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When a user has a computer problem, the first thing
the user does is call the IT help desk. Unfortunately,
the problem described by the user is often vague or
even inaccurate. Worse, the solution offered by the
help desk personnel over the phone often confuses and
frustrates the user. Something just gets lost in the
translation. The IT staff may as well be speaking
Klingon, which is not unheard of considering IT
personnel. Perhaps not all IT staff are Trekkie geeks,
but the point is communication between users and IT
support personnel isn't always the greatest.
IT help desk personnel are often understaffed and
overworked, and need better methods for assisting
users who are looking for support. Several help desk
software tools have been developed to allow better
management of support issues, prioritize certain users
(such as VIP customers or executives), and to help
develop a knowledge base to more quickly solve future
issues. In addition, several help desk software
solutions allow IT help desk personnel to remotely
view the user's Registry settings, device manager,
system configuration files, program manager, and even
remotely control the user's desktop screen without
leaving their desks.
As a former IT support person, I know about the
need to make life easier for IT personnel. I decided
to do some Web research to find some of these help
desk solutions. I should note that help desk software
is a very broad category with hundreds of different
products and different market niches. For this column,
I targeted help desk products that allow IT help desk
technicians to remotely diagnose PC-based problems,
but not just remote control software since a copy of
PCAnywhere can do that job just fine. Trouble-tickets,
live chat, auditing, and tight integration with a
knowledge base were just as important as "remote
desktop control" in order to be mentioned in this
column. I also examined some ASP-model help desk
solutions that I thought were interesting.
BLUE OCEAN SOFTWARE
Blue Ocean Software
has a product called Track-It!, a Web-enabled PC
management system with tightly integrated modules for
help desk, inventory, auditing, remote control,
purchasing, library, training, reporting, 3D graphing,
and more. It also includes Track-It! Audit, which
automatically inventories DOS, Windows, Windows
2000/98/95/NT, and OS/2 PCs for hardware
configuration, software, LAN information, and startup
files. Optional modules are also available. The one I
found most interesting was Track-It! Remote, which
allows remote control of workstations on the LAN, WAN,
or across the Internet by your help desk technicians.
CONTROL-F1
Another company offering remote desktop control for
help desk environments is Control-F1.
Not only does Control-F1 perform remote desktop
control, but it also includes diagnostic utilities,
queuing of trouble tickets, and statistical reports
that a help desk administrator can access to manage
and analyze the performance of individual technicians
and the help desk as a whole. In addition, features
such as live chat, customer evaluation forms, and
intelligent routing using predefined business rules
are all available. If an alternate technician's
skill-set is required, call escalation gives a
technician the ability to seamlessly transfer a
support call mid-session.
I was very impressed with Control-F1's wireless
support. Help desk technicians using Control-F1
eSupport can be notified when customers enter the
support queue through their wireless devices such as
PDAs, mobile phones, handhelds, pagers, and
Blackberries. They can also view the support queue
through these devices.
I was also impressed with the user-friendly GUI for
performing remote diagnostics. Without any
intervention from the customer, by using the remote
tools, one can retrieve almost any piece of
information that a computer and its software stores,
including system devices, running tasks/processes,
system templates, Windows information, memory
information, and installed applications. Remote
Registry and Remote Explorer are useful tools to
diagnose system problems.
EXPERTCITY.COM
For organizations that are cutting back on IT
staffing, there are several outsourced or ASP-model
help desk support Web sites to assist your employees. Expertcity.com
is one such site that has hundreds of live experts
working 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Expercity.com
claims they can answer anything and everything about
your computer.
After you register, you can select your expert
based on price, rsum, rating, and member comments.
Your expert will provide immediate answers using
Expertcity.com's help tools, including screen-sharing
technology. The user and the expert can communicate
via live chat, phone, and of course screen
sharing.
COMUSOLV
ComUSolv is an
interesting Web site where you can get live help via
text, voice chat, and even share your screen. There is
no registration required and it is free. Live Help is
also provided by Expertcity.com and Tech24.com,
for a small fee. Telephone help is provided strictly
from ComUSolv.com.
This service is also free. You can call them using
your own phone and even call them via the Web (they
use the Net2Phone client). Their site has some cool
diagnostic utilities, including a BIOS version
checker, memory utilities, and tips for optimizing
your Windows environment.
PROTONIC.COM
Protonic.com is
an online community which provides technical support
to computer users for free. All of their support techs
are volunteers, and they have been featured in many
media publications, including USA Weekend, Yahoo!
Internet Life, and .net. They solve a
variety of computer problems -- everything from
hardware to HTML. They don't discriminate which
operating systems they support either. They support
nearly everything, including PCs, Macs, Unix, and PDAs.
PCSUPPORT.COM
Another outsourced help desk application comes from PCSupport.com.
PCSupport's MyHelpDesk system combines live support
services and computer self-help resources delivered
via a Web-based application. Tech24Inc.com is yet
another outsourced solution that offers
pay-per-incident technical support.
