HOW IMPORTANT IS UPTIME IN ITSM?

As often as we preach the importance of streamlining recurring ITSM processes and speeding up the delivery of core offerings, nothing grinds customer service to a halt quite like a platform outage.

You might recall the massive 2014 Google outage, which left 10 percent of the behemoth’s customers locked out of Gmail, Google+ and other services for nearly an hour in the middle of the US workday. This from a company that typically boasts 99.9% uptime.

While this is an extreme case and rare on Google’s part, it punches home the importance of high availability and proves that uptime percentage is more than just a figure for sales to throw around. In ITSM software, high availability is crucial.

WHAT AFFECTS ITSM SOFTWARE UPTIME?

One big factor that can either bolster or hamper IT service management software uptime is a vendor’s choice of hosting partner.

Tier One hosts employ significant measures at each of their massive data centers, capable of operating day-to-day with zero outages and prepared to handle more catastrophic challenges posed by natural disaster or external attack with minimal downtime.

Other issues with downtime arise from the design of certain ITSM platforms themselves. A vendor should be able to add customers and expand and alter their system without bringing it down. Platforms designed without extensibility and scalability in mind often crumble under the weight of a growing user base, and no one utilizing the tool is spared the headaches.

Anyone who regularly depends upon tools like Microsoft Azure knows this all too well.

But it’s not just unplanned outages that hamper customer service capabilities: scheduled updates to an ITSM platform can cause problems if the timing of such updates are suspect, if such updates happen far too often, if downtime during updates drags on longer than planned or, worst of all, news of upcoming update outages isn’t communicated to you, the user of the tool.

IS ITSM SOFTWARE DOWNTIME AVOIDABLE?

Simply put; no.

Downtime is inevitable. No matter how much money, time and effort is spent on high availability, it’s just that – high, not guaranteed.

The real key is how ITSM vendors deal with outages, what stopgaps are put in place to limit unplanned downtime and how readily they keep customers looped in to service updates.

Vivantio maintains a dashboard with live updates on both planned and unplanned outages and a log of updates and fixes. With a comprehensive log in hand, it’s impossible for ITSM vendors to hide from their own service record.

WHAT’S ACCEPTABLE UPTIME FOR ITSM VENDORS?

99.5% uptime, excluding planned maintenance, is an acceptable level for an ITSM platform. Any lower than that and you’re dealing with a tool that isn’t dependable enough to make up for even steep cost savings. Steer clear.

Perhaps most importantly, the uptime for your service management software should exceed your organization’s own internal requirements. If the tools you use to deliver a stellar customer experience don’t pass muster, your team’s own delays and frustration will be passed along directly to the customer.

LOOKS CAN MATTER WHEN IT COMES TO YOUR SELF-SERVICE PORTAL.

Most companies already recognize the importance of aesthetics and user experience in their corporate websites, as they are key to winning new business. What can often get overlooked is that a self-service portal is essentially an extension of the website. A self-service portal is all about servicing and retaining business, both key factors for any company. Let’s what elements impact the look and feel of your self-service portal and how they can have serious impacts on the health of your business.

WHAT GOES INTO A GREAT LOOKING SELF-SERVICE PORTAL?

A self-service portal is the “shop window” for any service management team’s customers. This can include internally or externally supported users. It represents your professionalism, branding and competence in dealing with your customer’s queries and issues and, as an important customer service touchpoint, is paramount to starting the process off on the right foot.

A self-service portal is meant to provide a stellar customer experience to your end-users, reduce the total number of inbound service calls and ease the load on your team so you have more time to resolve issues and close tickets.

When your portal looks and feels completely foreign to your brand, it’s unlikely to achieve any of this. At Vivantio, we work with hundreds of service desks who manage a self-service portal. From that experience, we’ve long recognized the value of self-service modules and how the design elements within have an impact on the overall service experience for an end-user. It’s important to account for organizational branding elements like photos and colorways. You also will probably need to make small visual tweaks to your portal design such as color changes in select areas or the addition of a company logo.

With the right tools in place, your service team can control your portal’s look and feel.

