1 IT Support Systems IT225 IT Systems Support Name 21 June 2017 Table of Contents Roles and Responsibilities………………………………………………………………………3 Centralized versus Decentralized…………………………………………………………………3 Staffing structures………………………………………………………………………………...5 Recommendations about the structure……………………………………………………………6 Tools and Technologies………………………………………………………………………….6 Steps in solving issues………………………………………………………………………….…6 The deliverables generated at each step of problem solving……………………………………...7 What Technology is needed for each step of Problem solving…………………….………….….8 IT Systems Support 10 Self-service applications 10 Tools available in Web-based solutions 10 Real-time and Delayed assistance 11 Knowledge base in the help-desk environment 11 Processes and Problem solution…………………………………………………….………….12 Service level agreements 12 Metrics 12 Customer satisfaction 14 Performance management……………………………………………………………………….. Help desk application security Help desk business continuity References……………………………………………………………………………………….15 1. ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES Centralized versus Decentralized Organizational structure refers to the outline of a company’s framework and guidelines for managing operations conducted in the business. Small businesses often create their organizational structure which is mostly attributed to the owners’ personality, management style, and characteristics. There are two major types of organizational structure namely; the centralized structure and decentralized structure. Centralized organizational structure relies on one individual who most probably is the owner of the organization to make decisions and give direction to the company. The decision could also come from one place which could be the headquarters. Decentralization on the other end occurs when the top management delegates some of its responsibilities and decision-making authorities to other people. The decentralization structure mainly happens due to the company’s expansive nature or when the owner needs to relieve themselves of many responsibilities upon them. There are some advantages and disadvantages associated with the centralized organizational structure. The benefits are that; this structure is efficient on matters decision making since there are no consultations needed. Business owners set the firm's mission and vision and also set then objectives to be achieved by managers and employees to achieve goals. A centralized structure helps reduce conflicts among mid-level employees when they are involved in decision making. When centralized leaders are responsible for making all the great decisions, they retain control over the business and its culture. Fewer questions exist on who is accountable for results of decisions made. Some of the disadvantages of this structure include the following; there is less creativity on the part of the employees because when the central office a particular decision to be implemented, it is hard ...

1. 1
IT Support Systems IT225
IT Systems Support
Name
21 June 2017
Table of Contents
Roles and
Responsibilities………………………………………………………
………………3
Centralized versus
Decentralized…………………………………………………………
………3

2. Staffing
structures……………………………………………………………
…………………...5
Recommendations about the
structure……………………………………………………………6
Tools and
Technologies…………………………………………………………
……………….6
Steps in solving
issues…………………………………………………………………
……….…6
The deliverables generated at each step of problem
solving……………………………………...7
What Technology is needed for each step of Problem
solving…………………….………….….8
IT Systems Support 10
Self-service applications 10
Tools available in Web-based solutions 10
Real-time and Delayed assistance 11
Knowledge base in the help-desk environment 11
Processes and Problem
solution…………………………………………………….………….
12
Service level agreements 12
Metrics 12
Customer satisfaction 14
Performance
management…………………………………………………………
……………..
Help desk application security
Help desk business continuity
References……………………………………………………………
………………………….15
1. ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

3. Centralized versus Decentralized
Organizational structure refers to the outline of a company’s
framework and guidelines for managing operations conducted in
the business. Small businesses often create their organizational
structure which is mostly attributed to the owners’ personality,
management style, and characteristics. There are two major
types of organizational structure namely; the centralized
structure and decentralized structure.
Centralized organizational structure relies on one individual
who most probably is the owner of the organization to make
decisions and give direction to the company. The decision could
also come from one place which could be the headquarters.
Decentralization on the other end occurs when the top
management delegates some of its responsibilities and decision-
making authorities to other people. The decentralization
structure mainly happens due to the company’s expansive nature
or when the owner needs to relieve themselves of many
responsibilities upon them.
There are some advantages and disadvantages associated
with the centralized organizational structure. The benefits are
that; this structure is efficient on matters decision making since
there are no consultations needed. Business owners set the
firm's mission and vision and also set then objectives to be
achieved by managers and employees to achieve goals. A
centralized structure helps reduce conflicts among mid-level
employees when they are involved in decision making. When
centralized leaders are responsible for making all the great
decisions, they retain control over the business and its culture.
Fewer questions exist on who is accountable for results of
decisions made.
Some of the disadvantages of this structure include the
following; there is less creativity on the part of the employees
because when the central office a particular decision to be
implemented, it is hard to suggest otherwise and deviate from
the company’s status quo. There could be limited
communication between the employees and the executive. This