Their Web site is well organized and even includes
links to the appropriate Microsoft technical support
knowledge base, although most IT technicians have
those URLs memorized or book-marked. The site includes
a free BIOS checker, free Web-based virus scan (TrendMicro's
virus scanner), and more. You can e-mail technical
support or talk live to a help technician.
RIGHTNOW TECHNOLOGIES
RightNow
Technologies uses previously asked questions and
issues to create a knowledge base. Customers can then
query the knowledge base for "self-help" and RightNow
will list the best matches. The dynamic knowledge base
"learns" with each query. RightNow claims that up to
90 percent of all Web site visitors using their
software quickly find answers themselves. Powerful
search capabilities allow customers to find answers
fast. However, if the problem remains unresolved, live
help or chat can be initiated.
Essentially, RightNow products automate online
technical support, customer service, and knowledge
building for Web-connected businesses and
organizations. Their flagship product, RightNow Web,
is a fully integrated customer service product suite,
linking customer self-help, e-mail management, live
online chat, and contact management. RightNow Web is
built on a simple premise: empower customers to help
themselves. Of course, if the search results don't
help the customer, RightNow offers live chat
assistance, e-mail assistance, and even automatically
asks for customer feedback.
In fact, their e-mail management provides an
escalation path for customers with new or unique
inquiries. SmartAssistant provides intelligent
auto-response to customer questions. Configurable
workflow rules route the question to the appropriate
customer service rep for quick follow-up. Once
answered, the solution can be published to the
knowledge base to answer future inquiries.
RightNow Web is a closed-loop customer service
solution that builds a dialog with your customers,
delivering information and automatically asking for
feedback. By engaging in real-time customer dialog,
you can fine-tune your customer service to increase
customer satisfaction and loyalty.
PREVIO
I found the final company I investigated to be very
interesting. It too targets help desks with the intent
of making IT staffs' lives easier. The company is
called Previo and
they recently visited TMC on a press tour. They
described their eSupport Essentials architecture and I
was intrigued. Previo uses patented three-tier
compression, including Redundant File Elimination,
Redundant Block Information, and HLZS. The Client
Agent performs this three-tier compression to speed
transmission of snapshots to the repository server and
conserve repository disk space.
Redundant File Elimination (RFE) is a simple
concept. If many computers each have an identical copy
of a particular file, then a single snapshot copy can
be used to recover the file to any of the computers.
Instead of storing a snapshot copy of the same file
over and over again for each client computer, eSupport
Essentials just stores it once. The client computers
in any organization typically have a high percentage
of redundant files (the operating system, widely used
applications, etc.). Therefore, RFE provides
substantial compression of the repository data, as
well as considerable savings in network bandwidth,
since these files do not have to be transferred over
and over again to the repository.
Somehow the discussion about compression led me to
tell Previo about my first PC. I said, "My first PC
was a NorthGate 286 with a 60 MB hard drive with one
of my favorite utilities -- Stac's Stacker software
running on it to double my limited hard drive space."
Previo's founder and CEO Tom Dilatush said, "That's
us. We changed our name from Stac to Previo."
"Wow," I thought. "The company that developed my
favorite little software utility on my very first PC
was sitting right in front of me!" After some
technical banter with Dilatush, I contained my
nostalgic enthusiasm, and Previo continued to talk
about their product.
Previo's eSupport Essentials returns an inoperable
computer to its pre-problem working condition. Help
desk personnel or end users can roll back a computer
to a prior working condition in minutes with just a
few mouse clicks. Recovery from corrupt files, damaged
applications, system crashes, hard disk failures, or
even viruses is possible. eSupport Essentials provides
automated snapshot protection (which runs in the
background while the user works) and quick recovery of
the complete desktop or notebook PC, including the
operating system, applications, data, configuration
settings, and user preferences. eSupport Essentials
also integrates with Peregrine ServiceCenter and
Remedy Action Request System.
I especially liked the eSupport Essentials Help
Desk Console that is implemented as an MMC snap-in
(popular interface). The MMC snap-in provides chat,
remote control, and assisted rollback functions for
all protected PCs through a simple menu selection.
Other features include remote client installation to "push"
software to clients for quick software deployment and
rollout, reporting, and even remote desktop control.
CONCLUSION
There are several other help desk companies on the
market that might be useful to your organization. Some
other companies you should check out are www.bindview.com,
www.motive.com,
and www.support.com.
If you work at a help desk, then choosing the
proper help desk software can be a lifesaver. The time
saved by utilizing help desk software often pays for
itself very quickly due to the often expensive
salaries of IT technicians. Just like the Enterprise-C
came to the aid of the Klingons on Narendra III from
the Romulan attack in 2344, I hope my help desk
suggestions will aid IT support personnel in having
better productivity, fewer headaches, and happier
users. Hey, I never said I wasn't one of those Star
Trek geeks! Till next month's column, Qapla'! (Klingon
for "Goodbye!").
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To The July 2001 Table Of Contents ]
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