Best Practices for Providing Internal IT Helpdesk Support on Slack

Best Practices for Providing Internal IT Helpdesk Support on Slack

In today's fast-paced work environment, efficient IT support is crucial for maintaining productivity. Integrating your IT helpdesk into Slack can streamline support processes, enhance communication, and improve overall user satisfaction. This guide outlines best practices for establishing and managing an internal IT helpdesk within Slack.

1. Introduction to Slack-Based IT Helpdesk

Slack has become a central hub for workplace communication, making it an ideal platform for IT support integration. By bringing the helpdesk into Slack, employees can report issues and seek assistance without leaving their primary workspace, leading to quicker resolutions and a more seamless support experience. This also helps to curb the amount of tickets taking place outside of the helpdesk and allows managers to receive better reporting and allows them to better allocate recourses be that human, automation or some type of combination of both. Yes. Exactly like a T-1000.

2. Setting Up Your IT Helpdesk in Slack

a. Create Dedicated Support Channels

Establish specific channels for IT support, such as #ask-it, #it-helpdesk or #tech-support, to centralize requests and ensure visibility for the support team. Make these channels easily accessible and communicate their purpose clearly to all employees. You can use these channels for various teams but refrain from creating multiple channels per team (pick one of the examples, but not all three). The goal is to funnel requests to the channel and not create enough confusion that the end-user bypasses it entirely to slide into your DMs for special attention. Speaking of DM’s, if you ever worked the helpdesk, you know this is bound to happen. The ability to create a ticket from a 1:1 message goes a long way to training users to utilize the tools you have provided them. When an end user comes to you with an issue, pop that into a ticket right there and ask them to add any additional info they need. Bonus points given when you create a /ticket automation in Slack that explains the ticket process and links to the dedicated channel. Yes, you too can automate passive aggression.

b. Implement a Ticketing System

Utilize a ticketing system that integrates with Slack to manage and track support requests effectively. This ensures that no issue goes unnoticed and allows for efficient prioritization and resolution. Tools like Foqal offer messaging-native ticketing, enabling seamless ticket management within Slack. This will not happen overnight but the more diligent you are about leading requestors to the proper channel or creating the tickets from DM’s, the better your reporting will be. The same thing goes for your Help Desk staff, they are likely in the field because they like to help people and not because they saw a basement and thought “aw, that looks cool, I wanna work down there!” Drive the help desk staff to utilize the simple ticket creation you have provided for them with the same rigor you do for the end users.

c. Automate Routine Tasks

This is arguably the most important piece to running a successful helpdesk. Incorporate automation to handle repetitive tasks such as onboarding, password resets, and approvals. Automation reduces manual workload and accelerates response times, allowing the IT team to focus on more complex issues. It also cuts down on loads of human error. People get tired, people make mistakes, IT people stay up all night pwning n00bs in Stardew Valley working their gaming thumbs until they resemble over microwaved hotdogs. Automating helps to eliminate all the silly mistakes, fat fingers and lost-in-the-noise. A bonus is that the challenge of automating a task can often be more engaging to your team than performing it day after day. Foqal provides automated workflows that can be customized to fit your organization's needs. Some of my first things to automate at a new company are:

• Password and MFA resets. People frequently get their new phones on the weekend. Save yourself a weekend ticket by creating a self-service ticket with various reset options to them. I use conditional logic that will only allow the user in question or their manager to reset their password.
• Onboarding – from a new hire ticket, automate account creation and group additions. Have groups tied to departmental standard applications. Schedule welcome emails through Foqal and using your favorite low-code application (Zapier, Okta Workflows, Workato, etc) drop an event on the user's calendar to onboarding meetings. What once took 45 minutes now takes 0. It should be noted, what you save in day-today time may be partially negated by solving all the ways in which people still find to break your automations. Pro tip: When using text fields to automate account creation and invites, account for letter casing, whitespace and date format up front and save some furrowing of your brow later. Many a times I have had automations break due to an added space entered into a field or failing to account for two part names. Looking at you Jean Claude Van Damme.
• Offboarding – These don’t always come in while you are sitting at your desk and carry a sizable risk if the employee being termed holds a grudge. I like to create my tickets with fields that specify whether this should be immediate or scheduled. Immediate will deactivate the user’s IDP account and all access tied to that right away while also triggering our SaaS management solution to create tickets for the rest. This helps to ensure nothing slips through the cracks come audit time. For scheduled offboards, you can choose to schedule the automation but beware that the exact timing can often change so you may have to get more creative to allow for field updates.
• App request approvals and grants – I like to require manager approval on most app requests and go a step further for any extra important applications that either carry a high cost or are an in-scope system for audits. For those I add an additional approval step in place that will require access from the app owner or SME. Someone who knows whether this license and role requested is correct or can be given something less permissive. Having a tool like Foqal in place will allow these approvers to do so from Slack or Teams which greatly increases your odds of them doing it. Bonus: Automate your nagging schedule. Every 4 hours during work hours, my automation will check ticket status and if still needing an approver will message each approver on Slack as a reminder. Once all approvals are through, the system adds them to the group that is assigned the application. If more work is needed (not a SCIM app), a comment can be added to hold tight while your account is provisioned and Foqal will add those tasks to your ticket for work management.