4. mostly happens because communication is downward. A
centralized structure requires a high level of flexibility. This is
because employees have to seek approval from the head office
before making individual decisions which create rigidity.
(“Centralized Correspondence | Advantages | Disadvantages,
2017”)
Similarly, there are also pros and cons accrued to the
decentralized organizational structure. Some of the benefits
include the following; employees feel empowered since they are
given permission to make decisions and give opinions on
matters affecting the organization. This makes them feel be part
of the team. Decentralization relieves the owner or key decision
makers some burdens of daily business operations. This creates
room for more time for meetings on other issues. In a case of an
emergency, a decentralized structure helps the company
maintain when the owner or key decision makers are not around.
Both managers and employees will work autonomously to solve
the crisis at hand. In a decentralized structure decision making
is effective because a manager can make the decision without
having to wait for it to go up the chain of command. This allows
the organization to react quickly to instances where immediacy
is paramount. A decentralized structure also gives room for
expansion of business in a new geographical area. This is so
because the entity will operate independently hence it can react
efficiently to specific needs in its sphere of operation.
There are some disadvantages which are; due to weak financial
resources, an appointment of exceptionally talented people
could be impossible. Decentralization increases cases of
incoordination across various units. This structure increases
administrative expenses due to high salaries of managers. There
is no uniformity since each manager comes with their style of
managing and decision making. (“Advantages and
Disadvantages of Decentralization, 2017”)
Staffing Structures
There are five primary staffing structures namely pool,

5. dispatch, tiered, specialized and method. A pool staffing
operates in a way that any service request goes to a centralized
location and then handled by the available help desk employee.
This means that any employee available will try and handle any
request. Employees with limited experience on some issues will
have same responsibilities as an employee with more
experience. The pool staffing also indicates that a request can
be handled by an employee who is not an expert in that area and
the expert in this field is given another field to control.
When using the dispatch staffing, a service goes to an
employee who then gathers information and redirects the
request to an appropriate location to manage the application.
This claim reduces phone queue however after redirection to the
appropriate location; it may end up in a line. (Sanderson, 2004).
A tiered staffing structure has a help desk divided into several
groups. Any problem received is handled by a first line
specialist. The specialist owns the problem, and this tactic
makes the customer feel comfortable that the problem is being
handled and addressed properly. If the first line specialist
cannot handle the problem, it is escalated to the second line
specialist usually an expert in particular areas. Tiered structures
have a higher customer service satisfaction and employee
satisfaction. This staffing structure gives a chance to less
experienced employees to gain experience and knowledge by
solving problems.
A specialized staffing has two support models; productivity
and business. In the product design, the help desk is divided
into different groups and each group has a particular
responsibility. These groups may be broken down into even
more specialized areas if need be. A disadvantage of this
structure is when a user has more than one problem, and the
problem may be caused by several things including different
groups in the structure. In the business structure, the help desk
is divided according to the units they provide support. E.g.
accounting department gets help from the accounting help desk.
Lastly, method staffing is organized in which support is

