In-Depth
Help for the Help Desk
Keep track of support requests with one of these packages.
Suppose you’re hired as a software development company’s manager for
a support technician team. On your first day at work, you’re hastily introduced
to the help desk application that’s been internally developed and updated
using Visual Basic for the past five or six years. After a month, you
find that support technicians don’t like to use the system because it’s
extremely tedious and difficult to use as a resource to find similar problems
and resolutions. Because they don’t like it, they’re also prone to shortcuts,
which leads to inaccurate or incomplete support incident records. What
this means to you is that the customer might not be getting the highest
quality support. In addtion, when it’s time for monthly productivity reports
for your technicians, it’s going to be next to impossible to derive an
accurate account of their time. Clearly, it’s time for a new system. Because
help desk software isn’t your company’s business, this is the time to
evaluate products.
Once the decision is made to invest in a help desk package, deciding
on required features is the next step. Different companies have varying
needs. In the case of the software development company whose support consists
mainly of external users, features such as hardware inventory, remote
control and license management may not be required. However, many help
desk solutions target large companies supporting internal users and will
benefit from these features. Another important consideration is the platform
for the application: What database is required and is it Web-based?
As a support director of a small team of technicians using an internally
developed and limited help desk solution for many years and as a former
support technician myself, I know my job would have been made easier by
many advanced features that come standard with the products in this roundup.
I’ll take a look at four help desk products: HelpSTAR 7.0, BridgeTrak,
NetSupport TCO/Help desk, and Track-It! 5.0.
HelpSTAR 7.0 Professional
First up is HelpSTAR 7.0 Professional. The product literature promised
a full list of help desk features I needed for my small team of technicians.
The well-organized and complete HelpSTAR documentation used the term “players”
to describe the interrelationships of the help desk. This is an important
concept in that, typically, there are internal and departmentalized support
reps; external users belonging to another company. HelpSTAR understands
this, providing many avenues of both administration and automation based
on the types of users added to the system.
HelpSTAR provides a Web interface, allowing the external client to log
in, then create and check the ‘status of their requests, saving time for
the support technician who doesn’t have to transcribe the information
over the phone. These users are granted non-privileged status and can
only see their own requests. Many other privileges (such as the ability
to assign a request directly to a technician and bypass the queuing system)
can be granted on a per-user basis. The Web interface is only one way
to make it easier for the user to get their problem into the system. E-mail
requests can also be sent and automatically updated into the HelpSTAR
7.0 database, notifying the user of success and auto-generating a reference
number for the case.
HelpSTAR has optional wizards to guide users through initial data entry.
The non-Web client, which can be installed on each workstation, shares
the look and feel of Microsoft Outlook (see Figure 1).
 |
| Figure 1. The HelpSTAR interface will be comfortable
for anyone familiar with Outlook. |
HelpSTAR provides workstation auditing, but utilizes an unorthodox external
application, StarWatch, to provide this and other services, such as processing
incoming e-mail. StarWatch is a separate program that must be launched
on the HelpSTAR workstation and run with HelpSTAR.
From setup to use, HelpSTAR lived up to banner on its Web interface:
“Help desk solutions have never been easier.” And “easy” in this case
doesn’t preclude powerful. HelpSTAR comes with administrative reports,
time tracking, knowledge base and alerting features and others that all
work together to keep the technician focused and client updated.
NetSupport TCO
The NetSupport TCO Help Desk works with NetSupport TCO to log service
requests from users and provide both real-time and historical reporting
solutions. Many of the advanced features delivered in TCO—such as software
and hardware inventory, Web metering and software deployment—are aimed
at corporate and enterprise clients whose internal computer landscape
is extensive and requires a staff of help desk personnel to support. The
NetSupport TCO console can automatically gather an inventory of network
computers, allowing help desk support technicians to view information
about the user’s workstation stored in the NetSupport TCO SQL Server database.
In addition to Net Support TCO, another module, NetSupport Manager, can
be loaded to work with Help Desk and TCO. It provides management functions
such as remote control and file transfer.
The installation of NetSupport TCO and Help Desk was straightforward.
I decided to use MSDE as the database, and the installation program installed
this for me as well as created and configured the database. Web site setup
wasn’t automated, but the onscreen instructions were sufficient to get
it going with little difficulty. NetSupport Help Desk uses PHP with IIS,
so this also needed to be installed. I was hesitant to follow the instructions
on making my default Web site the Help Desk Web site, but I did it through
clenched teeth. NetSupport Help Desk also supports Apache.
