Head Desk

This is my exploration day project. It's a proposal for a different model of support that should be applicable to any and all of our services.

Requirements

1. a modern, usable web based help desk software package (not remedy),
2. a support email account on an IMAP server,
3. one or more support staff members.
4. an out of band communications channel (IM, face2face, drums, etc).

Set Up

Setting up the email account requires these steps:

• Create a folder with the name of each staff member in the support email's IMAP account.
• Configure access to the support email account for each staff member.

Setting up the help desk software requires these steps:

• Set up help desk software package such that it collects mail from the support email account.
• Configure help desk software such that it sends mail from the address of the support email account.
• Create accounts for each support staff member in the help desk software.
• Have each staff member customize their account such that notes sent from the help desk system include their name in the "signature" or in the From address (the actual from address should be left as the support account's address).

And don't forget to set up the OOB communictions medium for all support staff.

Usage

When a staff member is on duty, they activate their access to the support email inbox in their IMAP client. Messages in the account's inbox are processed oldest first. For each message processed, the staff member takes the appropriate actions required for support. Any communication required to provide support are created and sent directly from the help desk software itself. As each mail message is processed, the staff member moves the mail from the IMAP inbox to the folder which has their name in the IMAP account.

Messages sent from the help desk software include an identifier in the subject line of the message. When customers reply to messages from the help desk software, those messages are received in the support email account with the identifier in the subject line. The help desk software will consolidate all messages for each identifier together such that the entire correspondence is kept together.

Any work that is performed by support staff that isn't explicity communicated to the customer from the request should be recorded in the request page it relates to. In this way, other staff members are aware of exactly what has happened in case they are called in for help.

If mail arrives in the inbox and it does not contain the request identifier in its subject, then it should be forwarded to the existing request.

Assignment

If a support request needs to be handled by someone other than the current support person, then the request should be assigned to that other person in the help desk software. This should generate a mail to the assigned staff member alerting them of the request.

Multiple Staff Members

In order for multiple support staff members to be processing the inbox, then need to establish a protocol of who is handling which messages. This should be worked out using the OOB communications medium.