Manage Service Desk and Incidents

Timely and effective response to IT user queries and problems requires a well-designed and well-executed service desk and incident management process. This process includes setting up a service desk function with registration, incident escalation, trend and root cause analysis, and resolution. The business benefits include increased productivity through quick resolution of user queries. In addition, the business can address root causes (such as poor user training) through effective reporting.

Service Desk

Establish a service desk function, which is the user interface with IT, to register, communicate, dispatch and analyze all calls, reported incidents, service requests and information demands. There should be monitoring and escalation procedures based on agreed-upon service levels relative to the appropriate SLA that allow classification and prioritization of any reported issue as an incident, service request or information request. Measure end users’ satisfaction with the quality of the service desk and IT services.

There are no PSGs published for this topic; however, the topic is under review for future PSGs

Registration of Customer Queries

Establish a function and system to allow logging and tracking of calls, incidents, service requests and information needs. It should work closely with such processes as incident management, problem management, change management, capacity management and availability management. Incidents should be classified according to a business and service priority and routed to the appropriate problem management team, where necessary. Customers should be kept informed of the status of their queries.

There are no PSGs published for this topic; however, the topic is under review for future PSGs

Incident Escalation

Establish service desk procedures, so incidents that cannot be resolved immediately are appropriately escalated according to limits defined in the SLA and, if appropriate, workarounds are provided. Ensure that incident ownership and life cycle monitoring remain with the service desk for user-based incidents, regardless which IT group is working on resolution activities.

There are no PSGs published for this topic; however, the topic is under review for future PSGs

Incident Closure

Establish procedures for the timely monitoring of clearance of customer queries. When the incident has been resolved, ensure that the service desk records the resolution steps, and confirm that the action taken has been agreed to by the customer. Also record and report unresolved incidents (known errors and workarounds) to provide information for proper problem management.

There are no PSGs published for this topic; however, the topic is under review for future PSGs

Reporting and Trend Analysis

Produce reports of service desk activity to enable management to measure service performance and service response times and to identify trends or recurring problems, so service can be continually improved.