relevant technician and set Service Level Agreement (SLA) and due date. Automatic notification messages (either via email or SMS) are sent out immediately to the technician once the case is assigned or a due date is specified or changed. Optionally, a due date appointment or task can also be added to the personal mailbox of the assigned technician. From within this form, a technician can quickly browse, preview and select a knowledge base article or predefined reply and insert a relevant solution directly to the case problem description or make a quick reply to the caller. When logging in a new phone case, an existing caller, either from the caller list or from global address list (GAL) can be selected and it will automatically populate all other available caller fields such as address, phone number, company etc.

The SharePoint support request form is derived and generated automatically from the corresponding Outlook request form. With fields mapping tool, manager can choose which Outlook fields are to be made available in the SharePoint copies of the support cases. If the particular mapped field takes a drop down list in Outlook such as Problem Category, Problem Type, Status, Callers Name etc, the same drop down list values would be available in the SharePoint list automatically. So this way, the same helpdesk metadata and logic are carried over from Outlook to SharePoint. Over time, as manager make changes to the drop down lists in Outlook, Team Helpdesk would automatically update the values in the schema definition of the SharePoint list.

When a new support case is logged in Outlook, Team Helpdesk automatically generates the SharePoint copy, almost instantly, without the user even knowing it. If existing support cases are updated in Outlook, the changes are also automatically synced to the corresponding SharePoint copies of the support cases. Any attachments and inline images in the Outlook case items are also carried over into the SharePoint copies, retaining the same formatting and styles.

With the conversation threading feature, Team Helpdesk captures the complete course of the conversation chronologically, from all email communications received or sent (including those automated notifications sent to caller and technicians in due course). The end result is a consolidated view where all the responses to a support request are collated together. Redundant and repeated conversations are filtered out to present only the relevant communications.
 

This eases the task of the helpdesk and minimizes repeating what has already been done, while keeping support team members to stay on the track. Another advantage is it allows the technician to quickly glimpse through the thread and get a complete overview on the responses in chronological order and resolution applied to the particular support request, something which is hard to extract from viewing multiple email responses.

Team Helpdesk system uses intelligent logic to determine which technical support operator is assigned to a new service request case. For example, help desk manager can assign a default technician to each caller in the Team Helpdesk callers list, thereby allowing for automatic assignment of that particular technician when such new service request comes from the specific caller.

Another way of dynamic assignment is by associating a particular mail-enabled public folder or mailbox with a technician, such that, support cases generated out of incoming support request emails from that particular folder or mailbox, would automatically have the associated technician assigned. As a consequence, Team Helpdesk will send out notification emails and SMS, to the assigned technician automatically.

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Manager can also associate a default technician to each problem type in the Team Helpdesk problems list, so that when end-user submits a new support request via web form, Team Helpdesk will automatically assign the associated technician of the selected problem type. Hence, with certain association of problems and callers prior in the Team Helpdesk lists, help desk managers can always get the right agent on the job.

This automation allows managers to get rid of manual assignment, and helps to improve the efficiency, and response time of your helpdesk team.
 

Search the support cases in the ongoing and resolved folders for cases that meet a user specified criteria or keywords. Any occurrence of these keywords are searched in all fields, including the description field and any the resulting cases that meet the searched keywords are then displayed in that same Outlook folder view. Yes, no dialog or redirection to any folder! Team Helpdesk makes use of the flexibility of the built-in Outlook filter and hence, the view itself is modified to only display those wanted cases.

That is not over yet. Make advanced search based on cases based on intrinsic help desk fields such as created date, due on, technician, problems, caller, author, assets, status or departments. For non-date fields, the possible value lists are loaded in relevant drop down controls allowing technicians to quickly select a value and commence the search.

For date fields, search criteria can be for a particular date (e.g. cases that are due on 11/25/2008), or can be between a date range (e.g. cases created between 11/25/2008 and 11/30/2008).

Hence, due to the various advantages, it is no wonder that Team Helpdesk supports SMS messaging just as it supports emails! SMS alerts can be automatically dispatched to callers or technicians based on certain help desk events such as when case is resolved or when a case is assigned to a technician.

There are three ways in Team Helpdesk to support SMS messaging

1) Using a SMS HTTP gateway provider -  Many SMS providers offer simple HTTP SMS posting, allowing one to send SMS text messages directly through their gateways. Sending SMS via internet frees the support team from having a cellular carrier and individual mobile phones. Configuring support for a HTTP gateway in Team Helpdesk is very easy. Just select a provider (from a list) and input the connection URL and user credentials and you are ready!

2) Using Skype (version 2.5 and above) - If technicians have Skype installed and has credit, Team Helpdesk can set to send SMS directly through Skype. This functionality is done programmatically, which means, Skype is seamlessly integrated with Team Helpdesk. The technicians won't even notice the Skype is being used during the whole process of SMS messaging.

