Service Desk expanded to 9 departments at LINET

When users noticed that IT had changed its ticket handling system and the Service Desk was no longer just a “wish list”, as the previous ticketing system was nicknamed, given how long it had been taking for tickets to get resolved, they progressively asked for the inclusion of other services from non-IT departments in the Service Desk. Among the first to be added in to the Service Desk was the purchasing department. Their services covered a range from booking a TAXI for business trips to requests for office items.

ALVAO has also broadened its reach at LINET to include Marketing and Facility and Product Management departments. These departments have access to several dozen services regarding LINET products, including their training materials, exhibition event planning, and graphic design materials. The Facility Department uses the Service Desk for asset management, setting chip card access rights and fleet management.

“Other departments started contacting me. They wanted to move from inefficient e-mail requests to using ALVAO,” says Michal Toman, commenting on how the Service Desk implementation has spread around LINET.

ALVAO Service Desk receives tickets from all over the world

In LINET, requests for IT support don’t come from just the Czech and German plants. All processes and incident resolution concerning branches around the world are managed by LINET using the Service Desk. It is also accessible and used by external companies that manage their IT in the UK or the US and take care of the day-to-day running of the organization abroad.

How reports from ALVAO help in LINET

Resolving user requests has been a success – the IT department streamlined working and LINET employees have settled into using the Service Desk. As the amount of data and users in Service Desk grew, it was time to harness the power of Power BI reports for the smooth running of the organization. Reports using data from ALVAO help the Management, IT departments and CIO to manage teams more effectively.

LINET utilizes several types of Power BI reports. Some reports are displayed directly on the operators’ and technicians’ screens, allowing them to see the current queue of tickets, their allocation within the team, or the approaching DUE DATE of tickets – and within Asset Management also any looming expiry of warranty, assisting their day-to-day operations.

Another type are reports for IT managers, helping to gauge the effectiveness of individual team members, and keeping an eye on attendance, so that the workforce is optimized for peak hours when the most tickets come in. An equally important report is team evaluation, which is also very important at LINET.

The last type are trend analyses, helping to identify any underlying problems and whether tickets are trending as expected.

“We check many reports every day, some light up the technicians’ offices, others are reviewed by the management monthly, and some we check on to anticipate potential issues in the future,” says Michal Toman, describing the use of reports.

LINET staff use reports prepared by our developers as well as their own

The IT department at LINET has been using Power BI reports since the initial implementation of ALVAO. Some of their reports are their own handiwork, some were taken from ALVAO templates and some were put together in cooperation with the ALVAO consulting team.

The goal of reports always remains the same – to simplify/streamline work and at the same time to get hard data for qualified business decisions.

Thanks to the reports, LINET is able not only to invoice its subsidiaries for work done, but also to monitor through graphs which tasks (tickets) take up the most staff working hours.

The IT department workflow is more efficient, thanks to recording ticket resolution times

When they first started using ALVAO at LINET, the Service-Level Agreement due-date was set using a simple scale: 1–5.

One = I need to resolve the request urgently, Five = I am in no hurry and will wait.

This kind of simplistic categorization was no longer sufficient for current needs, and so the company decided to get closer to the global ITIL 4 standards – characterized by subdividing the SLAS into Incident Management, Problem Management, Change Requests.

This breakdown facilitates analysis of how quickly the requirements in individual SLAs (the group to which the ticket is assigned) are resolved. Accordingly, LINET is able to optimize resources as needed for quick resolution of an urgent incident, say.

The report shows which requests take longer than they should

In the Average time to resolve report, the Management can see an overview of the average time required to resolve requests in terms of individual services. In this way, LINET can home in on requests needing longer solution time and vice versa, those that are effectively resolved ahead of time.

“Going by the data, I consider how best to speed up the process and streamline request resolution. I look for reasons why some services take longer than others and I often get to specific tickets where I look for causes. The report helps me optimize processes in the IT department,” explains Michal Toman, IT End User Services Manager.

Based on the KPI reports, LINET evaluates goal attainment and motivates staff

In order to motivate solvers to better performance, the Management monitors data such as compliance with SLA deadlines or the number of resolved requests. Data is collected and compared with set KPIs (Key Performance Indicators), which affect a portion of employee wages, taking the current data in the report compared with data from the last three months for better contrast.

This can also immediately determine the IT department workload during the given month based on the number of tickets that have been assigned to the solvers. At the same time, it reflects on the department’s performance success, whether the set KPIs and expectations have been met.

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One beep was enough and the request received in less than one minute

In addition, the KPI also compares how swiftly the request is received by the technician from the user.

“Our technicians have added a little tweak. Every time a new ticket arrives that is not automatically assigned, a computer in the shared office beeps to notify of the incoming ticket. One beep was enough to let the solvers immediately know about the ticket, and this is how we got the ticket pick-up time to under one minute. The user sees that the request is actively being solved, not overlooked by the solver. Technicians can fully focus on their work and do not have to check whether a new request has arrived and so the process of resolving requests is as efficient as can be,” explains Michal Toman at LINET.

A report showing the number of open tickets helps with IT department work allocation

In the shared office, technicians’ screens light up with a report showing the number of open tickets and those that have a due date on the given day. This gives them a clear instruction to resolve the request or contact the requester to agree an extension to the deadline.

This keeps the user in the loop and lets technicians organize their work more effectively.

The same report is shown to the Management, who can then select open tickets by departments, companies or subsidiaries. For example, if the number of open tickets goes up, the CIO immediately sees an impending problem and resolves the situation ahead of time.

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A capacity report to highlight staff shortages

Pobočky LINETU se nacházejí po celém světě a operují v různých časových pásmech – uživatelé své požadavky zakládají v rozdílné časy. Na základě dat z Daily utilization reportu manažer vidí, v jaký čas požadavky nejčastěji vznikají, a kdy se nejčastěji vyřeší. Tímto získává přehled o trendech ve chování uživatelů napříč různými časovými pásy.

Na základě dat směřuje kapacity techniků na konkrétní časy, kdy je třeba řešit zvýšené množství vzniklých požadavků.

Reports that warn of expiring warranty and save hundreds of thousands on equipment

Using the features of ALVAO Asset Management, LINET carefully record all their assets together with relevant data, such as the date of acquisition, the supplier and the warranty period end date. From these records a report is generated that maps assets whose warranty expires in the next 30 days. This report is then available to technicians on a daily basis so that they can respond in a timely and effective way.

Based on the data from the report, the technicians address the owner of the particular asset registered in Asset Management through a request in the Service Desk and ask about the equipment condition.

If necessary, technicians will replace the equipment even before the warranty expires – they will create a claim ticket in the Service Desk based on incoming correspondence – which, given the size of LINET means saving hundreds of thousands of euros.

LINET reports help manage and organize company staff

The Management, CIO, nor anyone else base their decisions just on feelings or assumptions. Everything is backed by hard data. 

“We’re confirming the truth in the saying ‘What you don’t measure, you don’t control’. Wherever you have technicians, managers and even company management lacking insight into how IT is doing from the Service Desk perspective, such a department is hard to manage. Our reports also help the staff themselves, because thanks to them they can immediately see whether their KPIs are doing well and they can look forward to a bonus, or conversely, if meeting their KPIs is lagging behind, they can put in more effort to reach the goal before month end,” comments Michal Toman at LINET.

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