With countless Help Desk solutions competing for the attention of CTOs and COOs, choosing the right one can be a challenge—especially when every vendor claims to offer the best option!
Let’s explore key features of a SharePoint-based Help Desk—features your team should evaluate when selecting the best solution for your organization.
Configurability: Your Wish is the Software’s Command
The era of one-size-fits-all solutions is fading. Every organization has unique needs—a plastics manufacturing firm, for instance, requires entirely different capabilities than a patent management consultancy. A high-quality Help Desk must adapt to diverse industries while still delivering intuitive, people-centric tools.
A key factor in user and staff interaction is the ticket—how users create, edit, delete, and manage them. Consider these critical questions:
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Can you customize ticket fields?
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Does the ticket interface dynamically display relevant fields and tabs?
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Is the interface configurable?
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Can users easily assign tickets? What about batch ticket editing?
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Does the system offer an easy-to-configure ticket workflow?
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Are dashboards available, and can they be customized based on user profiles?
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Does the system provide the flexibility to shape the user experience?
Accessibility: Adapts to Your Needs
A high-quality Help Desk must function across multiple devices. This means users should be able to create, assign, modify, and resolve tickets using various tools, including email, web forms, intranet portals, telephones, and mobile devices. The best way to drive adoption is to integrate with familiar tools, ensuring a smooth transition for employees.
The key accessibility question: Can users rely on existing, commonly used tools to access the Help Desk system for creating, modifying, and closing tickets?
Flexibility: Designed to Adapt
A Help Desk system often serves multiple functions. Large corporations may need it to support internal employee requests, customer service, and IT support. Other organizations might separate desktop support, network support, and database support. Some companies will use it for incident management, hardware requests, new hire onboarding, security access, change management, and more.
A strong Help Desk system must offer the configurability and built-in flexibility to support multiple use cases. Critical questions include:
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Where do employee and customer requests originate?
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Where does the system store data, and who has access to it?
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Does the system require separate queues?
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Can different workflows be assigned to different ticket types?
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Can the ticket interface adapt to multiple needs?
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Do dashboards and reports provide the flexibility to track different Help Desk functions effectively?
Analysis: Tracking and Reporting Usage Data
A Help Desk system must track, analyze, and present data in meaningful ways. Reporting capabilities allow business owners and managers to monitor usage, identify performance gaps, and resolve potential issues before they escalate.
Key performance metrics should include:
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Initial response times
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Ticket aging and time spent on resolution
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Performance against SLAs
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Workload distribution and individual staff performance
A fully capable Help Desk system integrates cost data with time tracking, providing a complete picture of ticket management expenses in both financial and staffing terms.
A strong reporting system should include dashboards that visualize data through charts, graphs, and tables. Ideally, users can download, print, and share these insights with ease.
Automation: Reducing Manual Work
What happens when a customer or employee submits a request via email or a web form? If the system merely forwards a generic email to a recipient, you should eliminate that Help Desk from consideration!
A top-tier Help Desk accelerates ticket resolution with automation. At a minimum, it should:
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Convert emails and web form submissions into tickets
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Automatically route and assign tickets based on predefined rules
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Offer multiple notification options for incoming tickets
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Maintain a ticket history, logging all staff and user interactions
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Initiate approval workflows when necessary
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Set SLA parameters, such as response times and deadlines, based on ticket type
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Enhance user experience with interactive features (e.g., automatic notifications, survey links, and status updates)
Historical Data: Eliminating Repetitive Work
A great Help Desk system remembers everything. It should store all conversations, resolutions, messages, and unresolved issues in an easily searchable knowledge base. A static database won’t cut it—modern knowledge bases should function as interactive tools with the following capabilities:
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Allow support staff to quickly find, create, and update historical records
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Generate templated responses for frequent issues
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Fully integrate with the ticketing system (e.g., create knowledge base content directly from tickets)
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Maintain logs of all content changes
An effective knowledge base is crucial for efficiency. Without historical data, every ticket starts from scratch, even if users repeatedly report the same issue.
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Crow Canyon Systems has 25+ years of experience building upon Microsoft collaboration platforms, such as SharePoint and Office 365, in order to give your Help Desk and Support Staff the tools they need to provide assistance without the need for additional infrastructure.
Want to learn more about how our solutions can transform your SharePoint experience? Give us a call at 1-925-478-3110 or contact us by e-mail at sales@crowcanyon.com
