Job Aid: Service Desk Automation or Manual Processes
Contents
Job Aid: Service Desk Automation or Manual Processes .............................................................. 1
1. Overview ................................................................................................................................. 2
2. Overall Service Desk Tips ...................................................................................................... 2
3. Service Desk: Manual or Automated? .................................................................................... 3
3.1. Manual .............................................................................................................................. 3
3.2. Automated ........................................................................................................................ 4
3.3. Thoughts and Implementation Questions ......................................................................... 5
4. Planning for Automated Processes ......................................................................................... 6
4.1. Process Content Pack Workflows .................................................................................... 7
4.1.1. ITIL Aligned Service Request Process Flow ............................................................ 7
4.1.2.
5.
6.
ITIL Aligned Incident Process Flow......................................................................... 8
Planning for Manual Processes ............................................................................................... 8
Additional Resources .............................................................................................................. 8
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1. Overview
This document and the data provided will explain how IBM Control Desk (ICD) is designed to function
for enabling and supporting the life cycle of a Service Request. The lifecycle begins with creation of a
Service Request which may require a follow up incident if it is a deeper issue. If there is no deeper issue,
a service request can be resolved with a simple request and/or provision of information. Should analysis
show that the incident can only be temporarily resolved, or a work around provided, the incident may in
fact then be a problem to be reviewed and researched so as to determine the root cause. In this case a
problem record will be created and associated to the incident record.
Problem
Service
Request
Incident
Change
The lifecycle described above can be navigated manually, or it can be automated with a workflow in IBM
Control Desk or perhaps a combination of both. This document will work you through how to decide
whether to use automation or manual means to move through the service request life cycle, to start or for
a longer term implementation.
ICD also provides the functionality of the Service Catalog and fulfillment; this functionality is out of
scope for this document, but is covered in another document. It is however valuable to note these
processes are often interlocked and interconnected in processes within IBM Control Desk and a service
desk overall.
Assumptions have been made that the user of this document is familiar with ITIL foundations as well as
the Service Desk applications within IBM Control Desk. If you would like to get more information about
these applications, it is suggested that you work through the links in the Project Configure, specified in
the “Additional Resources” section at the end of this document.
2. Overall Service Desk Tips
These are questions and recommendations for using Service Desk Management overall. These questions
and answers are relevant whether you are using automation or working the requests manually, but help
you think through how you may want to leverage automation or start with manual processes.
The Service Request, Incident and Problem applications work in a very similar way, and it is not
productive to use them in a way that they are not designed for. Service Request, Incident and Problem are
designed to be used together to provide a total solution along ITIL guide lines.
o
Have classifications been specified within your existing system?
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o
o
o
If not or for more information, please see the Job Aid on Classifications.
Classifications should be used to take advantage of the tool design and enable reporting /
KPI requirements and in the flow of building workflow, as well as first owner group to a
record.
Classifications should be fully tested and reviewed before loaded into production. It is
very difficult to remove classifications after they have been associated to records, but it is
very easy to add them at a later stage.
o
Do you have any specific priority matrix that your organization has decided upon?
o If not, we recommend that priority be determined by Urgency and Impact through the
priority matrix provided per ITIL guidelines. This priority matrix is included out of the
box with IBM Control Desk.
o
Do you have a specific time period for the tickets to be in resolved status before they move to the
more permanent status of closed?
o We recommend all tickets should be set to resolved status and then after a short period of
time say 3 to 5 days the tickets can be set to a status of Closed. Use notifications to advise
users that tickets have been resolved and that if no response is heard from them in the
specified time period that the record will be closed. Use escalations to automatically set
the tickets from Resolved to Closed status.
o
Are your Service Desk Analysts going to be working in ICD for most of the day?
o If yes, it is recommended that the number of emails sent via escalations are limited.
Otherwise these emails become ignored and not used when it is critical.
o If not, email alerts are appropriate for users that may not be in the system daily, such as
end users or managers.
3. Service Desk: Manual or Automated?
There are two ways to approach the Service Desk Management in IBM Control Desk: manual or
automated.
3.1.
Manual
Managing the desk processes and flow manually means that your Service Desk Analysts would be work
the Service Requests, creating incidents and problems, changing statuses, adding logs, associating tickets,
and handing off work to different teams of their own accord, as they see fit for each record that is handled
by the desk function. That is, not using a predefined, structured and process flow defined workflow.
Workflow provides a means of electronically reproducing business processes so that they can be applied
to records. It is something that can be used to plan, design, build, test, and manage workflow processes
within IBM Control Desk.
You can manage the movement of a record through a process from start to finish. You can instruct
individuals to act on records, specify delegates when workers are unavailable, ensure that individuals act
in a timely manner, and ensure that an audit trail exists for each record and process.