3) Using an Email to SMS Gateway service - If you have an email to SMS gateway service, you can set Team Helpdesk to route SMS alerts to the mobile device of callers/technicians.

Team Helpdesk system enables technicians to start making calls to callers, technicians and Outlook contacts on a click of a button, all inside Outlook. This can be achieved in either one of the two ways:

1) Using modem based phone - A phone is connected to the technician's system via one of the communication port. This setting is done per system by the technician. These come under the Personal Settings portion. Calls can be made from the case form by directly clicking at the buttons with the phone or mobile icons.

2) Using Skype - Skype allows you to make calls to any local and international phone numbers via the internet. What all you need is to have some Skype credit. Team Helpdesk can be configured to use Skype directly for calling callers or technicians.

Automatic emails and SMS alerts are send out directly when a relevant event occurs and the whole exercise is transparent to the technicians. Technicians are not even required to be working on the Cases folder. In fact, as long as Microsoft Outlook is running, Team Helpdesk system is active i.e., it is processing requests and automating various helpdesk tasks such as sending out notification emails and SMS alerts. 

For remote technicians who cannot access and work on support cases in the public folder or shared mailbox, Team Helpdesk provides them with an easy web interface accessible through a web browser on the internet.

The Team Helpdesk web access is an AJAX enabled ASP.NET 2.0 application and provides a rich set of tools and interactivity with the live data in the exchange folder. Technicians with valid web access rights will be prompted to enter user credential when logging in to the website.

Each technician can choose to access only their cases, or load other cases based on a search criteria such as case ID, caller or other technician. Existing email replies from the caller can be read, replied or forwarded, all from the comfort of the web browser.

Most of the functionalities available to technicians via Outlook are also available on the web access. Create new case, work on existing case and close, re-open or delete case directly from within the web access form.

Team Helpdesk system includes an inbuilt Knowledge Base folder that allows your helpdesk team to document best practices and solutions to common problems. Any support case is eligible to become flagged as an KB item and thus, a technician recognizing a repetitive support issue can easily flag a resolved case as a knowledge article.

It is very easy to use the knowledge base in Outlook. A Question and Answer format is used to intuitively display KB items. Each item may have any number of file attachments associated, rich-text elements, and hyperlinks to other web pages. All items are tagged with a related problem category and problem type, so it is easy to find a particular resolution at time of needs.
 

Team Helpdesk provides a means for the technician (in Outlook and web) or the customer (via web form) to create a hard-link between a troubled asset and a case.

The asset management module within the Team Helpdesk system provides a centralized repository for all of your organization's hardware and software inventory. An asset may be cataloged and categorized by Asset Types. All the asset fields except for the asset name can re-titled to adapt and take any of your organization's intrinsic properties of inventories such as association with Make, I.P. Address or Model information; providing invaluable information directly from trouble case to the technicians resolving the support request.

Technicians can easily view every problem and incident ever reported on a specific asset. In Outlook, the support case form has a special tab for assets that not only shows the asset details, but also relevant cases that are associated with the same asset problem. 

With summary reports, managers can generate summarized reports on support cases based on different time interval - today, yesterday, this week, this month, last month, this year, last year or own date range. Summary reports provide an overview about when cases are logged, due, worked and closed over a period of time.

The inbuilt statistical tool in Team Helpdesk system allows displaying support cases data from your exchange folders to multidimensional data structures in grids, charts and graphs and support most common operations such as pivoting, drill down/slice and dice, filtering etc. This gives managers a unique opportunity to analyze their helpdesk data - slice and dice performance data to seek opportunity, drill down into trouble spots  to reinforce and strengthen policies.

Therefore, in addition to providing a mechanism to resolve customer issues, Team Helpdesk gives senior IT managers with statistical information and understanding that aid in the decision-making process concerning the whole of help desk, and the organization as a whole. With such arrays of information, the organization can reengineer their help desk processes, reinforce resources and forecast problem areas and exploit all these factors for competitive advantage.

Based on different needs and scopes, technicians can switch to any pre-defined cases view. For example when, the problem category-problem type view is very useful when we want group cases on line of problems in hierarchical tree, so that it is easy to have a summarized information as which problem type has the maximum and minimum cases. Similarly, a manager can have a generalized information on the case life span (e.g, the day it was created to the day it was resolved) in a timeline view by choosing one of the calendar view. By default, Team Helpdesk provides more than 30 views, catering to all help desk requirement scenarios and scopes.

Support cases grouped by problem category and further sub-grouped by problem type

Support cases grouped by technicians

The Team Helpdesk views can be modified to suit the team's taste and fields requirements. If you are an Outlook expert, you can even create new views and publish them for all your team in the folder. All Team Helpdesk views are organized in a way that they bring out some sense out of the cases - patterns, associations, occurrences or dependencies. But sometime, a technician would want to refine the view by means of keyword search on any fields. With the simple and advanced search options available with Team Helpdesk right in Outlook, you are never handicap from the finding the right information in right time.