CONCLUSION

A great self-service portal provides value not only to your business but, perhaps more importantly, to your customers. It can provide users with a central location where they can research their own problems with rich content like self-help guides, videos, and FAQs. Your users can also see the status of services, all under the umbrella of your company’s unique branding.

THERE ARE MANY WAYS TO SET UP SUPPORT TICKET CATEGORIES.

Blog Series: A New Approach to Ticket Prioritization

1. The Problems with ITIL’s Approach to Support Ticket Prioritization
2. Weighted Time Left: How This Concept Can Improve Support Ticket Times by 10%

Welcome to the final installment of our A New Approach to Ticket Prioritization blog series.

This post will outline how a weighted approach to prioritizing your ticket system can be applied in practice. We will look to highlight the success of different weightings and their respective benefits and overall results.

Let’s start, however, by recapping some of the main points from our previous post. This will allow for a greater contextual picture to be built and the benefits of applying weightings to tickets to be realized more clearly.

THE ATTRIBUTES OF A SERVICE DESK TICKET

In our first post, we discussed the attributes of a service desk ticket and touched on the pieces of information it should contain – one of these being an associated priority. We saw how the ITIL framework stipulates that a ticket’s priority should be derived from its perceived urgency and impact.

But while the ITIL guidelines make for a simple way to derive priorities, they’re not without their faults. The most prominent being the neglect of lower priority tickets due to the dynamic nature of a service desk work queue. The guidance goes on to suggest that the use of a target resolution time can associate a time left attribute to tickets in a queue. By ordering tickets by their time left we tend to have the high priority tickets addressed first but no low priority ticket gets neglected since all tickets will ultimately approach their target resolution time if unresolved.

A DIFFERENT APPROACH TO TICKET PRIORITIZATION: WEIGHTED TIME LEFT

With these faults in ITIL’s ticket prioritization methodology in mind, we have found a different approach: one that takes the ITIL concept of a target resolution time but applies a weighting to the time left in order to ultimately return the best value to the business.

This subtle addition means that greater business value is afforded and lower priority tickets don’t fall by the wayside. Weighting can also be applied in relation to specific departments or individuals, such as VIPs, and also to certain ticket categories. This makes it a versatile method in which to influence the order in which tickets are addressed. In fact, the impact of applying weightings to tickets is best seen when compared against tickets that have had no weighting applied.

HIGH VALUE TICKETS ARE PRIORITIZED FIRST

The most important benefit realized by applying weightings to tickets is that the ones with the highest value to the business are prioritized first. By focusing on these tickets, IT service providers can ensure that they are always returning the greatest value to their customers in the first instance

Furthermore, tickets that can be prioritized based on their weighted time left allow service desk agents to benefit from more defined procedures. There are no questions raised about which tickets should be focused on next and IT managers can even manipulate weightings to ensure effective control is maintained over the service desk.

Lastly, improved SLA targets are seen across the board, even though the amount of tickets processed, when they were raised and the effort involved remain the same.

CHOOSING THE RIGHT WEIGHTING TO DRIVE BUSINESS VALUE

Our testing was primarily conducted using mild weightings. In reality though, specific service desks need to have weightings that complement the needs of the businesses they serve. Our research suggests that the creation of a bespoke service desk profile is crucial and ultimately dependent on the nature of the business, the type of work, effort, frequency, ticket type ratios and respective SLAs.

10% MORE TICKETS RESOLVED WITHIN TARGET RESOLUTION TIME

The bottom line in our findings is that almost 10% (9.7) more tickets were resolved within their target time when a weighting was used. It goes without saying that this represents a significant improvement in performance and sees the service desk not only operating more successfully but more efficiently too. To use a real-world example, in a fifty-seat service desk, it’s the equivalent of adding five new members to your team.

We have proven that by adding a simple weighting to the time left on a ticket, the ITIL framework can be taken to the next level to realize true value for the business and its users.

We believe that the weighted approach to ticket prioritization could represent the future of service management. If it can be combined with a more complex model that considers other business factors in the equation, the possibilities are very exciting, indeed. Complex algorithms can be written to customize the approach for individual service desks and the ever-evolving business needs.

