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Caribbean Service Management / Trends: Colour-coded projects / Reports: On the shelf or in use?
EDITORIAL
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CONTENTS November 11
YOU CAN TELL THAT TOPDESK IS WRITTEN FROM THE SERVICE DESK EMPLOYEES POINT OF VIEW
Serge Morabito, CIP
4 7 9 10 13 15
NEWS
UniDesk: TOPdesk as a shared service in Higher and Further Education The benefits of collaboration in TOPdesk
TRENDS:
Colour-coded projects! Caribbean Service Management
COLUMN:
Learning to ride a bike Waternet makes waves
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17 19 23 25 28 32
CUSTOMER IN FOCUS:
CIP is ready for the future Reservations for the Museum of Ethnology Reports: On the shelf or in use?
WORK SMARTER:
Sending calendar invitations from TOPdesk
TIPS + TRICKS
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Sending calendar invitations from TOPdesk. Continue reading on page 28
ON THE COVER:
Kim Borst, Reservations department, Museum of Ethnology
@TOPdesk
A selection of our recent tweets:
@TOPdesk @christiaanpetit Which version do you use? We dont officially support Chrome, but customers with v4.3/4.4 encounter hardly any problems @christiaanpetit @TOPdesk It is virtually problem-free after updating to 4.4. I would start officially supporting Chrome. @Bertvanlaren @TOPdesk Bravo to the helpdesk employee who was still available at 19.00 and gave us the tip that helped us complete our 4.3 installation. @Chocartlaatje Finally going to start reading the August @TOPdesk Magazine A digital version for the iPad would be nice!! @TOPdesk @chocarlaatje You can read the Magazine on Scribd via the Mobile button. Enjoy your read! http://cot.ag/ oIKPB6
Smit: We are not looking at this as a takeover, but an extensive collaboration. Aventors corporate culture is very similar to TOPdesks, and we can tell that our new Danish colleagues feel very welcome.
NEWS
CALENDAR
BELGIUM
December
1 & 13 TOPdesk Demo Day for IT | TOPdesk office, Antwerp, Belgium
UK
December
15 & 16 Demo Day | TOPdesk office, London, UK
Wheel of Energy
The Wheel of Energy365 project is dedicated to improving the quality of life for cancer patients and providing support for their friends and family; however, they cannot do this without donations. Wheel of Energy uses the proceeds to support special centres for cancer patients in the Netherlands, among other projects.
January 2012
NETHERLANDS
Januari 2012
18, 19 and 20 Facilities Trade Fair | Brabanthallen, Den Bosch, The Netherlands
he three universities of Edinburgh, Abertay Dundee and St Andrews share a great deal of Scottish
Head of Application Divisions Service Management, and his team have their hands full. Our users can contact the Information Services (IS) helpline for a wide range of IT-related services, ranging from requests for user accounts, general desktop queries, printer or network problems, to e-learning and web services. To be able to manage all these requests, the university previously used their own CMS system which they developed ten years ago. It was a simple web-based system that only really offered Incident Management, explains Mark. Although they could log basic calls, the bespoke work involved would have been too costly for major engineering and the system lacked extensive features such as a CMDB and knowledge base. An external company also came to assess their processes against
Andrews , they decided it was only natural to head in that same direction, with the University of Abertay Dundee as the third party. Mark explains: Together with the other universities, we compiled a list of requirements for the new system. It not only had to offer the same support as the current system and be ITIL-compliant; we also needed a supplier partner that was able to work with Shibboleth, an Open Source centralized authentication mechanism, to ensure a shared service for all our partners. In addition, it had to comply with all the rigorous rules and regulations of the public sector.
heritage, and are among the most prestigious in the entire UK. The University of Abertay Dundee is the newest and most modern of the three, and its buildings are considered some of the most innovative and well-designed in Scotland. The University of St Andrews, on the other hand, is the oldest in the country; In fact, they are currently celebrating their 600th birthday. With three colleges comprising 27 schools, the University of Edinburgh is one of the largest, offering its students a wide range of degree programmes in the fields of Humanities, Social Sciences, Science & Engineering and Medicine & Veterinary Medicine.
