Helpdesk software and ITIL requirements

As part of a transformation process, IT organizations in companies are evolving from pure suppliers of information technology to service providers for the entire company. The focus here is on an increased customer and process orientation. All IT processes are consistently aligned with customer requirements. As a result, there is a growing interest in best practices and reference models for designing service-oriented IT management processes. ITIL (IT Infrastructure Library) is now regarded as a “quasi-standard” or reference for quality-oriented IT service management (ITSM).

ITIL…

• is a guideline and gives a description of WHAT should be worked on: Contents, processes and goals of an IT reorganization.
• does not prescribe HOW the results should look like: the concrete implementation and design of processes and services is left to the discretion of each individual IT organization.
• presents all relevant IT processes in its “reference model”: the concept and design of ITSM is enabled in an experience-based, goal-oriented, time- and cost-optimized manner
• is a flexible framework that can be adapted to all IT service organizations: regardless of industry, size, legal form, etc.

ITIL-konformer IT-Service-Support

IT service support, which provides support for end customers and users, forms a central element of service-oriented IT management processes. IT organizations often have a poor image in companies as a result of a lack of customer orientation, low transparency and poor quality of IT services, caused by inadequate design of IT service support.

ITSM often has very complex structures. ITIL-compliant helpdesk software supports their performance and quality as well as efficient control and documentation.

ITIL requirements for helpdesk software:

• Wide range of functions to support the ITIL processes – Scope of process modules that support the ITIL model
• Ease of use or usability
• Comprehensive and specific adaptability or configurability of the software to the business processes
• Reasonable to relatively low operating costs for the installation of updates, functional improvements and basic configuration
• Project support from software manufacturers or partners
• Web service technology
• Service-oriented architecture
• Possibility of mapping workflows
• SLAs
• Automatic escalation
• Performance monitoring

Benefits of ITIL-compliant helpdesk software:

• Increase in the customer and service orientation of the IT service provider and thus improvement in customer or user satisfaction
• Increased efficiency of IT service provision as a result of process optimization
• Increased transparency from the customer’s perspective with regard to service support processes
• Increased interoperability and integration of intercompany and internal business processes
• Reduction of existing information asymmetries
• Long-term reduction in ITSM costs

More information

If you are interested in reading more about help desk software on the go, you can do so here. In this article you can see an overview of ticket systems. You can also take a look at our project management software Allegra.