HelpDesk Wish List - Page 2

dominique · 05-18-2006, 05:15 PM

Hello,

Wish:
Creation of incident from e-mail even with HTML format in the body or as attachment.

Thanks,
Dom

dominique · 05-19-2006, 01:06 PM

Hello,

An enhancement security wise...

I have several Workers (e.g.: A, B C, etc...) which are able to see all queues but they should be able to edit incident only in one (may be two queues)(e.g.: A can view A, B but not C Queue - A can edit only B Queue - B can view and Edit B, C Queues). The viewing of other queues are for reference as they have incidents links pending in other queue and they would like to see how it is going.(Automation Rules).

A, B & C have a different Role.

Thanks,
Dom
__________________

rdvanorman · 06-09-2006, 11:21 PM

How about some way to see whose using up the Licenses. We often run into situations where all of our Helpdesk Licenses are in use though only a couple people are logged in.

cybi99 · 06-11-2006, 06:09 PM

Totally agree.
Altiris need to improve the licensing usage.

gurnles · 06-23-2006, 11:58 AM

Don't get me wrong - I like the altiris helpdesk, it's a very powerful well designed database. However, it seems like you need to be certified in helpdesk, take training on it, and dig through all the database fields (often manually) to accomplish many things that should be part of the default functionality.

1. Site Awareness.
The heldpesk seems to be entirely designed as if you were either going to have a helpdesk server at everyone of your sites. Or that you didn't care about routing any calls based on site info.

We had to add a custom field to the helpdesk for the site (school) to allow calls to be routed to the support people at the school. This leads into my second problem

2. The helpdesk inventory requires every machine in your entire enterprise to have a unique NETBIOS (not FQDN) name.
NS console will accept duplicate names, but the import to helpdesk fails for duplicate NETBIOS names.

I was able to obtain an "unsupported" workaround from tech support that added a .Domainname to the computer in helpdesk. So 2-01 joined to the "CED" domain shows up as "2-01.CED" in helpdesk.

We already had locations and locations to subnet automatic assignments setup, but the assets wouldn't even get into helpdesk without the tweak to the Netbios name that the helpdesk uses.

It's really annoying that helpdesk doesn't use the same identifier or key field that NS does.

3. Groups, Groups, Groups
While you can use windows groups for security roles, there are no concepts of groups in the helpdesk.

I would also like more group awareness in the creation of rules. I would like to be able to write a validation rule that says if you are in the "end user" group and you try to change the assigned field, than give them an error - access denied. As it stands right now, I have to add every single worker into that rule one by one.

That just doesn't work for me. It's too cumbersome to create (I have approx 180 first level workers), and impossible to keep up with when we have turnover or growth.

I work for one of the fastest growing counties in the US. We have 68 schools, next year we open 6 new schools. With that kind of growth we have a lot of hiring going on, and anything that someone has to remember to update / change when we have a change in users is something that is likely to not be done consistently.

We need to be able to add a new user, put them in the correct group and just know that the group is referenced in every appropriate routing rule, validation rule, etc.

4. Helpdesk Security and User rights
I for one would have liked to have seen the ability to restrict the ability to change the assign field on a ticket, by a similar method as security roles. (I have approx 180 first level workers) I need to be able to restrict what they have access to in a much more granular manner than "incidents tab - yes / no".

5. Easily hide unused fields. (worker Console)
I would like a way to easily remove or hide fields we are not using from the incredibly busy ticket workspace. The number of fields available it a little confusing for a majority of our first level users.

If you could hide these based on user groups that would be ideal.

6. Win user console - only available w/ AD integration
We do not yet have an integrated active directory for the entire enterprise. For our needs the schools often act as their own network. While we are working towards this, I find it awful that without an integrated active directory that contains all our end user accounts, we cannot give access to the win user console, which allows end users to view the status of their own ticket.

7. More user friendly access to database fields.
To create a routing rule you need to pick from some rather unfriendly database field names. It would be nice if there was a small list of commonly used fields like serial numbers, contact name, etc.

8. Database Documentation.
Some documentation on the database structure would be great. For example, our Altiris consultant setup some automation rules using the workitem_detail_view and running a query off of that. The automation rule was to take calls in a generic queue and route them to an individual, based on the site.

Unfortunately, since they used the workitem_detail_view, it matched any ticket that had ever been in that queue. I had to browse around in the SQL database a bit to find something that would only match current tickets, and I foudn the workitem_current_view, which worked correctly.

Ideally, if the helpdesk had more functionality built in to do things we're all doing with these highly specialized notification queries and automation rules, no documentation of the SQL database would be necessarry.