ITIL standards, and they were not up to par at that time. Because we were already working according to ITIL procedures and found it important to share a unified vocabulary, we started looking for a new solution that fitted the bill. Having run their current CMS system as a shared service with University of St
the first to be shared across all the partner institutions, but remains flexible due to regular Change Board meetings, during which all partners are able to represent their priorities and requirements. With UniDesk, we not only share the cost of the service, but we also share ideas through workshops, reviews and training. We believe we can collectively be more effective, creative, and learn from each other, in order to continually improve our own services, Mark explains. Lorraine Brown, Service Desk IT Manager at St Andrews University, is very pleased with the numerous advantages UniDesk has to offer. What I like best about UniDesk, is that Ive got a lot more control than I had with the old system. As an administrator, it has given me a great overview, allowing me to assign roles and authorizations, for instance. Our 149 operators also greatly benefit from being able to see the status of each call. According to Lorraine, the biggest benefit of using UniDesk is the fact that its a shared service. Aside from
UniDesk is designed specifically for higher and further education institutions, the partners are able to offer UniDesk as a service to other universities. The advantage for other institutions, is that they can use our blueprints to make more rapid progress in service deployment, and they can benefit from a community approach, using a tried-and-tested tool that has a robust track record. This saves them both time and money, with unlimited usage and very competitive pricing, according to Mark.
greatly improved, and they are informed as soon as their call is closed, Matt explains. The University doesnt just use UniDesk for IT, however. We have also integrated processes with our corporate units, explains Mark, which include business service desks for Finance, Registry and Accommodation services, among others. We also support external queries from research organizations and partners. Recently, we even developed a mobile camper service: an application for smartphones which the students can use to log calls.
A learning organization
Overall, the University of Edinburgh is very pleased with running UniDesk on TOPdesk software, as Mark explains: It has become really easy to log calls, and the system has provided all the universities with a clear understanding of their processes and target times. In the next three months, we plan to release the Self Service Desk portal, which will enable users to log their own calls and use a shared knowledge base. We are already implementing Change Management, which is due to go live in the new year, closely followed by a Service Level Management module to help our customers manage the expectations and integrated responsibilities that underpin each service.
WE BELIEVE WE CAN COLLECTIVELY BE MORE EFFECTIVE, CREATIVE AND LEARN FROM EACH OTHER
Mark Wetton - University of Edinburgh
the regular meetings, I can always phone the other universities to ask for their advice. When the university of Abertay Dundee launched Problem Management, for example, I went to see how they implemented it. We will be able to use that same process effectively for our university. Normally an organization could spend days designing an appropriate process for their implementation. However, because
the difference in the services they provide. The old system didnt provide statistics, so there was no way of knowing how much time we were spending on each call; any (success) stories were anecdotal. Now we have the reports to back them up. We were really surprised that some tasks, such as password resets, took up a larger part of our time than we expected. We can now use this information to prioritize our calls. For the users, communication has also
Using the feedback they receive in their shared forum, the partner universities are continually improving UniDesk to better meet their requirements. One of our collective projects is to create a management information dashboard: a high-level reporting tool which will give us even more information on our processes and areas for improvement. With UniDesk, we have really become a learning organization.
ROB HAARING
is an HR manager at TOPdesk and a TOPdesk application manager
ervice departments and organizations owe their existence to their customers. It is therefore
Once this is done, it is possible to create a selection of colleagues, such as when you only want to poll part-time employees. TOPdesk then sends out the survey invitations via email. You can reuse both individual questions and entire surveys, eliminating the need to enter the same questions over and over. This makes it easy for several departments to use this module.
an exit survey to employees leaving your organization, which enables you to gather important information about your work environment. You can even use TOPdesk to create polls, allowing you to gauge employees reactions to new company policies, for instance.
important for them to know what customers think of the services they provide. Which services are good? Which can be improved? TOPdesk developed the Survey module to answer such questions. The module was originally designed to grant IT departments insight into how their customers perceived the speed and quality of their services.
