Mobilizing IT Support for Efficiency, Speed, and Effectiveness
To survive in today’s economy, your IT organization will face increasing pressure to do more with less and work from anywhere at anytime. With this in mind, imagine how much more productive your service desk personnel could be if they were able to periodically manage and respond to issues from the field, rather than having to check in at their desktops. They could be alerted to and address urgent issues immediately. Or they could run a quick check on a key issue from a remote location. By taking advantage of mobile solutions, you will be able to leverage your existing service desk in new ways to increase responsiveness and effectiveness.
Mobile technology also benefits all business users who rely on IT services. A mobile IT organization is more responsive and can resolve issues faster. As a result, the business experiences less down time.
In the past, mobility has been somewhat elusive for service desk technicians, who often need to pull records from databases or fill out complex forms. Today, however, improvements in mobile technology have changed this situation. While service desk mobilization is considered to be in its infancy and still faces some hurdles, it’s a promising area that brings many benefits to the business.
Multiple Advantages to Mobile Technology
Mobile technology isn’t an appropriate tool for everyone or every job. If a person’s role is to take calls for the service desk, then mobility isn’t necessary. However, if a technician or manager is constantly on the move fixing equipment or attending meetings in various locations, mobilizing will make the job easier and more effective. It will also improve the accuracy of service desk information used to make business decisions.
Mobile technology enables the support person to get accurate data in a format appropriate for the requirements of the job. This technology allows the technician to enter quick requests or do instant checks on key issues while sitting at someone else’s desk, or when trying to resolve problems from any location.
A mobile device can be a useful tool for recording tickets when service level agreements (SLAs) are not being met, for checking items in violation, or for monitoring situations that are becoming critical. If, for example, a service desk technician is having problems resolving an issue, a mobilized service desk allows the technician to remain on the floor while monitoring and recording data. As a result, the technician doesn’t have to waste time returning to a desk to complete forms or look up information.
Mobility gives the technician the means to look out for situations that are becoming critical or that are problematic — as well as the option to choose what to do about these situations. The technician can resolve this problem on site where it is occurring.
In addition, when a technician is working on a problem away from the service desk, mobile technology allows instant contact with the person who is handling the main call center. If a question comes in that requires expertise or approval, it’s easy to send records between locations for instant attention and timely decision making. If a task is not getting assigned correctly, for example, the roaming technician or manager can quickly reassign it to someone
else. If an SLA is about to be missed, the technician can assign a person to follow up on the issue. In short, the technician can be more productive when roaming.
Aeroprise Mobility for BMC Remedy Service Desk
Aeroprise Mobility for BMC Remedy Service Desk extends key features and functionality to BlackBerry and Windows Mobile smartphones. With only a three-day deployment, support staff can view, create, reassign and update trouble tickets on the road, while managers monitor the IT infrastructure, service level performance and systems availability anywhere, anytime.
For IT Infrastructure Library® (ITIL®) compliance, Aeroprise automatically inherits and updates any workflow changes made to the BMC Remedy Service Desk application. Information entered on the mobile device is instantly updated in the BMC Atrium Configuration Management Database (CMDB). The Administration Console lets you mobilize filters and active links with a few clicks. And users can easily extend specific fields, reports and alerts from the Personalization Console.
AdvantagesReduce IT support costs with higher productivity
Mobile technicians are often 30 percent more productive when they don’t need to return to their desks to manage incidents and problems.
Decrease critical asset downtime
Instant alerts minimize downtime of critical equipment by delivering real-time ticket information to the mobile device.
Improve customer service
Mobile technicians respond to IT problems faster and document new issues more thoroughly.
Lower hardware expenses
Significantly cut your capital expenses by equipping staff with mobile devices rather than expensive laptops and ineffective pagers.
Gain a 360-degree view of your IT infrastructure
Mobilize incident management to control complex IT operations and support business priorities, such as growing revenue, reducing costs and enforcing compliance.
Features
» Manage Issues – Create, update and reassign incidents
» Work with Tasks – Create, view and modify ad hoc incident tasks
» Relate Items – Relate incidents or configuration items to other incidents
» Get Alerts – Receive, acknowledge and open records with detailed information
» View Reports – Provides up-to-date snapshots of key performance indicators
» Attachments – Upload, download and delete BMC Remedy attachments as PDF, Word, Excel, GIF, JPG, and BMP files
» Search – Quickly locate information in multiple trouble tickets
» Personalize – Mobilize specific fields, workflow and ticket rules with a few clicks
» Security – VPN-level security, including IP range restrictions, 128-bit AES encryption and session controls
» Automatic Device Optimization – Applications are automatically tailored to the mobile device’s screen, bandwidth, connectivity and processing power
» Offline Connectivity – Users can continue work offline as updates are seamlessly transmitted when the device connects to the network
Alignment with Best Practices
In your quest to align IT to business needs that optimize availability and reduce costs, you must ensure that mobility is a corner stone of your Business Service Management approach. A closed-loop ITIL process will make it easier for you to leave your desk knowing that business critical issues will be resolved, change requests will be managed successfully, and service level agreements will be met – even while you are remote.
Tie-in to Business Service Management
Mobility allows you to manage IT from the perspective of the business. With Aeroprise, you enjoy better decision-making, proactive service support and less complexity. A mobile service support solution also provides business transparency, visibility and control.
Tags: Mobile, Remedy, Service Desk
