How to implement a Help Desk in SharePoint with Mozzaik365's Helpdesk functionality.
Having good IT support for internal and external requests is essential for any company. It allows you to offer an excellent quality of service and to retain your users. But have you ever heard the term Helpdesk? If you haven't, the first part of this article will answer your questions.
For the more experienced, see the second part of this article on how to implement a Help Center in SharePoint with Mozzaik365.
What is a Helpdesk?
A Helpdesk, also known as a support centre, is used to handle requests from its users. It is therefore the reference software for IT support. It can be used externally (for customers) or internally (for employees' requests). Ultimately, having a Helpdeskis an excellent way of building user loyalty. How can this be done? By offering a follow-up of their requests, providing information, and satisfying their requests. This tool offers a truly comprehensive technical solution.
But such a platform requires a certain amount of human resources. To manage a Helpdesk, you will need to arm yourself with a myriad of support technicians. Their daily mission will be to manage the maintenance of the software and hardware and to provide the necessary assistance to the Helpdesk users.
The different levels of support
There are different levels of Helpdesk support depending on the complexity of the request. To understand them, the ITIL(Information Technology Infrastructure Library) distinguishes two things: the problem and the incident. An incident can cause a service to be stopped or its quality to be degraded. On the other hand, if the cause of one or more incidents is not known, then it is called a problem. The problem is therefore the cause of one or more recurring incidents. This distinction is important for understanding the different levels of support.
Level 1 support
For this level of intervention the role of the support technician is to provide advice to the Helpdesk users. Here the request is simple to handle and can be solved by a simple intervention. The role of the technician is to make the first contact with the user. This request can be handled by telephone, e-mail, chat, etc. The technician must then diagnose the incident and try to resolve it as soon as possible. As far as the support technicians for this level of intervention are concerned, they will not necessarily be technical experts. They are often given a script for recurring requests. Thus, because of their profile, if they cannot technically handle the request, it is passed on to a higher level of support.
Level 2 support
If the request is more complex, it is passed on to a level 2 support. Here, it is more problems are solved rather than incidents. The role of these support technicians is to highlight and correct recurring sources of error. The knowledge required for this level of intervention is therefore greater. However, if they are unable to respond to the request, it is passed on to the next level of support.
Level 3 support
This level of support includes requests for interventions that are much more complex. Here it is generally no longer support technicians who intervene but specialised engineers. They intervene to resolve serious problems or incidents.
Thus, the organization of responses to Helpdesk tickets (requests) into 3 levels of intervention makes it possible to streamline responses and to be able to react more quickly while optimizing the cost of resolution.
Why can Helpdesk be a useful internalally?
A Helpdesk can be used to respond to both customer and employee requests. Thus, internally, to avoid IT teams being overwhelmed by employee questions, using a Helpdesk softwareseems to be a winning strategy. The objective of companies should therefore focus on one point: to create an application hub that includes everything necessary for the development of IT support. Thus, on a single platform, it would be possible to manage requests, have an FAQ feature, highlight IT news, etc. A definite time-saver! Indeed, it would no longer be necessary to constantly switch from one application or environment to another.
A Helpdesk for your Digital Workplace: a Mozzaik feature
By bringing together various features of SharePoint and Mozzaik365, you can create a Helpdesk environment that meets your needs. But how do you use the features of SharePoint and Mozzaik365 to create a user support center?
What is user support?
User support in this case is understood as internal support. It allows each employee to request services, access to rights, and material or computer authorizations. It is an essential element of companies, organized, structured and linked by procedures and technological tools. User assistance is all the functions that allow these actions to be carried out. A good user assistance allows to :
- Maximize employees' production time;
- Ensure that they are working in the best conditions with the necessary tools and information;
- Improve employee satisfaction: having someone at your service, solving your problems... ;
- Secure access to company resources for employees who need them.
User support is increasingly becoming a strategic element in medium and large companies, enabling them to take into account the expectations of each employee.
Implementing a Help Center in SharePoint Online with Mozzaik365
Central user support
User support is a cross-functional department of the company. It must be able to provide these services to every employee. It is essential that all users can access it easily, from any context. The obvious organizational response is to create a dedicated department to pool the resources providing support at company level.
The same answer is given for the tools: create a site freely accessible to employees in order to group together all the services and all the user support knowledge.
In this, a feature offered by Mozzaik365 can help you: unified navigation! It allows you to keep the link to user support in front of you. Thus, it is the most natural and unique entry channel for any employee request. From any area of your SharePoint Online, your employees will be able to access the Helpdesk in one click.
The Ticketing
Ticketing " or the management of support requests makes it possible to structure the process of responding to a request. The request follows a specific process, each problem is traced. You also have data to analyse the problems and the performance of the helpdesk.
The most important thing for the employee is that the ticketing system makes the request visible. This way, they can be sure that their problem exists from the company's point of view and that it will be dealt with.
💡 Mozzaik's tip:
The link to Ticketing services should be placed prominently on the help desk. It can also be integrated into the list of applications in the Unified Experience.
Microsoft has developed the functionality of SharePoint Lists and many improvements are planned in its roadmap. This is a powerful tool that makes it easy to set up a SharePoint-integrated ticketing system and meets all the requirements of this type of service.
Self-service assistance
The difference between two assistance services lies in their ability to offer Self-service. So what is Self-Service?
Self-Service is about enabling employees to obtain satisfaction on their own more quickly than by contacting the helpdesk. Self-Service is implemented in several ways:
Knowledge management
First of all, finding the answer to my question or the solution to my problem by myself. Capitalizing and crystallizing knowledge allows to put a knowledge base at the disposal of the employees. Mozzaik365 has developed its knowledge management module with this goal in mind: to allow users to exploit the knowledge bases set up by their company. A powerful semantic search engine and the management of keywords associated with articles enable an efficient and fast search.
In order to feed this knowledge base, Mozzaik365 has also set up the contribution help module.
The contribution help module automatically generates a page or an article according to a defined Template , so that the contributor can concentrate on the content rather than on the form of the information. This feature also helps to identify articles by automating the addition of keywords. All this allows your collaborators to save time and be more productive.
Automation of requests
Secondly, we have more and more tools to automate requests. Power Automate is Microsoft's low-code automation tool. It allows, by connecting to all Microsoft tools, to automate the company's procedures. For example: record requests, update a dashboard, generate alerts by email or on a Teams channel.
💡 Mozzaik's tip:
At Mozzaik, we also offer self-service features: the aforementioned contribution support is one of them. We have been able to implement several project space self-service processes using Power Automate and the Mozzaik365 site factory. These allow, with a simple request via SharePoint, the creation of a SharePoint site based on a template stored in the site factory.
Collaborative assistance and collective intelligence
Support and problem solving are also about community and social fabric. Identifying the experts on a subject gives access to more information. And being identified as an expert is also empowering for the employee.
💡 Mozzaik's advice:
It is interesting to create communities of practice, for people using certain tools, to be able to share their problems, exchange and share their knowledge.
Mozzaik365 offers a number of features that add this layer of social collaboration to SharePoint spaces. The organizational chart and the ability to enter skills and the list of top contributors help identify the right people to talk to. The integration of Yammer and Teams spaces into the community spaces also simplifies exchanges. The idea box and the survey module allow employees to participate.
Things to remember
📌 A Helpdesk is used to handle user requests for IT support.
📌 There are 3 levels of support depending on the complexity of the requests.
📌 You can implement a Help Center in SharePoint Online with Mozzaik365.