Read our full research results on this new ticket prioritization strategy in our whitepaper or feel free to catch back up on the first post in this series.

Blog Series: A New Approach to Ticket Prioritization

1. The Problems with ITIL’s Approach to Support Ticket Prioritization
2. Weighted Time Left: How This Concept Can Improve Support Ticket Times by 10%

DO YOU KNOW HOW TO LEVERAGE YOUR IT METRICS TO GROW YOUR BUSINESS?

In the past, businesses would often depend on generic benchmarks like revenue and cost to measure success. But, in order to survive long-term in today’s markets, businesses are getting smarter. They are finding that they need to be able to capitalize on the deeper business intelligence held within their individual business systems. It’s becoming more and more critical to identify the right growth metrics within your different teams in order to rise above the competition.

One key growth metric that often gets overlooked can be found in your IT support teams. With their help desks, many organizations are failing to harness valuable information at their fingertips that will lead to better working practices, improved efficiency, and ultimately a better future.

EFFECTIVE ITSM REPORTING REQUIRES EFFORT AND DELIVERS PRICELESS INSIGHT

The hidden answer can be found by leveraging the multitude of reporting capabilities held within your organization’s ITSM software. The trick, from the business’s perspective, is to work with the IT department to leverage the valuable information held within your own business systems, rather than accepting reporting information that is readily available ‘off the shelf’.

IT has changed. No longer is it just about ‘kit’, managing systems and ensuring business continuity. In recent years, the traditional helpdesk has transformed into a multi-faceted service desk, offering much more to the business.

IT no longer find themselves simply in demand only when a business decision has been made. In fact, IT now plays a pivotal role in the business decision-making process, driving change through innovation and instilling service management ethos throughout the entire organization.

Nowhere is this truer than the business intelligence capabilities that IT affords, which can be harnessed by business decision-makers to justify an organizational change.

EASY-OPTION REPORTING

Too often organizations do not make the investment in reporting and instead rely on the information that’s readily available to them in standard reports. It’s all too easy, unfortunately, to produce straightforward reports that offer little value.

Even more pertinent is that these types of reports often find themselves on the desks of C-level executives and even become the subsequent focal points of their meetings – offering discussion but delivering nothing. The bottom line being that little is achieved in the way of strategic change with limited reporting.

VALUABLE ITSM REPORTING DELIVERS ACTIONABLE INSIGHTS

It’s ironic, however, because there is a veritable goldmine of information available within ITSM software, specifically in terms of business intelligence, provided your organization can successfully mine and extract it. Moreover, the data itself can sometimes be of little use unless it is correctly interpreted and the right conclusions are drawn.

Whilst every organization is different, there are some key reports that offer valuable business insight:

• SLA and OLA compliance to measure how the business is doing in meeting its contractual SLAs and underlying supporting OLAs
• Number of incidents attributed to different business/organisational units to highlight the source of requests and potential business issues in those areas
• The average cost per ticket to the business
• Number of incidents per service or configuration item to pinpoint trends and underlying issues
• Backlog and Predicated Backlog to measure whether the resourcing within the support team is sufficient
• Benchmarking across different departments using the same ITSM tool to highlight teams adopting best practice and where efficiencies in other teams can be made
• Benchmarking across other companies in the same sector to highlight how the business is doing compared to its peers.

THE RIGHT TOOLS SUPPORT EXISTING BUSINESS OBJECTIVES

It goes without saying that tools are often needed to successfully create custom reports that boost real business value and offer real-time insights. However, these tools should not be cumbersome to operate or represent too large an investment for organizations.

Valuable ITSM reporting should be the cornerstone on which all business decisions are based and, without it, organizations will find themselves making uninformed judgments. It’s their business intelligence analysts, however, that will be breathing the biggest collective sigh of relief. Their core focus is to gain knowledge and insights from meaningful data – quickly, simply and from a system with complete flexibility. How does your ITSM reporting stack up?

The historical role of ITSM within organizations is changing.