6. provided. One group takes care of telephone requests, and
another takes care of email and web applications. When the
number of telephone requests and email and web requests is
disproportionate, then the method is not the best to use.
Recommendations about the Structure
After acquiring information on the staffing arrangements, I
would use a tiered structure and have a centralized
organizational structure. A tiered structure seems to be a more
efficient method to operate a help desk. This structure gives
employees an opportunity to gain experience by solving issues
and allows complex problems to be addressed by more
experienced experts. This structure also makes clients feel that
their problem is considered and being handled promptly. Since
my business is small, a centralized structure will be appropriate.
It will use the local resources available. As the firm grows, help
desks will be added anywhere the business expands.
2. TOOLS AND TECHNOLOGIES
Steps in solving Issues
The problem-solving process involves five steps:
determining the cause of the problem, identifying the problem,
generating options, evaluating and prioritizing options, and
determining a course of action. The most likely reason why an
issue cannot be resolved is misinterpreting the real cause of the
problem. The first step in the process is critical. If you
initially fail to determine the real cause of the problem, the
solutions that you generate will most likely fail.
Unraveling the real cause of a problem is just as important as
the data the device processes. For instance, presuming an
individual claim that a printer is malfunctioning, the desk
analyst who takes the call asks all questions in regards to the
printer, but fails to ask questions about the users. The is a prime
example of where an analyst fail to fully diagnose the real cause
of the problem. An analyst must gather information about the
problem and the user.
The moment a help desk analyst receives a call, and there is

7. a new issue, the analyst should evaluate the cause of the
problem, and then create solutions. Necessary measures include
recreating or replicating the problem, closed/open-ended
questions and main cause analysis. For Open-ended questions,
analysts should learn to ask more questions in order to better
isolate the main cause of the problem. Proper diagnosis requires
the open-ended and close-ended questions when attempting to
gather more facts about the problem.
The deliverables generated at each step of problem solving
Effective problem-solving emphasizes the utilization of the
right and left sides of the brain when using brainstorming as a
way to generate solution to a problem. When this method is
implemented, and still there are no reliable results found,
another method is needed.
When generating solutions, a good strategy is replication.
Replication is the process of intentionally taking measures to
recreate a problem. For instance, assuming a user declared her
computer frozen the moment she started Microsoft Excel that
morning, an analyst may want to know the manner in which she
tried to open Excel, then request her to perform the same
process. At times, an analyst may try to replicate an issue on
another computer so as to eliminate probable causes. If the
problem does not occur on another computer, the analyst may
examine the difference between the two machines to identify
where the problem exists.
Cause analysis is a procedure whereby the underlying factors
causing a problem are identified. The goal is to determine the
root of the problem at its most fundamental stage. Some help
desk analysts merely remove signs of an issue and never attempt
to discover the root of the problem in order to resolve it
quickly. In these cases, the problem continues to recur unless
the root source of the problem isolated eliminated.
What Technology is needed for each step of Problem solving
There are three levels of information processing, which

8. include identification of cause areas, underlying causes, and
causes. To determine the cause of the problem, one must ask
“why.” Brainstorming is most effective when all possible
solutions sought have been exhausted. When less suggestion is
formed, key ideas are reviewed by the groups and choose the
most appropriate. Many individuals try to find a solution by
using their assembled knowledge, skills and experience;
however, this sometimes get in the way of choosing a better way
to resolve a particular problem.
Three fundamental theories are used to determine probable
solutions to a problem. These include module replacement,
hypothesis testing, and configuration management. A hardware-
related problem that is tackled by replacing parts that could
possibly be the cause ofthe problem is commonly referred to as
module replacement. Components are removed one at a time,
and a module known to function the same way is put in place.
The problem is most likely to be a defective component when
the problem is eradicated by swapping out a part, but in case the
problem is unsolved, the initial component is put back in place
and the process continues until a solution is found. In the same
way, software problems are handled by getting rid of them and
reinstalling the application. Hypothesis testing is the process of
evaluating every probable solution through testing.
With configuration management, it can be difficult to
determine the cause of a problem it lies within a particular type
of hardware or software. It may also difficult to the cause of the
problem if a device is connected to many different peripherals.
For instance, in corporate structures, computers are mostly
connected to a network which has many wires and peripherals.
A software application may also become corrupt when it is
operating at the same time another application is implemented.
To solve these issues, analysts may use a standard configuration
which involves disconnecting computers from other peripherals.
In case the problem is software related, the computer may be
restarted with the essential programs needed to begin normal
operation.