Manually managing your Service Desk would require that your Service Desk Analysts are disciplined
and prepared to handle records as if they were unique, though they may not be.
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Why would this be done, when automation exists? Several things come to mind,
- The company wants to get started quickly and may determine that there is no time to define
automation/workflows to move work throughout the life cycle.
- The organization may be at a process maturity level that does not show consistent steps and
flows yet to allow records to be automated through the creation of an Incident and assigned.
- At this time, the organization may not have the skills to support workflow and therefore do
not want to have them created till they can support and modify.
- The organization may want to use the manual creation of incident until they determine the
parameters that the agents working the Service Request go through to determine to create an
Incident or not.
- The requests that your service desk handles may not be “standard” they may be relatively
unique requests frequently. If this is the case manual processes can and will be very
effective.
- If your organization uses a knowledge base or has self-service support through a knowledge
base then manual as well will be effective as many will solve their own issues and those that
are not solved will be likely incidents, for additional support and work.
3.2.
Automated
Using automation to manage your Service Desk means that Workflows, Escalations, and SLAs are used
to ensure that the Service Desk functions to assist in improving services by controlling a request through a
predefined business process. Defining the business processes allows the service to reach a more structured
or mature level of service and to focus on the customer requirements for strong service.
The use of automation can also reduce training costs for new analysts and the tool set will assist them in
how a request should be handled, as well as ensure records are assigned and handled by the analysts each
time the same way.
If you choose to use the Service Desk Process Content Pack (PCP) (see Additional Resources section at
the end of this document for full details of the pack), this content comes with out of the pack workflows,
person groups, escalations, and more. The workflow processes that are provided in the Process Content
Pack can also be seen in section 5 of this document. These workflows can be altered to meet your
organizations’ specific requirements or used as is. By using a workflow, there can be business gains:
- Consistently apply business practices to records, through a structured flow to every ticket.
- Manage the movement of a record through a process from start to finish.
- Route a record and appropriate instructions to the appropriate individuals so that they can act
on it.
- Ensure that individuals act on records assigned to them in a timely manner.
- Guide users through their interaction with a record.
- Ensure that an audit trail exists for each record and process.
- Automate in order to ease the usage of the users
The decision of automation or manual is not a binary one. There is always the option to create a basic
workflow and work most of the ticket manually as a launching point. This would allow time and space for
the organization to gain understanding of the tool, and how to use and then grow and mature before
creating strict rules, flow and regulations using workflows.
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3.3.
Thoughts and Implementation Questions
When deciding to use a manual process, automated process or a mixture of both, consider the questions
below.
o
Is your organization at a maturity level that shows consistent steps and flows that would allow for
automation?
o If not, your organization may want to use the manual processes of the service request as
well as creation of incident until they determine the parameters that the agents working
the Service Request go through and then to determine to create an Incident or not.
o
Does your organization have the skills or manpower to support and maintain a workflow process
within IBM Control Desk?
o
Are your business practices already documented?
o If so, creating and implementing workflows will take less time.
o In general, business practices encompass how an enterprise is managed. As you begin to
ask questions about the business practices, concentrate on practices that they manage
using the software. For example, how they process and manage records and how the
individuals make decisions about those records. Start collecting data by asking questions
about the enterprise and the implementation. The implementation team might have
already documented the answers to some of these questions.
o
Do you have Service desk to incident soft hand offs?
o If your team often has soft handoffs, it would tend the organization toward a more
manual approach as the users are exchanging data verbally.
o
Are you using a knowledge base?
o If so, the users may benefit if there is a workflow in place because then the workflow
drives the agent to look for solutions first.
o If the agent has to go beyond the solutions because there is not one for the ticket being
worked, the workflow can automatically ask the agent if a solution should be created
from the resolution of the ticket.
o
Do you support Self Service in some way?
o If you use self-service, tickets will typically be less “standard” and workflow tends to be
less helpful, unless the workflow is more high level, such as create incident or change
status.
o
Are you requests common or repeat frequently?
o If so, workflow will be very helpful to ensure standards of the common requests by all
agents and processes
o
Are your service requests frequently unique?
o If so, then typically requests will be less “standard” and workflow tends to be less
helpful. Unless the workflow is more high level, such as create Incident or change status
and such.
o
Do you have a distributed service desk in different locations?
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o
Workflow works to ensure and provide standards across different locations for working
requests.
o
Do you support 24 X 7 (follow the sun)?
o Workflow can provide transition to the next staff team with more structure, but it needs to
be designed for every stage of the workflow. This means this can increase load of
management and decision points.
o Manual allows for quicker change over and less overall maintenance.
o
Are you modifying existing processes to improve service?
o If so, start manually or with high level flows to allow full change and modifying of
process.
o
Do many tickets need level 2 or 3 support?
o If so, this would mean workflow would need a transition point at varying points for
transition. If using SR and Incident (ITIL) flow, that would lend it-self to fall towards not
needing workflow within the individual objects.
