Matthew Maderos

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How to Roll Out a Helpdesk Ticketing System
Lessons Learned and Pit Falls to Avoid

• Matthew Maderos
• Information TechnologyMassachusetts College of
  Art Design
• mmaderos_at_massart.edu
• October 16th 2008
• NERCOMP

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• MassArt
• 1,300 undergraduates
• 300 graduate students
• 600 faculty and staff
• Information Technology
• 12 full time staff
• 3 co-op students
• 5 work-study students
• The Product Chosen
• Numara Footprints
• Purchased Version 7.0 in June of 2006
• Currently running 8.1.1

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Background

• Home grown system built by student worker
• lacked numerous features that were essential for
  a functional helpdesk
• No way to edit
• No escalation
• Hard to search

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What we were looking for

• An easy to use Web based ticketing system
• Integrated with our LDAP and AD systems
• Custom reporting
• Able to fit our allocated budget
• Expandable to other departments
• Mechanism to automatically provide status updates
• Future expandability
• Asset Tracking
• Change Management
• Software distribution

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Project Time Line

• Goal to have system in place for September 2006
• Established budget of /- 20,000
• February 2006 demo various products
• March 2006 bid went out to vendors
• April 2006 contract awarded to Footprints
• May 2006 general testing with users
• Installation and rollout August 2006
• Footprints administrator Matthew Conlon attended
  training November 2006
• 1,000th ticket entered April 2007
• Upgraded to 8.0 July 2007
• July 2008 purchased asset management add-on
• 5,000th ticket entered September 2008

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Footprints backend

• Installed
• Running on Windows Server 2003
• Dell Power edge 1850 server w/ dual Xeon
  processors, 8Gb Ram
• Linked to AD via LDAP
• Linked to existing SQL Server 2007
• Incoming outgoing e-mail notification
• Editable interface
• Stepped through Project Wizard
• Configured
• LDAP issues
• Address book issues
• Re-configured In House Updates
• Footprints 2.0
• Footprints 2.5

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What we learned, so you wont have to

• Its more about process than product
• No system will fix a bad work flow process
• Keep perspective on the way issues are handled by
  the human before we can determine how the
  software will process them
• Look into vendor training on your product
• At first glance the administrator training for
  your product might look long, boring, and pricey,
  but look again
• Allows you to fully customize and maintain your
  system in-house without spending time calling
  vendor tech support.

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What didnt work Pitfalls

• Whats your Title?
• What kind of problem is this?
• Master ticket to use or not to use?
• Email overload/out of office?
• What is critical?!?!
• Email submissions/spam
• Marketing/user training
• Increased demand for separate projects
• Increased time for tweaking system new employee

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What we learned, so you wont have to

• Not all systems are created equal
• All have strengths and weaknesses
• Web-based vs. Client-based,
• small or large scale, fully featured or bare
  bones
• Ask around, do a site visit
• Customization is key
• The more you use the software the more you will
  want to tweak, trust us
• Expect that you will redesign the system at least
  once for customizations
• Make sure that your product can be customized to
  your needs

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• Scale the product accordingly
• Make decisions about which entities will be using
  your solution early and make them clear
• Split cost with involved departments if possible
• Be aware of agent license costs
• Communicate the benefits of new system to users
  for buy in

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Benefits of New Ticket System

• Priority and notification features
• Allows for better issue tracking
• A new helpdesk, a presence
• Reports, Reports, Reports
• People are coming back!
• Customizable agent and customer roles
• Incoming email ticket generation
  helpdesk_at_massart.edu
• Customer interface displays ticket history
• Tickets can be added to knowledgebase after being
  resolved
• 5,250 plus tickets in 2 years

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May 2007 October 2008
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The Road Ahead

• Survey system
• Expand knowledgebase
• More Automated reporting
• Inventory/asset management
• Application deployment tool
• ITIL
• Mobile devices
• Workflow processes
• Expand asset management

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Questions?
Matthew Maderos Information TechnologyMassachuset
ts College of Art Design 617-879-7888 mmaderos_at_m
assart.edu
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THE TOUR
http//footprints.massart.edu http//helpdesk.mass
art.edu