I was most impressed with the look and feel of the Help Desk Web application,
shown in Figure 2. The hyperlinks throughout the page for each request
allow the support technician to communicate with the user via a chat or
remotely control their system from one location. Though it lacks some
of the advanced features of other help desk packages like a true knowledge
base publishing system and auto-escalation, NetSupport’s package does
what it’s designed to do: Efficiently manage service requests alongside
other powerful auditing and network tools.
 |
| Figure 2. NetSupport’s Web interface offers comprehensive
management for support incidents. (Click image to view larger version.) |
BridgeTrak
The version of BridgeTrak I reviewed was designed for a Microsoft Access
database but other database platforms are supported, including SQL Server,
Oracle and Sybase. BridgeTrak’s interface is tabular, very much like a
Microsoft Access application. At first it feels overwhelming because of
the many fields, dropdowns and tabs. The reviewed version came helpfully
pre-populated with sample data, some of which is shown in Figure 3. I
had one layout issue with the BridgeTrak: the inability to adjust the
size of some of the forms. With multiple \forms open, it was challenging
to maneuver back and forth between them. Even if I chose cascade or tile
from the Window dropdown, the forms didn’t line up as expected, giving
the application a cluttered feel.
 |
| Figure 2. NetSupport’s Web interface offers comprehensive
management for support incidents. (Click image to view larger version.) |
BridgeTrak is packed with flexibility, such as the ability to add fields
directly to the application and the ability to track projects. In my experience,
a support department is sometimes the catch-all department—it’s responsible
for software testing, documentation, installation and training. BridgeTrak’s
recurring issues feature is flexible enough to handle many tasks for which
support technicians are responsible. BridgeTrak also offers many other
standard features, such as e-mail integration and knowledge base management
as well as workstation auditing. BridgeTrak would be good for small- or
medium-size companies that need to gather a lot of information about specific
issues for internal reporting and follow up.
Track-It! 5.0
Track-It! 5.0 by Blue Ocean Software Inc., adds even more features to
the mix. Although it doesn’t features like knowledge base publication
or project tracking, it does provide sometimes overlooked modules. Track-It!
ships in two editions—Standard and Enterprise—and each has several add-on
packages. I reviewed the Standard edition, designed primarily for small-
to medium-sized businesses. It doesn’t use SQL Server or Oracle databases,
unlike the Enterprise edition. Track-It, as the name implies, is primarily
an asset-tracking tool designed to manage systems and its users. It also
provides a robust help desk application via a Web interface as well as
a network sharable client application.
Installation of both Track-It!’s main client and Web applications was
very smooth. The Web installation set up and configured the Web site automatically
and presented a very appealing home page, shown in Figure 4. I did need
to add several ActiveX controls, such as Web Audit, which needed to be
installed.
 |
| Figure 4. Track-It!’s Web interface has a clean,
modern look. (Click image to view larger version.) |
Of the many features I’d use daily as a support director or network manager,
two of them aren’t seen in many other packages. These are the ability
to track user training and track checked-out equipment through a library
management system. I know that, in my small company, training is paramount;
even though it’s a requirement for moving ahead, it’s difficult to track.
The training module in Track-It! makes it easy to know the exact date
and location of the training as well as the instructor and fees, if any.
Track-It! was easy to set up and use. It’s highly customizable, with
user-defined fields in just about every table. It’s more for internal
asset management than external use, but the help desk features are still
powerful, offering many of the standard features such as internal end-user
access, department categorizations and auto-escalation of work orders.
Making the Decision
The help desk software market is diverse and constantly growing.
Fortunately, many vendors have been developing their products for a number
of years and added features to benefit differing help desk and call center
environments simultaneously. The ultimate decision in the purchase of
a help desk application lies in its ability to automate otherwise redundant
and manual processes. End-users and customers appreciate the ability to
search for solutions to their issues and submit support requests interactively
on the Web or through e-mail. However, there will always be customers
willing to wait for extended periods of time for a friendly voice. If
the support engineer is made more efficient by utilizing the software,
then it’s possible to decrease that time dramatically. The end result,
of course, is keeping the customer satisfied.