TECH BRIEFING

 By Cheryl Gerber

Once a stand-alone internal support application for managing calls from users, help-desk automation tools have matured into products that can serve as central repositories of vital information for tracking information technology assets and managing network performance.

Status: Agencies are embracing innovations in help-desk management tools that enable them to integrate tools and to enable the help desk to serve as a centralized repository of information. Users report that these new products have enabled their operations to run more efficiently.  Issues: Users should determine whether they can benefit from tying help-desk automation tools to other tools for network and asset management. They may also want to use the tools to customize databases for information dissemination.  Outlook: Excellent. World Wide Web-enabled versions of these tools have begun to appear on the market and hold the promise of greater convenience and efficiency.

Along the way, the software has grown richer in functionality and has become more integrated with other applications. These tools have allowed agency help desks to operate more efficiently in a variety of ways. For example, users have been able to set up pager and e-mail notification capability to allow technicians at remote locations to respond to help-desk calls. And World Wide Web-enabled versions of products are beginning to appear, which makes deployment of help-desk applications easier.

"Help-desk automation solutions are moving from reactive to proactive support," said Chris Martin, an analyst with Aberdeen Group, Boston. "You are not just keeping record of the problem resolution now; you are also helping to resolve or even prevent problems from recurring."

Federal agencies have been quick to exploit the benefits of these advances.  . . .

Customizing Databases

Some help-desk automation solutions are oriented more toward customizing a database of knowledge for disseminating information to a large volume of callers. The Education Department's National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research (NIDRR), which includes 10 regional Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) technical assistance centers, has installed such an application to help its staff handle about 10,000 calls for ADA information per month.

"The very simple calls we got eight years ago have become more complex," said Randy Dipner, president of Meeting the Challenge Inc., a consulting firm in Colorado Springs, Colo., that runs one of the 10 regional ADA centers. "There's more data about [the ADA] than ever before."

NIDRR asked Meeting the Challenge to develop a knowledge-based system to address the problem of increased call complexity. Dipner chose to use Knowledge Builder, an authoring environment from Servicesoft Technologies Inc., Needham, Mass. "I completed the prototype knowledge base in 40 hours," Dipner said. "It's entirely a drag-and-drop interface. If someone calls about a transportation issue, I click on the appropriate button, and it finds the information."

Jeffrey Whitney, vice president for corporate marketing at Servicesoft, said Knowledge Builder users do not need any programming experience to use the tool.

Unlike other solutions that handle only one method of organizing data, Knowledge Builder handles multiple methods, such as case-based reasoning, natural-language queries, decision trees and expert reasoning, Dipner said. He said the biggest challenge in using the product was to spend enough time up front to understand and represent his knowledge base in Servicesoft terminology. It understands issues in terms of four objects: the problem; the solution; the case; and the document, which is an explanation of the solution.

"You build the database using these four categories," he said. "Then, using drag and drop, you link the objects."

The Knowledge Builder system seems to have made the ADA centers' help-desk job easier. "From my observations of the system, it will significantly enhance our ability to deliver high-quality technical assistance to those who need to know about the ADA," said Katherine Seelman, [PhD,] NIDRR's director.

Web Spinning  . . .

Web-enabled version of help-desk tools also will provide increased support for caller self-service and remote problem management.  . . .

The Web-based help-desk products will help callers and help-desk staff to deal with the myriad problems that confront them daily.  . . .

Help-desk automation tools seem to do that more with every new release.

 -- Gerber is a free-lance writer based in Kingston, N.Y.

Copyright 1999 FCW Government Technology Group