9. After the computer reboots, each application is placed back
to the point where the fault is experienced. This technique may
only be used to solve a problem when others fail as it is time-
consuming and labor intensive. After replicating and evaluating
the most likely source of the problem, a plan of action is
developed which indicates the procedure needed to resolve the
problem.
Decision making is the process of carefully selecting the
best possible solution to resolve a problem when a number of
possible solutions are generated. It is performed to evaluate the
most basic plan of action to take. This takes place when an
analyst determines the solution with the greatest probability of
succeeding.
In summary, professional experience and knowledge and skill
pared with quality learning is essential to the development of an
expert help desk technician.
3. IT SYSTEMS SUPPORT
Self- Service Support
Self-service support is an effort taken by an organization to
supply their customer base with accurate product/service
information to help them resolve their questions using self-
service applications. Self-Service Applications are software
applications that allow users to obtain information or enter
business transactions by themselves on the computer that
initially required personal representative, for example, when a
customer forgets his/her password or username the customer can
find the necessary retrieval steps on the online support center
(Beisse, 2014).
These kinds of applications are widely used in the customer
service departments of most organizations. Self-Service support
systems are more efficient and cost effective to customers.
Some of the recommended Self-service support tools include
support center, instructional guides, frequently asked questions
and knowledge base (Beisse, 2014).
Tools available in Web-based solutions
Web-based solutions are software packages that can be

10. accessed through the web browsers. Self-service support
requests can be made through the implementation of web-based
solutions. The web-based software packages are saved on a
central server rather than being installed on the desktop system
and are accessed over a network. Some of the web-based tools
include but not limited to Intercom Acquire, UserVoice and
Screen Connect (Chan, 2013).
Intercom Acquire allows the customer care personnel to strike a
conversation with a potential buyer via a website chat. The
customer care can ask if the buyer had questions and addressed
them immediately. UserVoice is a feedback solution that
enables site owners to add feedback forms directly on their
website. The forms allow the business owners to ask for ratings
of their services, as well as a way to enable customers to submit
product ideas (Chan, 2013).
Real-time and Delayed assistance
Real-time assistance relates to a system in which input data are
processed within milliseconds so that they are available
virtually immediately as feedback. It allows the users to get the
assistance they need without wasting much time and resources.
For example, when a user forgets his/her password the system
can direct him/her to password retrieval steps, and within no
minute the user can be able to access his/her account. Apart
from password retrievals, it allows users to update their details
such as emails, marital status, and address details. Real-time
assistance reduces the cost of helpdesk, customer frustration
and facilitates the real-time update of customer information
(Chan, 2013).
Delayed assistance, on the other hand, refers to a system
whereby the feedback of solutions takes time, a user will ask a
question or enter a transaction, but he/she will have to wait for
some minutes or even days before given feedback. Delayed
assistance has a lot of disadvantages, for example, customer's
wastes a lot of time waiting for feedback. Also, customers may
be tempted to shift to other organizations where real-time
assistance is available (Chan, 2013).

11. Knowledge base in the help-desk environment
In our today’s organizations, information plays a significant
role in the decision-making process. Organizations should make
Information available to end users through the creation of a
searchable knowledge base. Knowledge bases are shared
resources that are created and maintained by multiple people
through capturing knowledge and sharing it. Capturing
knowledge is always done in a help-desk environment by
organization employees. The knowledge base is a big asset to an
organization as it is recommended for training new service desk
workers and further helps current workers find quick and
consistent solutions to end-user problems (Sheth, 2013).
4. PROCESSES AND PROBLEM SOLUTION
A Service Level Agreement (SLA)
Service level measures how a system performs (Hiles, 2010). It
usually describes in measurable terms the services which a
network service provider provides a customer within a
particular time. Examples of service level may include the
percentage of customers waiting less than a specified period,
the percentage of calls answered in a call center, the percentage
of customers that do not experience a stock out. When used as a
call center metric, a service level may be used to measure the
percentage of incoming calls that an agent answers in an hour.
A service level agreement (SLA) refers to a contract between
two or more parties. It can be a contract between a service
provider and its internal (end user) or external customer(s).
According to Lee & Ben-Natan (2012), a SLA details the
services which the provider will provide and also defines the
performance standards that the provider must meet.
Metrics
A service level can be used in various ways and as such can
measure different kinds of metrics and report the service levels.
Some of the metrics that will be measured include time to first
response, time to resolution, time waiting for support, time
waiting for a third party, and the number of requests that would
be resolved through the use of knowledge base.

