International Journal of Computer Science and Innovation

Vol. 2015, no. 1, pp. 1-6

ISSN: 2458-6528
Copyright Infinity Sciences

Software System for Automated Support of Endusers

Ilija Lazarevski1, Natasa Koceska2, Saso Koceski2
1

IT CEnter, University Goce Delcev - Stip, Stip, Macedonia

Faculty of Computer Science, University Goce Delcev - Stip, Stip, Macedonia
Email: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]
2

Abstract- The rapid development of the information technology worldwide contributes for a drastic change of the
traditional procedures according to which the companies are functioning for completion of everyday activities. This
change demands for establishing separate departments to support the end users. This paper presents a software
system for automated support of end-users.
Keywords: Help-desk; customer support; customer-relationship management.
I. INTRODUCTION
The rapid development of the information technology worldwide contributes for a drastic change of the
traditional procedures according to which the companies are functioning for completion of everyday activities. This
change demands for establishing separate departments to support the end users. The same demands are valid not only
for private companies but also for education institutions including universities.
The department for end users support at UGD Info Center, at Goce Delcev University Stip, provides support
to end users (students, teaching staff, assistants and student service officers) for problems that occur during their
interaction with the developed information system. The communication between the end users and the Department of
Customer Support currently is realized by e-mail, telephone and in person at the office of UGD Info Center. This
approach, in problem resolving, causes huge burden on everyday activities of the operators at the Department of
Customer Support, resulting in absence of systematic archiving of completed activities realized for the end users.
Further on, most of the time is spent on distribution of the current requests among departments operators, and
inefficient synchronization of the service incidents and responsible operators. In a long term, considering that the
number of users who require daily assistance will be increased, this strategy is unsustainable.
The aim of this paper is to research the possibility for implementing a web designed software system for
automated software support, through usage of suitable technology and upgraded Case Management process, aiming
to increase the quality level of services provided by the Department of Customer Support. A survey conducted
among each involved party proved that there is a need for such system, which will contribute to significantly
increase productivity, effectiveness and efficiency of the employees of the Support Department. Additionally, the
end users would be able to follow the status of the resolution of their service incidents at all times.
Upon the analysis the system was designed and developed. The implemented system was tested and evaluated
by the potential end-users. The conducted evaluation study has shown that the proposed solution entirely fulfills the
demands of end-users.

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II.

BACKGROUND OF END USERS SUPPORT SYSTEMS

Before the introduction of the concept of the IT department for end users support, the clients (users), in order to
solve their technical problems, had to contact employees of the IT department, by phone or in person [1], [2].
However, this concept of problems solving have major drawbacks in terms of the structure of the IT department as
well as in terms of users satisfaction. The employees of the IT department are not always available for immediate
assistance, because of their primary assignments within the department. The end users often require assistance from
incompatible employee within the IT department, leading to users frustration, because they have to make an extra
call or waiting to be transferred to other expert responsible for solving their problem.
In order to overcome these problems, the idea of establishing the IT Department of Customer Support occurs.
These department (also known as Computer Call Center, Contact Center or Support Center), is the central point of
the IT department, that provides the end users with IT information about their needs in order to overcome some
problems. The responsibilities of the Department includes first level of support in case of occurrence of incidents,
daily communication between with the user support system and reports generation about the quality of provided
service [3], [4]. In [5] Workman and Bommer also define the importance of IT Department of Customer Support in
providing technical assistance to users in case of computer failures (software and hardware).
From the beginning of the establishment of the IT Department of Customer Support within the companies,
several different models evolved.
The decentralized model was one of the most popular in the 80s of the 20th century. According to this model,
companies have more than one IT department to support end users, separated by areas and IT groups. Decentralized
model allows different problems categories to be resolved within the respective IT group, that lead to timely
resolution of problems and users satisfaction. This model initially gave the expected results, because ICT was very
simple and the problems were well-known. Over time, IT infrastructure becomes increasingly complex and the
problems were often transferred from one IT group to another in order to obtain the correct solution.
In order to overcome the problems faced by the decentralized model, companies started to use the centralized
model within the IT department to support end users. This model enables merging most of the groups in a single
(central) point for communication, which allows better allocation of resources, improved internal communication
and incidents resolving [6].
Today, big corporations that have offices around the world, implement a virtual model of department to support
end users. This model allows end users support within the departments located in different physical locations. The
end users are able to contact the department for support through one contact phone, enabled by modern telephone
routing technologies [7]. This method enables available of 24/7/365 days a year, regardless of department physical
location.
Another approach which is very popular nowadays is e- support. This model is very widespread, because it
allows better, faster and cheaper service. This model uses Internet and web as the primary communication channel
[8]. End users use e- mail or website to contact the Department for support, or can access online resources such as
knowledge base.
Which model the company will choose, depends on the needs and the technology that the company possessed.
However, it is clear that a good customer support is essential for keeping the customers happy and most importantly,
retaining them.
III. DEFINING THE REQUIREMENTS
In order to tailor a system that will satisfy the needs of its main stakeholders (students, teaching staff,
administration, student service offices, employees at the UGD Info Center) and to make their work more efficient
and more productive, structured survey technique was used for their requirements elicitation. Considering the current
situation, where all the incidents are reported or forwarded to the UGD Info Center and there they are processed in a
causal way, without any tracking and feedback, the results on the survey questions, revealed the necessity of an
automated help desk system.