HR and surveys
Surveys are especially useful for HR
convenient pie charts, or even export results to Excel for further processing. Like all service departments, at the end of the day you want to use the results to further improve the services you provide for your customers.
departments. After all, they must frequently measure employee satisfaction. Once you have created such a survey, you can adjust the settings so that TOPdesk sends it out on a fixed date every year. You can also use the Survey module to send
10 TRENDS
JORDI RECASENS
... is a team leader at TOPdesk Consultancy and has years of experience in implementing process flows within organizations.
COLOUR-CODED PROJECTS!
You have probably already experienced a project that did not go according to plan, even though everything was organized to a T: a good team, thorough preparation and a dedicated management team. In this article, I will explain how colour-coding can offer a solution when determining the best change strategies for your projects.
recently found myself in the midst of it again: a large process implementation with impressive goals and even better
a new IT infrastructure or renovating a location. When changing supporting services, and by that I mean people, it becomes a bit more tricky.
planning. We set to work with much enthusiasm, led by an external party. We thought out the various processes, involved employees from different project teams, provided ample opportunity for feedback and processed every last comment. But time flew by, and we did not meet our deadline. We encountered a lot of resistance and just couldnt finish the procedures. We eventually completed the project, but it was much more demanding than we had anticipated. So why did this happen?
people should ask themselves a number of questions when planning a change. In what type of organization will the change take place? What is the corporate culture like? Which people will be involved in or affected by the change? With such questions in mind, we can discern five different methods of approaching the situation. Each of these five approaches has been allocated a different colour (see above). Depending on your personal qualities and preferences, you can choose the colour that best matches your project and organization.
practice, the way people actually approach projects does not change much throughout this process. People often make extensive project plans that rely too much on controlable factors and results.
TRENDS 11
Yellow Concern and power are paramount. It is crucial that you adopt a stance and ensure that all your employees are on the same wavelength. Negotiating is an important tool needed to achieve your objectives. Blue Everything revolves around planning; making a blueprint of how to reach your goals. All factors must be as quantifiable as possible, so that you can adjust plans should you need to. The basic principle is think first, act later. Red Its all about your people. Developing talent is important for you to attain your goals. You do this by using rewards and penalties to stimulate your employees. Green Your motto is learning through experience and taking it step by step. You motivate people to try new things and give feedback. This is also characteristic of a learning organization. White White contains all colours. The pillars of this approach are allowing people to fulfil their ambitions by removing barriers, inspiring them and providing freedom. Taking the initiative is encouraged and individual organization is important.
up in an overly-extensive plan. When I look at the colour code now, I realize what went wrong. We assumed that we could use the procedures to control the outcome and create a blueprint of all possible situations. It shouldnt have come as a surprise that the procedures were neither set in place nor approved. I now realize that we were far too concerned with all the blue.
After studying the colour scheme I have come to the conclusion that TOPdesk is quite green. We take on internal projects in steps and continue to learn while remaining critical. You can observe this in the way we arrange projects at our customers [2], such as process or software implementations: Think big, start small Dont try to lay out everything beforehand
Go greener!
To speak in terms of the colour code, you can often make a project a lot less blue. At TOPdesk our approaches are already fairly green. This approach also works very well during projects with our customers. When starting a project, think critically about which approach best fits your organization. The colour code can help you with this. My advice is to consider the green approach. At first sight it may seem to take longer, but in the long run you get better results and the project will run a lot more efficiently.
DEPENDING ON YOUR PERSONAL QUALITIES AND PREFERENCES, YOU CAN CHOOSE THE COLOUR THAT BEST MATCHES YOUR PROJECT
Jordi Recasens - TOPdesk
This green approach is one of the biggest success factors in our projects, both internally and at our customers. It is not an artificially thought-up approach, but a logical result of our corporate culture. Our approach has resulted in more than 5,000 successful software and process implementations.
[1] Learning to Change, A Guide for Organization Change Agent ; Leon de Caluwe and Hans Vermaak. [2] See the article Taking your organizations maturity to the next level in TOPdesk Magazine of May 2011
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onald Lieuw-Sjong is the man behind Next Step Consulting (NSC), located on Curaao. NSC offers organizations in the Caribbean a range of consultancy and training services in IT
Meanwhile, NSC is making up lost ground by organizing demo days and discussing best practice frameworks such as ITIL. Fortunately, weve noticed that young graduate IT workers are being introduced to management activities during their studies. Doing business in the Caribbean also differs from the Netherlands, Lieuw-Sjong explains further. You need a more personal approach towards the sales process. On Curaao, who you know is often more important than what you know.
service management (ITIL and MOF) and facilities management. Lieuw-Sjong gives TOPdesk demonstrations on location, works as a consultant and provides training courses in the areas of ITIL, FM and process management.