4. Planning for Automated Processes
The answers to the following questions provide background information for planning for Workflow
processes in IBM Control Desk. These answers also help to determine what types of processes you might
automate using workflow.
o
o
o
o
Do you have business process flows documenting the various business units of the organization?
Are there different process flows for the same organizations at different locations?
Does the enterprise have written standard operating procedures (SOPs)?
What are the regulatory requirements for the industry? How do they impact the business
processes?
What types of records at the enterprise require approval? Are there written policies that define the
levels of approval that are required for each type of record?
The answers to the following questions help to determine the types of records that can benefit from being
managed via a Workflow process.
o
o
o
o
o
What types of new records must be reviewed by someone at the business?
Are there records that must be approved or activated before they can be used?
o For example, solution records, requests for access and so forth.
Does the life cycle of a record require one or more individuals to review the record and then take
action, such as approving the record or changing its status?
Do you want to handle status changes for new records manually or via a Workflow process?
Possibly questions above could be here better??
There are several workflow types. The answers to the above questions will guide you as to the appropriate
choice.
Process Workflow (traditional, assignment oriented) A structured process manages a records lifecycle,
continually pushing assignments to people, running actions, and sending notifications along the routing
paths. Actions can be used in workflows, escalations, and SLAs to initiate an application action, execute a
custom class or specified executable program, or set the value of a field on a record.
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Example: Certain permissions are needed to move forward in a workflow, and so the tickets are routed to
these users through the workflow for approvals.
Context based interactions (assignment-less): A menu of action choices is presented to the user based on
the current record’s data properties, scripting the user’s interaction with the application.
Example: When a help desk technician enters a Service Request and selects Route, properties such as
ticket type and status conditionally present the available next steps, such as Close or Create Incident.
Close could go to the Start Center; Create Incident could take the user to the newly inserted incident in its
application.
Hybrids: A mixture of structured routings along with interactive, conditional page, and dialog navigation.
Example: Detect at the time of an activities or tasks completion that a work log should be entered and a
communication should have been sent, and take the user to the log tab with instructions to that effect.
o
o
The workflow process and functionality should be designed to smoothly hand off between
applications, and the nodes allow the creation of a record from, for example Service Request to
Incident, and carry the data forward.
Statuses should be used to determine where the ticket is in its lifecycle, and included in any
workflow.
4.1.
Process Content Pack Workflows
IBM provides content packages to help aid in the implementation process, these following two sample
workflows are examples of an end-to-end process flow within the Service Request and Incident
management. Both of these workflows are included in the Service Desk Process Content Pack (see
additional resources below in this document).
These have been included so that you can get an idea of what an automated workflow might look like
within Service Request & Incident.
If you install the Service Desk Process Content Pack, these workflows will come with the content. If
desired, your organization may leverage these workflows by using them as-is or altering them to fit your
organization.
4.1.1. ITIL Aligned Service Request Process Flow
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4.1.2. ITIL Aligned Incident Process Flow
5.
Planning for Manual Processes
There are two ways to approach a manual process for Service Desk within IBM Control Desk.
1) Completely manual process with no intent to automate
2) Manual process with the possibility of automation in the future (or limited amount of automation
at the start)
Both ways are effective, and will use similar tools to ensure the work is getting done. The manual process
requires more thought from the Service Desk Analyst as they have to ensure they are not missing any
steps. When planning for Manual Processes, you must ensure that you have documented your processes
thoroughly so that your Service Desk Analysts and Incident Analysts understand completely their tasks
and what the steps are to complete a ticket.
If you are unsure of your process, it is a great idea to have loose guidelines for your Service Desk and
Incident Analysts, and as the time goes on (about 6 months into using ICD), begin to really watch how
they maneuver through the tool. This will give you much insight on the workflow and how it would aid
the Service Desk and Incident Analysts.
6.
Additional Resources
The following links provide additional documentation;
Blue links take you to the IBM Control Desk project workbooks on the process automation community.
Project Start - Use this workbook as your guide to getting started with IBM Control Desk on Cloud.
Project Configure - Use this workbook as your guide to configuring the IBM Control Desk on Cloud.
IBM Control Desk Service Desk Process Content Pack – please note that this is the 7.5.4 version of the
pack, but there are other versions available if you search on the ISM Library. The oldest version of this is
7.5.1, so any ICD instance earlier than that is not supported with the Service Desk Process Content Pack.
The version that you choose should correspond to the product version used.
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