| Automates routine inquiries
'Work-flow engine' suggested solutions
Peter Krivel, Toronto Star
Steve Antolos received an e-mail from a co-worker at Oakville Hydro saying there was a problem sending jobs to the printer.
Antolos, the help-desk manager for the utility, diagnosed the problem just before a company director told him of the same glitch.
"I was able to tell him that I was handling the problem," Antolos says of HelpSTAR, software that enables help desks keep better track of technical glitches. The software was developed by a Mississauga company that promises it not only automates requests for technological assistance, but takes on other administrative tasks, such as human resources, payroll and vacation requests.
HelpSTAR president Igal Hauer, an MBA graduate from the University of Toronto, has been developing and marketing help desk software since 1988.
HelpSTAR works on the premise that 80 per cent of the hassles involved in using a computer have happened before.
"If you called the help desk, there would be a series of steps that tech support would lead you through to try to diagnose the problem," he says.
"But there's no real need for someone to get involved in the process, if there is a recipe to go through for you to do on your own or to determine that it's not easily fixable."
It's very much like a Google Web search, Hauer says. You go to an online self-help module to describe the problem. The system diagnoses it and spits out a suggested solution that tech support has previously entered into the system.
If that doesn't help, then your help-desk colleagues are contacted and they begin their suggested solutions.
"Before HelpSTAR, the procedure wasn't the same," says Antolos. "We had different ways of communication. Someone would call or e-mail you or someone would tell you to do something for someone else.
"Sometimes jobs got lost. Now we have a standard procedure set up."
HelpSTAR automatically creates a ticket that logs every bit of information on a problem, and keeps track of recurring difficulties.
"Usually what would happen is that a phone call would come and you have to write down the problem," says Antolos.
"We're now trying to train our computer users (who number around 80) to use HelpSTAR because it will create a ticket and put in all the information."
Hauer says the software is best for firms with between 100 and 10,000 employees and 10 and 100 support representatives. Prices begin at about $3,500 for a package covering two support representatives and unlimited users.
Hauer's customers include Motorola, Sears, Ottawa International Airport, the United Way and various departments of the U.S. Army, State Department and Department of Homeland Security.
Some of these organizations chose HelpSTAR because it can encrypt information. Some companies use the encryption for problems that involve customer accounts.
Indeed, it is not only applied to automate part of the work of a help desk.
"Although mostly used in the delivery of information technology support, HelpSTAR is essentially a work-flow engine," he says.
Ottawa Airport uses it to manage airline ticket desks.
Analyst Lise Dellazizzo, vice-president of information technology and communications for Ipsos-Reid Canada, a market research company, says there's a need for the product, but it is best suited to a large company.
(Smaller companies usually go with a firm that provides technical support.)
"This would probably be very suitable for companies that don't have a lot of internal development, so they wouldn't be developing their own tracking system," she says.
"But they need a sophisticated help-desk component in their business."
Dellazizzo and Mark Langlois, director of business development for application management business for IBM Canada, both agree that one problem for HelpSTAR is that software vendors are moving to provide the technical support for purchasers of their products.
"The trend is to buy the end service you're looking for," Langlois says.
"Companies are saying 'I want you to run all of my help service management. You're going to have the people on the phones.'"
Igal says this trend occurs mainly in the initial level of response, which involves general support for problems, such as changing a password. The other levels are kept in-house. |