But as it stands right now, most of the things we all want to do (just check the forums) require us writing our own custom rules, etc.

9. Worker Queues
It would be nice to be able to select what you want to show up in the worker queue. (Several of us have customized it to only show open tickets).

10. Customizing query columns displayed
I've figured out how to add some columns to my queue view, but there are several places where I cannot add a column to the display. For example the list workers and list queues. I would really like to be able to see the email address, and maybe some of the other fields in that listing.

That's enough for now. I'd be happy to talk with the PM directly about some ways to make it scalable and some of the big obstacles we've had to workaround with some rather nifty rules, categories and automation rules and tasks.

gurnles · 06-23-2006, 12:11 PM

1. A modifiable field for the FQDN for the helpdesk. Again, It seems to be designed with the assumption that the helpdesk will be in the building with the users.

Our users have to access the helpdesk by FQDN. Many of our Email templates still show the short name for the server and will not work.

2. Better bandwidth restrictions for the download of agent packages.
limit usage to 1%? 1% of what? The machine's determined LAN bandwith? But I've got 200 machines at a WAN site over a T1. 1% of their LAN gig connection is more than the whole WAN bandwidth for the site.

I would also like to see the helpdesk setup the agents to download and do inventory forwarding to a completely different website or ftp site by default, or as a choice during the install. This would make it easier to stop that website if the bandwidth usage at a site got out of control, without taking down the user access to the helpdesk.

And let me second the notion of having a package for the install of all activeX controls (or better yet, no activeX controls needed).

gurnles · 06-26-2006, 10:56 AM

The ability to sort on the routing rules screen.

I have 89 some routing rules, all of which have a number associated at the beginning of the title:
1.1 Groupwise
1.1.1 Groupwise New Account Request

The rules were not created in order and it is now a nightmare to try to re-order them since you can only move a row up one line at a time. (so to move something from the bottom to the top would take me 267 clicks (3 clicks times 89 rules)
3clicks - 1 to activate control
1 to select the rule (not counting the scrolling to find the rule if you need to scroll or it's on the second page)
1 to move up.
Then the page refreshes and you must reselect again.

Really all I need is the ability to change the view, not the actual order in which they are processed. Although a more functional way to reorder them would be greatly appreciated. (The move functionality in the NS console is much better, you get a dialog listing all the items, and you can select where you want it moved to).

tomattack · 07-29-2006, 11:08 AM

My wishes :

- A calendar view of incidents, so I can see when an incident is planned / overdue and so on in a calendar.
- Check in / check out system.
- Project Management into helpdesk...

greetings,

Tom

Bob_Appel · 08-21-2006, 03:43 PM

I would like to be able to switch to a defined quick incident from an open New incident and have all of the presets used. Our staff uses the save and New button alot and then find the need to cancel out of the New incident to open a quick incident. We always use a new incident at the start of a call to capture the caller information before we ask them about the problem. So they already have the caller detail captured and then find out they need to use a quick incident to record the problem. Sure would be nice to be able to choose the format from a drop down and have the fields pre-populated.

Bob_Appel · 08-21-2006, 03:46 PM

I found an IE add in that works great for spell checking in HD. It is called IESPELL. It needs to be installed on each workstation but it doesn't seem to interfere with any of our other web-based applications. Price is affordable.

dominique · 08-21-2006, 05:28 PM

Thanks for the info let me check as I have real issues with the spelling...

Dom

gurnles · 10-06-2006, 11:54 AM

I am right now struggling quite seriously with a flexible way to document the ongoing setup and config of the helpdesk.

I did document everything as it was initially built, but the lack of an easy way to export a text file of routing rules, categories,etc is really making this process seriously time consuming.

Tink of the type of things that can be configured:
Routing Rules
Categories
Notification Rules
Notification Templates

I would settle for a plain text export from each of these places. (Yes I know you can do XML, but then you have to strip out the XML code.)
A report wizard would be great for this.

It would also be nice if there was some sort of numbering scheme for the categories and routing rules. I'm finding it difficult to keep track and ensure that I have routing rules for each category, etc.
It would be really great if there was a wizard or way to auto create routing rules based on categories. (you know or an easy way to cross check that you have a rule created for each category).

pito78 · 10-06-2006, 01:02 PM

1) Currently when trying to run an International Helpdesk all rules and notifications run on the local server time not on the workers localized time. IE: The server is in Chicago (-6 GMT) and a worker in London (0 GMT) creates a ticket and sets the due time for 12pm. This completely throws my reports on overdue tickets out of Sync.

