-
Which Is Right for You—Help Desk or Service Desk?
Help Desk and Service Desk are names that are often interchanged in IT. But, have you ever thought, what does Help Desk and Service Desk mean—and how do they differ? Confused ?? In this article, I’ll take you through the different characteristics of Help Desk and Service Desk, and by analyzing the discussed points, you…
-
SolarWinds Lab at Cisco Live! Day 3
Day 3 at Cisco Live Orlando! The show is in full swing. Patrick and Lawrence discuss the neat things they have seen so far, what’s going on in the booth, cool features you already have in your products that you might not even know about (drop by to get a demo of those), and our cool booth giveaways! Booth #629!
-
SolarWinds Lab is at Cisco Live!
Have you been catching the most popular new show from SolarWinds? We certainly hope so! SolarWInds Lab covers technical topics you care about -- with demos, diagrams, discussion and live chat. SolarWinds Lab is hosted each month by our Head Geeks and special guests. As always, we want to know what topics you would like to…
-
Are You Pi Shaped?
We’re well into 2015. How is your year going - and how are you preparing for the rest of your career? Earlier this year, four of us got together and had a great talk about technology predictions for 2015. One of the things I talked about was becoming a “Pi-shaped expert.” You might ask, “What’s a pi-shaped expert?” Well,…
-
The IT Training Quandary
What do you do when your employer says no more training? What do you do when you know that your organization should move to the cloud or at least some discrete components? How do you stay current and not stagnate? Can you do this within the organization, or must you go outside to gain the skills you seek? This is a huge…
-
A Game of Shadows with the IT Admin
"Shadow IT” refers to the IT systems, solutions, and services used by employees in an organization without the approval, knowledge, and support of the IT department. It is also referred to as “Stealth IT.” In its widely known usage, Shadow IT is a negative term and is mostly condemned by IT teams as these solutions are NOT…
-
Tips for Handling Repetitive Help Desk Tasks
Any Help Desk is going to have to handle repeat requests (hopefully not always for the same customer – although repeat requests from customers is definitely a metric worth tracking…). There are a few things you can do to help avoid having “repetitive” become “mind-numbing boredom”, while improving the level of service…
-
Awaken Your IT Force: Generalists Must Secure a Specialty or Venture into Versatility
The need for disruptive innovation is driving businesses to seek better, faster, and cheaper options to internal IT. This coercive effort to find the best-fit technology is putting the squeeze on IT departments, IT budgets, and IT pros. Furthermore, new technologies are disrupting older, monolithic technologies and IT…
-
Developing Workflows using Help Desk Data
Now that the IT team has established a help desk and have SLAs defined for various requests and workflows, it was time to get proactive. Perhaps using the data stored in the help desk could further build a sort of analytics engine for making better decisions? This idea came from one of the IT team members, as he saw…
-
Metrics: Why the Support Center Manager Looks Confused, and Why That Should Stop
Metrics and measurements are incredibly important to businesses these days. Every second matters, and every dollar matters. Metrics have always been a topic of discussion, debate, frustration and conversation in the world of IT and technical support, but now shifts in the worlds of technology and business are having…