IT departments have always been seen as a necessary business cost that is only beneficial in providing support to your revenue-driving teams. With the evolution of ITSM practices, this is no longer the case. Let’s explain how ITIL has evolved to match this change and specifically how it affects both ticket prioritization practices and overall business value.

THE TRANSITION FROM “HELP DESK” TO SERVICE MANAGEMENT

Traditionally, a business department would identify their own IT needs and petition the IT department for the necessary equipment to achieve their desired goal. Business users would then contact their IT help desk whenever they had an issue with said pieces of hardware or software. The perception was that IT departments were there to provide ‘help’ whenever needed and little to no contact was made otherwise.

But why should IT be viewed as simply a provider of technology? The supply of specific software/hardware based solely on the petition of a business user is a disjointed process that affords little tangible business value. Today, however, the role of IT has shifted from a mere support function to a strategic service provider. No longer are help desks just reacting to issues as they arise. They are also supporting business delivery. To that end, the term “help desk” is no longer relevant when referring to a business user’s point of contact with IT.

Welcome to the era of the “service desk.” IT departments are no longer viewed as a siloed department out on a limb. In fact, the service management ethos is now spreading throughout organizations enabling more effective business solutions to be delivered. With defined business goals and desired outcomes documented, solutions can be subsequently recommended that represent the best possible return on investment. The future of service management will see businesses and IT providers working closer than ever before towards a common goal.

ITIL IS STILL RELEVANT BUT FAR FROM PERFECT

We believe that ITIL is still very relevant when it comes to ITSM and its framework. Although not perfect, it plays an integral role in the business. Furthermore, ITIL allows for the measurement of performance against a set of definitive benchmarks and monitors the overall effectiveness of IT providers.

With this in mind, it makes sense that other operational departments throughout a business stand to benefit from incorporating ITSM into their working practices. After all, most operational business units follow a set of guidelines and are process-driven. By adopting an ITSM framework, these processes and guidelines can be measured for effectiveness. For example, departments like HR and Finance could all adopt the ITSM ethos and use it to not just measure their performance but also to provide real value to the business.

ITSM PLAYS A KEY ROLE IN BUSINESS IMPROVEMENT

ITSM has fundamentally changed and now plays a key role in the areas of business improvement and business transformation. The transparency it affords and the metrics it produces can be a very powerful combination leading to visibility of performance business-wide.

A unified analytics platform can be introduced to analyze the performance of various teams across the business. This allows for the identification of top performers and can lead to specific business processes–that are providing real value–being adopted in other departments.

Likewise, under performance can also be highlighted and any potential issues can be addressed before they have a greater impact on the business. The ability to benchmark teams against each other will further underline any deviations from the norm.

ITSM TO SUPPORT ALL PROCESS-DRIVEN DEPARTMENTS

We suggest that any department which uses set processes can embrace service management and use it to improve their service offering. Moreover, with concurrent licensing, enough flexibility is available for certain departments to only implement a solution that fits their needs. This represents a significant cost saving to the business, as well as affording all the other benefits of ITSM?

Blog Series: A New Approach to Ticket Prioritization

1. The Problems with ITIL’s Approach to Support Ticket Prioritization
2. Weighted Time Left: How This Concept Can Improve Support Ticket Times by 10%

Welcome to the first in our two-part blog series A New Approach to Ticket Prioritization.

This post focuses on explaining the ITIL best practice approach when it comes to help desk ticket prioritization. We’ll explain the associated pros and cons of this approach and the reality of implementing these in a real-world business environment.

WHAT IS A SUPPORT TICKET?

The ITIL service management framework stipulates that every interaction between a business and its IT provider–whether internal or external–should be recorded in the form of a support ticket. This electronic record effectively serves as the point of reference for both business users and IT personnel to track the progress of the work throughout its life cycle.

Each support ticket contains a description of the required work and specific data that the IT team will use to determine the ticket’s priority–which, in ITIL terms, is derived from the urgency and impact of the ticket. The ticket’s owner is then responsible for its management right up to its resolution and subsequent closure.