ON CURAAO, IT IS CONSIDERED A COST, MEANING YOU FIRST HAVE TO CONVINCE ORGANIZATIONS OF THE TOOLS ADDED VALUE
Ronald Lieuw-Sjong - Next Step Consulting
visit Curaao for the first time, explains Lieuw-Sjong. I have to tell them that over here, a yes does not always mean a customer is committed buying, but that they expect an expert opinion instead. In the Netherlands, on the other hand, saying yes can have immediate consequences. Nowadays, I dont really notice these differences anymore; after a while, you start speaking the same language.
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partners in the Caribbean also include ITEE NV (Suriname) and Gilette group (Trinidad and Tobago). TOPdesk currently has 24 customers in the Caribbean, including the government of the Netherlands Antilles, Harbour Port Authority and State Oil Company Suriname.
Caribbean, as their parent company provides them with the tools they need. Small organizations usually do not have the available budget, but an appointment with the IT manager from a larger local organization can be arranged without a problem.
minor issue, I always visit them personally; otherwise, I just call the service desk. It has all become a lot easier with the help of modern technology.
Customers on TOPdesk
Unlike the Netherlands, the Caribbean has seen a large number of TOPdesk Professional implementations. Enterprise is often too expensive for smaller companies in the Caribbean, and many organizations consider our lite version to be too lite, explains Lieuw-Sjong. Another remarkable difference is that SaaS is not yet seen as a worthy alternative. Not many organizations on Curaao outsource their IT tasks, explains Lieuw-Sjong. For now, SaaS is out of the question on Curaao, as staying in control of the software is vital. On the other hand, our customers do use Gmail to communicate with one another! TOPdesk currently has a secure market position in the Caribbean. Customers are especially overwhelmed by our demonstrations; and the number of TOPdesk modules is so vast, that I usually only present a selection, explains Lieuw-Sjong. I begin the demo by showing them the basic modules of Incident Management and Configuration Management. Once the customers, currently 25 in total number, start working with TOPdesk, Lieuw-Sjong is mostly met with positive responses. When I see how customers can generate figures and control processes with ease, their response is usually wow!. Some minor cultural differences aside, the Caribbean appears to be another successful location for TOPdesk.
COLUMN
iscussing columns with an old friend while enjoying a glass of wine is a pleasant way to share
What are your strengths? How do you handle particular situations? These things determine the way you approach a task, and vary from person to person. Theres really nothing wrong with that.
done, shadowing someone from your own or another department, attending meetings or visiting customers. Finally, you also learn a lot by exchanging tips with others, just as Annemarie and I did.
knowledge. But how do you approach sharing knowledge about more complex issues with someone you dont know very well? If, for example, someone from your department is replaced, how do you ensure that the replacement acquires all the knowledge that they need? It is fairly easy to record what must be done in task descriptions, work instructions or written procedures. These descriptions may even be quite complex and extensive, such as the many protocols describing the tasks of a medical specialist or nurse. In short, it is possible. How someone does something, however, is much more difficult to record. It depends on personal experience, competence and personality. How experienced are you?
YOU DONT LEARN TO RIDE A BIKE BY READING A BOOK ABOUT IT; INSTEAD YOU FALL OVER AND PICK YOURSELF UP AGAIN
Trial and error often proves to be a good way to discover which methods suit you best. After all, you dont learn to ride a bike by reading a book about it; you do it by falling down and picking yourself up again. At work you learn in all sorts of ways; by observing how your colleagues get things
Come to think of it, its high time that Annemarie and I had another glass of wine together. I could still use a few tips, and I only made the deadline for this column by the skin of my teeth.
