The document discusses how Netserve, an IT service provider established in 1997, effectively runs its service desk operations utilizing Autotask and ITIL-based processes. It highlights various smart features and functionalities that enhance workflow and efficiency, including ticket automation, reporting, and email notifications. Ongoing improvements are also mentioned, such as enhancing ticket status notifications and integrating invoicing solutions.

1. Running an Efficient Service Desk
by René Verhagen and Manfred van der Sluijs

2. Agenda
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Introduction NetServe
Our Service Desk
How we use Autotask
Smart features (at least we think they are smart..)
Recap
Question and Answer

3. René
CEO - NetServe
Founder
Certified Consulting Partner
NetServe BV
Introduction
Manfred
Manager Operations - NetServe
AutoTask Administrator
Certified Consulting Partner

4. About NetServe
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NetServe BV | The Netherlands | Rotterdam Area
Founded in 1997, MSP since 2008
Services-only
Annual turnover EUR 1M
MSP contracts cover 85% of running costs
Autotask customer since July 2009
N-Able customer since July 2010

6. Our Service Desk
General Service Desk
• Primary Service Desk
• Contract customers
• Break-Fix customers
Co-managed Service Desk
• NetServe acts as the primary responsible Service Desk
• Customer uses Taskfire
Co-Managed Service Desk
• Customer acts as the primary responsible Service Desk
• Customer uses Taskfire

7. Our Services Desk (cont’d)
 Two dedicated technical engineers
 All engineers are ITIL foundation V2 / V3 certified
 NetServe Service Desk Processes are ITIL based:
* Incident Management
* Change Management
* Release Management
* Configuration Management
 ITIL does not dictate Service Desk processes, but offers best
practices.

8. Service Desk, according to ITIL
 “The Service Desk acts as the central point of contact
between service providers and users on a day to day
basis.”
 “It is also a focal point for reporting incidents and for
service requests.”
 “It can also provide an interface, for other service
management activities. (such as problem, configuration,
release and continuity management)”
source: www.itil.org.uk

9. Autotask helping us getting organized

10. Typical Reactive Ticket Workflow

11. Typical Proactive Ticket Workflow

12. Functionality that helps us run our Service Desk
 Email to ticket parser from
 Workflow Rules to notify and move tickets through the
process
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Recurring Tickets

13. Functionality that helps us run our Service Desk
 Internal & External Reporting
 We use a combination Live Reports and Pivot Tables
(Excel)
 Extensive use of scheduled reports
 Integration with N-Able for:
- Monitoring Alerts
- Keeping our CMDB up to date (Discovery Wizard)
 Configuration Management is extremely
important to us. Without solid information from
it we would be blind!

14. Examples of our internal reporting

15. Examples of our reporting

16. Smart Features that improve efficiency
 Reports for Company Owners to prepare for any kind of
customer facing action.
 It gives them a brief overview of all performed actions for
that particular customer
 Details can be revealed by clicking on the ticket title

17. Smart Features that improve efficiency
 Email notifications when worked hours exceed set
threshold.
 Notification (email) when worked hours > 2
 We contact the customer upon notification to discuss the
situation and the expected time needed to solve the issue
 This prevents discussions with the customer at the time of
invoicing

18. Smart Features that improve efficiency
 Daily scheduled report for tickets with status “waiting
customer” and “waiting vendor” and last activity > x days.
 Customers and vendors in this list will be reminded to
prevent delay in the resolution of the issue.

19. Smart Features that improve efficiency
 Currently we use a third party dashboard tool (developed
by a dutch Autotask customer)
 It gives us an overview of daily metrics like amount of
received tickets, amount of closed tickets, average
duration, etc.
 Autotask recently developed their own dashboard service.
(for more information contact your Autotask rep)

20. Smart Features that improve efficiency
 Smart filters on our email-to ticket gateway.

21. Smart Features that improve efficiency
 We make extensive use of the Outlook add-in to create
 Tickets from emails
 Ticket notes from emails
 Project notes from emails

22. Smart Features that improve efficiency
 We have setup an audible alarm in our Service Desk to
get the immediate attention of the engineers in certain
events.

23. Improvements that we are working on
 Even in the system of a CCP is room for improvement
 A few of the improvements we are working on:
 Developing a smarter way to deal with the “note added”
status
 Implementing “ticket created notification” and survey upon
completing tickets
 Invoicing from Autotask using Invoice Templates
(October Release)