However, whilst ticket prioritization based on urgency and impact adheres to ITIL best practice, it is not the only method available. In fact, when coupled with a more flexible approach, greater value can be returned to the business in a shorter amount of time.

WHAT ARE ITIL BEST PRACTICE GUIDELINES FOR PRIORITIZATION?

According to the ITIL framework, every ticket should be allocated an individual priority derived from its perceived urgency and impact. The higher the urgency and impact the higher the priority assigned, as depicted in the following diagram:

THE PROS AND CONS OF ITIL BEST PRACTICE

While ITIL best practice guidelines are stringently followed by businesses and IT providers alike, they present both pros and cons.

In reality, many IT providers deal with tickets on a priority basis. This approach makes sense because the higher priority tickets are, in theory, causing the business more pain. Therefore, by focusing on the highest priority tickets first, the high-impact business issues will be picked up before the lower impact issues and can be resolved in the swiftest time possible.

Also, priority based on urgency and impact is a simple way to derive priorities for IT service providers. There is no doubt involved when it comes to prioritizing tickets and every interaction is dealt with in a systematic and predictable way.

However, in practice, urgency tends not to vary too much between tickets. Some tickets with the same business impact may vary in the how quickly they need to be addressed but this is quite uncommon. For this reason, the urgency is perhaps not as valuable a differentiating criterion as some other factors, such as the impact.

Furthermore and more significantly, by focusing on high priority tickets, there is a danger that lower priority ones get neglected.

THE REALITY OF ITIL BEST PRACTICE

In a dynamic queue of work, where high priority tickets take precedent, there is an issue that is sometimes overlooked. That issue is that the attention given to lesser priority tickets can sometimes be lacking.

For example, an IT service provider’s focus remains on a high priority ticket until it is resolved. Their attention then turns to the lower priority tickets in turn. But what if another high priority ticket comes into the queue and requires attention?

This is a situation where lower priority tasks sometimes get neglected and, in extreme circumstances, don’t get dealt with at all. So, while the business feels less in terms of impact from a high priority ticket, there are certain individuals who become ultimately frustrated by the lack of attention their issue is receiving.

This actuality leads to business users submitting every request as “high priority” in the knowledge that it will be dealt with more swiftly–a scenario that is less than ideal.

WHAT ARE ITIL BEST PRACTICES WHEN CONSIDERING TARGET RESOLUTION TIMES?

As well as guidance on assigning a priority to a ticket, the ITIL framework provides businesses and IT service providers with guidelines for target resolution times. Obviously, each service contract is governed by its respective service level agreement (SLA), but the following diagram shows typical target resolution times based on priority:

Target resolution time is a standard metric in every SLA and one that can be closely monitored by both the business and IT service provider.

Ordering work by a ticket’s priority only will likely have the following result: the high priority tickets will be resolved within their target resolution time. However, the lower priority tickets will fail to be resolved within their target time, in spite of having a longer available time in which to be resolved.

These consistent low priority ticket breaches have a negative impact on the top-line SLAs, when in reality, they may represent quick wins for IT service providers that do not detrimentally affect the resolution of higher priority tickets.

A better outcome can be achieved by ordering the tickets by the time left they have left before they breach their target time. Considering the time left is a neat way that we can be confident that all tickets will ultimately be addressed since even the low priority tickets will eventually approach their target time.

TICKET PRIORITIZATION SHOULD PROVIDE REAL BUSINESS VALUE

The key results for a ticket prioritizing method are that it returns the highest business value in the shortest time whilst at the same time not neglecting the lower priority tickets. The assigning of a priority to tickets, having a target resolution time associated with each priority and then ordering the tickets in an order of how much time remains before the target resolution time is met is the most sophisticated solution that exists in the ITIL guidance.

Read the next part of this blog content series to learn more or download the full whitepaper detailing our complete research into this new approach to ticket prioritization.

Blog Series: A New Approach to Ticket Prioritization

1. The Problems with ITIL’s Approach to Support Ticket Prioritization
2. Weighted Time Left: How This Concept Can Improve Support Ticket Times by 10%