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spaces. But introducing a new way of working isnt quite that easy, explains Roelofsen, especially when new TOPdesk users react sceptically to the tool. The IT
and is the only company to deal with the Netherlands entire water chain. Waternet purifies waste water, produces drinking water and keeps surface water clean and at sufficient levels. The latter is contracted out by the water board Waterschap Amstel, Gooi en Vecht and the Amsterdam city council. Waternet supplies clean and safe potable water to 1.2 million people in the central and west Netherlands. Waternet is also responsible for rivers, ponds and lakes in these regions.
department was already used to working with TOPdesk. Employees from the Facilities, Documents and Records and Human Resources departments on the other hand find human interaction more important than IT employees do. Because of this, some people viewed the tool as hindering their service.
Attention to communication
In order to turn his colleagues reticence into enthusiasm, Roelofsen took a structured approach to the implementation. At the start of the process we discussed our approach and wrote a product description for communication that would serve to introduce the Self Service Desk, Roelofsen recalls. No matter how much you organize or how often you post on the intranet, the impact will never be big enough. With such a big change, you have to be more
IT and Facilities
When Waternet was founded some five years ago, TOPdesk emerged as the best tool for IT management. Rik Roelofsen, TOPdesk application manager, worked closely with colleague Jody van Kerwijk from the start. Jody was manager of the facilities service management system at the time. Roelofsen explains the situation. There came a point where Facilities wanted a system more attuned to the departments developments. Waternet wanted to reduce the number of applications and improve support of internal employees, so we formed a project team to select a single central system
TOPdesk the obvious choice. Many of the processes surrounding Asset management have been included in TOPdesk, offering great improvements. For example new, relocating and exiting employee processes are now dealt with entirely within TOPdesk. Roelofsen explains.
Challenges
Choosing a tool was relatively easy, but integrating it into the existing methodology was something else entirely. After introducing TOPdesk, Waternet began using the Self Service Desk to reserve meeting rooms and parking
direct when communicating. Thats why we discussed the role our communication would play at such an early stage of the project and why communication was an important part of the project planning. Roelofsen also included the internal media channels that would be used to >>
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Personal approach
In addition to using promotional material, Roelofsen underlines the importance of a personal approach. He regularly visits the Facilities department to help them with TOPdesk. This means Im no longer just that guy from the eleventh floor who does things with TOPDesk. Personal support is also a very important part of an implementation. People find it that bit easier to come to you with questions or problems.
Impressive results
By timing the communication releases correctly and involving employees in the projects objectives, TOPdesk was introduced very successfully. At Waternet, the Self Service Desk in particular is now used much more. Roelofsen is very pleased with the results. The Self Service Desk promotion was very well received. Facilities have noticed that the number of phone calls has gone down and already half of the reservations are made via the Self Service Desk, even during the holiday season! Employees like the fact that they are now more independent. They are no longer left waiting on the
Waternet Service desk employees
telephone if they want to reserve a parking space, they just request it themselves via the Self Service Desk. According to Roelofsen, the Self Service Desk offers another
important advantage. Now that supporting departments have been brought together in the Self Service Desk, people work more closely with one another. In the past, departments were primarily
concerned with themselves, but now they are required to confer more often. As a result, they soon find that they learn a lot from each others procedures! The Self Service Desk is a positive step towards one central service desk.
CUSTOMER IN FOCUS 19
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lthough CIP receives the type of incidents you would normally expect, about the network or IT infrastructure, it is no average service desk. We provide support primarily
In 2006, CIP decided to further optimize the working procedures by taking stock of and standardizing key processes. And, of course, ITIL is never far away notes Morabito. We decided to look for a tool that would better support our processes and needed less customization. An acquaintance told us that TOPdesk looked pretty good. We attended a demo and were quickly convinced. You can tell that it is written from the point of view of a service desk employee. It is not a product that dictates how you should organize your service desk.
to UNIZO (Union for Independent Entrepreneurs in Flanders) and Zenito, the social insurance fund for the self-employed, explains Serge Morabito, TOPdesk application manager at CIP. Our team of seven supports around 300 people.