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The survey was conducted among 85 participants, gender and percentage balanced from all stake holder
groups. Majority of survey questions were offered with multiple choice answers. The results from the survey are
presented in the following.
Table 1. Your opinion about the current quality of services offered by UGD info center a
Answer

Number of Responses

Terrible

40

Bad

15

Neutral

20

Good

10

Very good

Single answer allowed

Table 2. What will be the benefit of implementing an electronic automized help-desk systemb
Answer

Number of Responses

Saving time

67

Better coordination and visibility

70

Increasing the effectiveness and

efficiency

65

Better productivity and flexibility

80

No advantages

Multiple answers allowed

Table 3. What functions the help-desk system should providec
Answer

Number of Responses

e-Cration of service incident

75

View of crated service incidents

72

Update an existing service incident

45

Attaching files to service incident

64

Creating notes to service incident

59

Multiple answers allowed

Table 4. Which categories of service incidence should be providedd
Answer

Number of Responses

Question

79

Request

82

Problem

85
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d

Multiple answers allowed

Table 5. Which modalities for service incidence creation should be provided e

Answer

Number of Responses

Task

62

Fax

Phone call

79

Email

68

Letter

Meeting

Multiple answers allowed

Table 6. Which templates should be provided by the systemf
Answer

Number of Responses

Procedure for solving a specific

problem

60

Question/answer for a given

problem or situation

79

Solution to a given problem

69

General template

40

Multiple answers allowed

Considering the results of the survey the HelpDesk system was designed and integrated within the already
developed information system.
IV. DEVELOPMENT OF THE SOFTWEARE SYSTEM
Taking advantage of the existing Case Management process within MS Dynamics CRM platform (which is
built within the overall student information system at the University), we developed automatic help-desk system
which enables efficient and effective handling incoming service incidents by the end users through the automatic
allocation of the responsible operator, escalation and resolving of these service incidents through implementation of
uniform business rules using the plugin and workflow technology. The main advantage of the MS Dynamics CRM
platform is the use of Internet as a tool for communication or more specifically web services. Web services enable
simple integration and configuration of the applications, in order to meet business needs. Using a properly
implemented web services, the interaction between the end user and the system is realized, through a dedicated web
portal created for students, and a special web portal for teaching staff.
A service incident is simply an entry on the interaction between the client and the Department of Customer
Support. When a customer is facing some problem, he contact the Department of Customer Support by phone, email, or through a web form. This activity needs to be tracked, so the service incident is created. It can be created by
all involved parties, regardless of their geographic location. When a new incident is created, a workflow is triggered
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which determines if the client, reporting the problem, currently exists as a contact in CRM or not. If not the new
record in the database is created. Using the contact information, an e-mail is send to the client, containing
information about the reported service incident as a proof of successfully created incident. Activity records are added
to the contact and service incident.
When a service incident is created, it triggers the procedure for granting a responsible operator (IT technician
from the Department of Customer Support), that search which operator from the appropriate level is least loaded in
terms of the number of open (unresolved) service incidents and assigns the service incident. In case there is more
than one operator which is suitable to be assigned as responsible operator, the service incident is assigned by
random. Then its up to the operator to work on these new incidents and mark accordingly when completed. The
mechanism for automatic assignment of responsible operator is realized by implementing the appropriate plugin
trigger that triggers when a new service incident is created.
For resolving the service incident, operator first searches the database of knowledge, which includes all
previously received incidents, in order to find the similar resolved service incident. Using the keywords, it is possible
to search through the database of knowledge, on different category levels. If there is no previously resolved similar
service incident, the responsible operator needs to resolve it first. If not, then he should assign the service incident to
another operator from the superior level.
Different workflows are triggered when a service incident is closed (resolved), or reopened.

Figure 1. Activity diagram for service incident creation and solving

The system is designed so, it has built-in security, and only authorized users have access to appropriate parts of
it. To enable data integrity and to support system reliability three new security roles for operators, regarding the
levels of support, are defined.

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V. EVALUATION AND DISCUSSION
After system implementation and in order to get a clear picture of the level of usability and satisfaction of the
end users, the benefits of its use, a series of interviews with end users of all target groups were conducted.
Through interviews conducted between students, teaching staff and associates and officers of student services,
95% of interviewees were very satisfied with the implemented functionalities, great flexibility and simplicity in the
process of interaction with the customer support department quickly and efficiently, filing service incidents, tracking
their status, implemented automated way of informing and web reporting, as well as centralized and unified
approach of incidence management. 85% of interviewees were satisfied with the way of implementing the
functionality to search through the knowledge base and the ability to forward a specific item from the base of
knowledge via email. Some of the interviewees (10%) gave suggestions for upgrading the system with the
implementation of live chat operators.
REFERENCES
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ACM SIGUCCS conference on User services: Building the future. 29 Oct.-1 Nov. Richmond, Virginia, United
States.
[2] Smith, C. L. (1996). Building a Help Desk From Scratch, With No Staff, No Equipment and No Money:
Moulding Novice Student Consultants into Seasoned Help Desk Operators, In Proceedings of the 24th annual ACM
SIGUCCS conference on User Services: Sept. Chicago, Illinois, USA.
[3] Central Computer and Telecommunication Agency (1989). IT Infrastructure Library: Help Desk, HMSO
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[5] Workman, M. and Bommer, W. (2004). Redesigning Computer Call Center Work: a Longitudinal Field
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