12. Time to first response metric- the SLA will measure the time to
first response. Time to first response refers to the time it takes
between the time a customer submits a request and the time the
customer representative responds the request. Thus, responding
to the customer’s request is what makes this metric a measure of
responsiveness.
Time to resolution- Time to resolution refers to the total time it
takes to resolve an issue as requested by the customer. This
metric measures the help desk agent’s efficiency in resolving
the customer’s issue.
Time waiting for support- The time waiting for support refers to
the measure of the length of time a ticket spends in some open
status, but not waiting for the customer to respond. This means
how long does the ticket spend in the hands of the help desk
agent.
Time waiting for a third party- the SLA will also be used to
measure the time taken while waiting for (a)third party(s), that
is parties who are not members of the help desk service team, to
provide their input (e.g. approval) on the customer request.
Examples of third parties include customer service manager,
finance department, procurement department, etc.
Number of requests resolved through the use of knowledge
base- this is another metric that shows whether and how many
customers are resolving or able to resolve their own requests
using knowledge base articles (or self-service options) rather
than seeking the attention help of the service desk (Hiles,
2010).
These metrics are not only helpful to the customer, but also
some will keep the help desk analysts happy. Some of the
metrics that will be helpful to the customer include time to first
response and time to resolution. Time to first response- this
metric will make the customer happy because she will know that
you will be responsive to their requests regardless of the
number of days that a complete resolution will take.Time to
resolution- customers do not only want you are communicating
and are responsive to their requests but also will be happy if

13. their issue is resolved effectively and in the most efficient
manner.
The metrics that will make the help desk analyst include the
time waiting for support, time waiting for a third party, and the
number of requests that would be resolved through the use of
knowledge base. Time waiting for support- this metric is helpful
to the help desk analyst because if the customer request spends
longer time in the hands of the customer service agent, but not
waiting for the customer's respond, the analyst may want to
determine whether this time length is reasonable or not (Lee &
Ben-Natan, 2012). Time waiting for a third party- also the time
waiting for a third-party metric will be helpful to the help desk
analyst because if by measuring this shows that a particular
ticket takes unnecessarily longer time in the hands of a third
party, he may need to have a workflow stage for waiting for
third parties and may need to stop the clock while the ticket is
on workflow status. Number of requests that would be resolved
through the use of knowledge base- this will make the help desk
analyst happy because he will be happy to know that a customer
is more satisfied in utilizing the knowledge base or self-service
option to solve their own problems instantly rather than seeking
the help of the customer service desk.
Customer Satisfaction
Although these all these metrics are helpful, the metric that has
the best chance of success and customer satisfaction is time to
first response. As the name suggests, time to first response is
critical since it involves the initial contact with the customer.
This metric has the best chance of success and customer
satisfaction because what is involved here is within the control
of the customer service manager or the help desk (Hiles, 2010).
If by measuring is found out that the help desk takes
unnecessarily longer to respond to customers' requests, the
customer service manager will be able to identify the loophole
and perform the corrective measures or actions, and when this is
done, the customer will be satisfied even if completing a
resolution would a few more days.

14. REFERENCES
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disadvantages-of-decentralization/
Beisse, F. (2014). A guide to computer user support for help
desk & support specialists.
Centralized Correspondence | Advantages | Disadvantages.
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correspondence-advantages-disadvantages/
Chan, C. S., & University Malaya. (2013). Construction
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Hiles, A. (2010). Service level agreements: Winning a
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Conn: Rothstein Associates
In Sheth, A. (2013). Semantic web: Ontology and knowledge
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Lee, J. J., & Ben-Natan, R. (2012). Integrating service level
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