Diverse customers
Several of the more than 120 professional associations are based at the headquarters, where they represent self-employed entrepreneurs from particular sectors. Zenito has another half a dozen regional relationship management offices for which CIP provides services. As you can imagine, in an organization like this we deal with a large number of people from a variety of business fields, Morabito continues, This can make our work quite complicated. Each professional association or service has its own requirements; and even the infrastructure can vary between the different locations. Communication is of utmost importance. You dont want to travel all the way to an office half way across the country when the problem could have been solved from our own office.
CUSTOMERS STILL FIND IT IMPORTANT TO BE ABLE TO EXPLAIN THEIR PROBLEMS TO A PERSON INSTEAD OF A MACHINE
Serge Morabito, CIP
on the line who understands the situation and can listen is an advantage. We are slowly trying to encourage people to find their answers themselves, in the Knowledge Base. Thats why we always refer to the Self Service Desk on the phone. A customer can then track the progress of their incident from registration through to closure, which adds transparency to the process. Statistics show us that more and more customers are finding their way to the Self Service Desk, something we welcome wholeheartedly.
CUSTOMER IN FOCUS 21
YOU CAN TELL THAT TOPDESK IS WRITTEN FROM THE SERVICE DESK EMPLOYEES POINT OF VIEW
Serge Morabito, CIP
discussing outsourcing and cloud computing in the private cloud. It will be difficult to weigh up the cost of having our own data centre against a that of a cloud model. The coming year will determine how we handle the future, but if one things certain, its that we will continue to use TOPdesk. We are even thinking about introducing TOPdesk for facilities management.
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groups and private tours. The museum offers many options for customers wanting to book an organized visit. Whether you are looking for a day out steeped in culture, want to hold a meeting in an inspiring environment or are organizing an educative school trip, the Reservations department will be able to provide you with a suitable room and programme to meet your needs. We check which rooms are free, the estimated price and whether there are any tour guides available, says Borst. Our tour guides work freelance. Many of them are historians or students, but we also have a number of former teachers. They have been doing this for quite some time and are very knowledgeable, which means that they can handle many different types of groups.
to the history of cultures from all over the world. The cultural history of various regions is illustrated in exhibits spanning several halls. The museum regularly hosts temporary exhibits in addition to its permanent collections, such as last years Maori exhibit. It was a great success: Maori came to the Netherlands to officially open the exhibition and presented the museum with a waka, a genuine Maori canoe. On Expedition, which focuses on adventurers in the 19th and 20th centuries, also seems set to be a huge hit. The exhibition features interactive elements such as an expedition area in the museum gardens.
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which we noted our appointments and that was it. All correspondence was handled via email, telephone or additional documents. It was so time-consuming that we often didnt get around to our core tasks. The museum started its search for a more comprehensive system that would save time, eventually choosing TOPdesk. With the help of consultants, they set up TOPdesk as a complete reservations system. There are not many museums that use TOPdesk for this purpose, says Borst. But it really works well for us!
method, so you will have the complete reservation in a single system or, even better, on a single card in TOPdesk. Once Borst and her colleagues have found the ideal tour guides, they send an email to the customer from TOPdesk, informing them that the reservation has been finalized. This is a great improvement on the previous situation. We dont have to send separate emails or create individual documents any more. Other departments also have access to the reservations system, such as the Education department. They must put the programmes they create into the system.
for that specific day, which rooms are available and even whether you have enough space for the group. Additionally, some companies want quite complicated programmes, which can take a long time to organize. The Reservations department always knows what is going on at the museum. This makes us something of an information desk, says Borst. We get all types of questions. Is that room free? What is that group doing here exactly? How much does this cost? We also get feedback from schools, allowing us to further improve our services.
NOT MANY MUSEUMS USE TOPDESK FOR THIS PURPOSE, BUT FOR US IT WORKS REALLY WELL!
Kim Borst - Museum Volkenkunde
Each room in the Museum of Ethnology tells a different story of cultural history from Indonesia, China, Japan and Korea, Central and South America, North America, the Arctic, Asia and Africa.
They also use TOPdesk to specify on which day their programme can run, for example. The Technical department also plays an important role, as Borst explains. The Technical department has to know what needs to be done each day. Sometimes a meeting requires a projector or laptop, and sometimes a room needs to be rearranged for a private group. This is all taken care of by the Technical department.
