Service Desk Platforms

[Mish]

Hi Everyone

I am new here and in search of information on what makes the best ITIL Service Desk Platform. What works best for your work environment? Platforms supplied by external suppliers (E.g. Aromba IT Service Management Module), In house developed modules (E.g. part of Internal CRM or Knowledge Base package) or In house modules built from scratch?

Also I am after ITIL Service Desk templates (Such as Incident Management templates) just to see what basic modules others have been able to structure. Does anyone know if free templates exist for this?

Thank you so much for your help

[itilimp]

I think it is important to understand the processes and consider how you want to work before you select a tool to do the job -otherwise you may end up constrained by the tool (as has happened to us in the past).

If you haven't already, download ogc.gov.uk/sdtoolkit/reference/ogc_library/itbusinesschange/ITILIntroduction.pdf as it will give an overview to the processes so you can start to think about what it is you are trying to achieve (apologies if you already know all this, I wasn't clear from the initial post).

I'd personally recommend picking up the ITIL Service Support and Delivery books as the main processes you may wish to implement are in there complete with process diagrams.


Regardless of templates that are out there, use from them only what works for your organisation and add improvements over time. ITIL is intended to be scalable and flexible

I hope that helps at least a little.

[Mish]

Hi itilimp

This Actually helps a lot, thank you for this information

Information in the pdf file is the information I have pretty much managed to gather already from various sources. In my situation however, the concept of ITIL is something very new for our organisation and by the looks of things will be something that I will need to introduce slowly.

At the moment the information is all over the place and trying to find various bits and pieces can be quite frsutrating. I have begun the proccess of standartisation by introducing Incident and Problem Management, information out of which can be used for further troubleshooting and reporting purposes. However questions like am I capturing all the right information? Am I following this proccess all the way through? And what can I do to exapnd on this proccess in the future by adding additional modules to it? plague me.

I am going to do the ITIL foundation course later on in a couple of months, unfortunately my senior management can not afford to also provide books for my education (As well as the course) due to the costs of these books, which is why I am searching for any free information on templates I can get.

In regards to the platform it is more of a strategic question for the future. As I am in the proccess of introducing this new system I would like to find out what is the better way of planning for this, either continue with small tools like Access Databases, or exapnd via company enterprise products (That would require Development expenses) or go ahead with a ready made product? If anyone can offer more insight into this, it will be much appreciated.

[itilimp]

Hi Mish,

I'm glad to hear you will be sitting a foundation course shortly. As long as it is a reputable training provider you should find they will provide you with all the reading materials you need to pass your exam (though maybe not the ITIL service support and delivery books themselves).

As far as implementing processes goes, I'd say that perhaps your efforts are best spend building ITIL awareness with your colleagues and eventually fostering that all important management support before starting to implement the processes.

If you have to put something in now anyway then it is fair to say that basing as far as possible on ITIL processes will mean less upheavel later; I just wonder whether it would be better to wait until after you know a bit more.

I don't know what the view of everyone else is here but personally I think that unless you are qualified to ITIL management certificate level then you aren't quite ready to implement ITIL as a programme. If you are only putting in a couple of processes someone who has experience of the practionar courses may be able to aid - not really sure.

Technically speaking some processes can be implemented without fancy tools but when technology is there to help automate things then I personally like using technology! It might be worth you investigating the major players in the market who aim at the budget you can afford ready for when the time comes (so then it is just a case of checking prices are still up to date, offerings haven't changed much, etc.). I certainly wouldn't consider paying for a tool until much later when an ITIL implementation programme has been agreed, projects scoped, budget agreed, etc.

I did the same thing as you in terms of reading as much as I could about ITIL before finally getting sign off from work to attend a course, and when I did I thoroughly enjoyed it - hope you do too