2) Because of Altiris' existing architecture, the incident database can not be access by more than one server at a time which does not allow me to have fail-over or Redundancy. I would love to be able to have 3 or 4 HD servers up and running through out the world accessing the same ticketing systems so that we can manage tickets by following the sun, and be able to have a Diseaster Recovery plan for HD with very little to no outage.

skiierj · 11-03-2006, 06:32 PM

Something that would be helpful is the ability to show more that 2 queues on the left hand column. I know I have had managers/supervisor who have two groups and workers whom need to monitor different queues.

Thanks
Jen

dominique · 11-03-2006, 08:06 PM

May be we could launch a poll on this matter as I have got several requests the same way:
- View of several queues for one worker
and more...
- security accross queues
- creation of incident should be more granular and tied to the queue where the worker is
...

Thanks,
Dom

Rjparker · 02-15-2007, 06:18 PM

The biggest complaint that I have heard from my helpdesk team is that they can not assign one incident to mulitple users, Instead it has to go to a queue that is used by 6 people 1 of which is responsible for one part and a user in another queue is responsible for the other part. Why is it designed this way?

Mike · 02-16-2007, 04:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rjparker

The biggest complaint that I have heard from my helpdesk team is that they can not assign one incident to mulitple users, Instead it has to go to a queue that is used by 6 people 1 of which is responsible for one part and a user in another queue is responsible for the other part. Why is it designed this way?

Most incident management systems don't have a one -> many relationship between incidents and assigned workers, though assigning parts of an incident to different workers is a common logic. I believe the functionality you are looking for already exists in the form of linked incidents. If I'm hearing your correctly, there's a multi-part task that must be completed by several users before the task as a whole is complete, right?

Checkout Automation rules and use them to help you create your workflows. Example

New Employee (incident)
Setup Network Access (linked indicent)
Create E-mail Inbox (linked incident)
Assign Assets to User (linked incident)

The New Employee Incident would be placed in either a Queue or assigned to a supervisor/team lead role where it will not be worked on directly. The linked incidents are assigned to their various responsible parties. When ALL linked incidents have been closed, the original incident closes also.

Mike · 02-16-2007, 05:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pito78

1) Currently when trying to run an International Helpdesk all rules and notifications run on the local server time not on the workers localized time. IE: The server is in Chicago (-6 GMT) and a worker in London (0 GMT) creates a ticket and sets the due time for 12pm. This completely throws my reports on overdue tickets out of Sync.

2) Because of Altiris' existing architecture, the incident database can not be access by more than one server at a time which does not allow me to have fail-over or Redundancy. I would love to be able to have 3 or 4 HD servers up and running through out the world accessing the same ticketing systems so that we can manage tickets by following the sun, and be able to have a Diseaster Recovery plan for HD with very little to no outage.

This is actually possible w/ Automation rules also. Imagine an International environment w/ Helpdesk A in NYC, B in Lindon and C in Perth.

Pretend that ALL incidents created in Perth or Lindon should also appear in NYC's Helpdesk. No prob, using Automation rules, you can specify the server(s) and propogate all values from the incident being recorded to the destination servers.

This can be done for all or some. This can be done bi-directionally or just as a roll-up to a central hd.

You will want the same workers / queues / categories and contacts to be available on all Helpdesk servers.

gurnles · 02-16-2007, 09:52 AM

What we do is, is we assign the ticket to a queue for the user who needs to work on it first, and we have told them to assign it manually to the next person who has work to complete. That way ownership is passed throughout the process.

If you are not doing tasks in sequence, but in parallel, maybe you should create multiple tickets, perhaps including a single parent ticket that is linked to all the child tickets.
EX. Parent ticket - setup new employee Rjparker.

child tickets - setup email for new employee rjparker
child tickets - setup windows account for new employee rjparker
child tickets - setup oracle login for new employee rjparker

I believe this sort of typical of how a helpdesk works. You may be looking for a tool that is more a workflow tool to meet some different needs.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rjparker

The biggest complaint that I have heard from my helpdesk team is that they can not assign one incident to mulitple users, Instead it has to go to a queue that is used by 6 people 1 of which is responsible for one part and a user in another queue is responsible for the other part. Why is it designed this way?

ecwt1970 · 04-16-2007, 12:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mike

...also the cabinet files required for viewing the winuser console should be placed in some sort of "agent package" that could be deployed via the Altiris agent. When a user doesn't have rights to install controls, this is a big issue. In the past I have had to create MSI packages for this and deploy them via swd solution and this doesn't always work correctly.

I'll go along with that. Just ran into this very issue last week...

jongolf07 · 08-03-2007, 06:47 PM

I would like to see the option to transfer old ticket assoications to a different worker and then delete the old worker. We have over 500 workers and it is painfull having to scroll through the whole list everytime.