3. Enhancing User Experience

a. Provide Self-Service Resources

Equip employees with self-service tools like knowledge bases and FAQs accessible directly within Slack. This empowers users to resolve common issues independently, reducing the volume of support requests. Implementing a self-serve IT helpdesk in Slack allows team members to quickly access solutions without leaving their workflow. Foqal offers an AI solution that will integrate with your existing KB, such as Notion of Confluence, and provide answers to FAQs accompanied by links to the relevant articles it pulled from.

Slack

b. Offer Multiple Request Submission Methods

Accommodate different user preferences by allowing various methods for submitting support requests:

• Floating Bar: A persistent tool within Slack channels for easy ticket creation. I find this to be the best method to ensure proper ticketing with end users. It is borderline foolproof.
• Direct Messages: Enable users to convert direct messages to the IT team into support tickets. For the more foolish cases than you initially anticipated.
• Emoji Shortcuts: Utilize specific emojis to trigger ticket creation or escalate issues. For those who like to emote.

These features are available in solutions like Foqal, which integrate seamlessly with Slack.

4. Best Practices for IT Support Teams

a. Develop a Service Catalogue

Create a comprehensive service catalogue that outlines available IT services, how to request them, and expected response times. This sets clear expectations and guides employees on how to engage with the helpdesk effectively. Create and maintain a how-to portal or FAQ that can be referenced within automated ticket responses or referenced by employees. Deploy a bookmark to this via MDM or on your IDP and refer to it during new hire onboarding.

Zendesk

b. Foster a Culture of Assistance

Encourage a supportive environment where IT team members are approachable and responsive. Regular training and open communication can help build trust and improve collaboration between IT staff and other employees. I have had success in hiring from retail or customer service in the past for tier one support than cannot be farmed out to automation. You can keep a stable of cranky IT people in the background where they prefer to be.

**c. **Utilize Analytics for Continuous Improvement

Leverage analytics to monitor support metrics such as response times, ticket volumes, and user satisfaction. Analyzing this data helps identify areas for improvement and measure the impact of changes to the support process. Foqal offers actionable insights to track productivity and satisfaction levels. As with any metrics, garbage in equals garbage out. Once you have all tickets going through your ticketing system, this is extremely useful. An interesting exercise is to look at the amount of tickets per request type and see what you can automate or make more efficient.

5. Integrating Third-Party Tools

Don't let an incumbent system hamper your team's productivity. Utlize Foqal by integrating with existing IT service management (ITSM) tools like Jira Service Desk or ServiceNow. This ensures synchronization across platforms and maintains consistency in ticket tracking and resolution processes. Foqal supports seamless integration with these systems, enabling efficient workflows. Your team can work within whichever platform and you can rest assured everything is NSYNC.

6. Training and Onboarding

Provide training sessions and resources to familiarize employees with the Slack-based helpdesk system. Ensure that both the IT team and end-users understand how to utilize the available tools and follow established protocols for support requests. Some ways of doing this can be utilizing a learning management system to record best practice videos and assigning them to new employees to complete within their first week. I have also had success holding an open invite for an hour weekly in which employees may join and ask questions. This is especially helpful for new employees as they are overloaded with information on their first few days at this new gig.

7. Collecting and Acting on Feedback

Implement mechanisms for gathering feedback on the support experience, such as post-resolution surveys or feedback forms. Use this information to make data-driven decisions and continuously enhance the quality of IT support services. You will gain better traction with this when you occasionally follow up with the submitters on their feedback to either gain more insight or assure them, it has been heard and is being acted on.

8. Conclusion

Integrating your IT helpdesk into Slack offers a streamlined and efficient approach to internal support. By following these best practices, you can enhance responsiveness, improve user satisfaction, and create a more collaborative support environment. Leveraging tools like Foqal can further optimize your helpdesk operations, providing a seamless experience for both the IT team and the employees they support.

Key Takeaways

• Create dedicated Slack channels for centralized IT support requests
• Implement integrated ticketing systems to track and manage issues
• Automate routine tasks to reduce workload and errors
• Provide self-service options and multiple submission methods
• Use analytics and feedback to continuously improve support