Interdepartmental collaboration within the museum is very important, as Borst explains. If the Education department doesnt develop any programmes and Public Relations doesnt release any information, we wont get any reservations. At the end of the day, were all working together. TOPdesk is vital to this cooperation: Because we all work in the same system, we automatically make more agreements with each other. We collaborate more. Its definitely a must for
other museums.
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eporting should not be a goal in itself, but rather contribute to the goals of the organization. The real
management or motivate employees. Whatever your goal, the objectives must be formulated in a SMART way; they must be Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Time-bound.
question, however, is what happens to the report? We notice that, in practice, reports are often not used optimally; for example because the target audience was not involved in compiling the report. As a result, the report does not appeal to the target audience, meaning the organization will not use the finished report much or even at all. Creating a useful report appears to be quite difficult. Thats why in this article we describe four steps for making a good report that is actually valuable to your organization.
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It is useful to apply this knowledge at an early stage and, together with the target audience, determine what they want and why; or in other words: What would you like to achieve with the report? What exactly would you like to see in the report? How often would your target audience like to receive a report? How would the target audience like the report to be delivered? Asking these questions and brainstorming with the target audience improves the quality of the report. Above all, you can use this information to keep the report as short as possible. As a rule of thumb, the longer the report, the less people will read of it. Asking critical questions will enable you to fine-tune the operational process. When creating a report, you must determine which information needs to be recorded beforehand. Is this information already being recorded, or do you need to adjust working procedures in order for this to happen? By remaining critical regarding how your organization will use the report and why, you will prevent needless registration for the purpose of the report. This saves not only time, but you will avoid wasting unnecessary effort recording irrelevant activities.
There are a number of tips for generating a report: keep the reasons for the report in mind, think ahead, make choices and keep it simple. When you tick all the options for a report in TOPdesk, you will get an unreadable report that no one can use. In order to maintain an overview, you must limit the number of fields. Instead of bundling all information together in a single report, it can be more useful to deliver several (short) reports. Give this careful consideration and produce reports sparingly. Here too you should be careful not to overdo it.
Step 4: Interpretation
The report is generated and all results have been neatly displayed in numbers and charts, but the task of the person who created the report is not over. This person knows how the report has been compiled, and therefore how to read the results. Use this knowledge to help the target audience interpret the report. When interpreting the report, the results are examined with the objective in mind. A report without any interpretation does not say much at all. For example, a transportation company made agreements about the maximum number of delays per year in order to keep customers satisfied. A report demonstrated that the company kept to its agreements; however, most delays occurred during rush hour. As a result, a relatively large proportion of customers experienced delays. The report did not represent customer satisfaction, and therefore did not (entirely) fulfil
CREATING A GOOD REPORT BEGINS WITH DETERMINING YOUR GOAL AND TARGET AUDIENCE
its purpose. It is also important to analyse not only the current results, but past results alongside them. The transportation company from the previous example may have met their SLA, but if it transpires that 90% of services were on time this month, while the figure was 95% last month, then things are still not running optimally. It is important to compare results to determine whether your services are improving, and thus whether your hard work has had the desired results.
Best practices
If everything has gone according to plan, you will have made agreements in step 2 on the format of the report and to what extent the interpretation is expected from the person who created the report. You can include a number of topics in the report, depending on the agreements and target audience. Below are a number of examples that have proved useful in practice.
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REMAIN CRITICAL ABOUT HOW YOUR ORGANIZATION WILL USE THE REPORT
Do not tick all the options when creating a report
It can be useful to suggest possible causes alongside the results. For example, if there is a spike in a report, try to determine the cause. Was a piece of equipment broken? Had the service desk just become more easily accessible? Had the coffee run out? It is nice when you can see the result of the report right away. By giving a short and understandable summary of the report, the chances that the reader understands the essentials of the report will increase significantly. Using symbols, such as emoticons or a thumbs up or down can even provide an effective overview. Discuss the reports with the target audience at regular intervals. If the target audience is your own department, plan to discuss the report at the weekly or monthly team meeting. If the target audience consists of external customers, make a recurring appointment to discuss the reports. Alternatively, join the management meetings regularly to discuss the report that they requested.
reports should change accordingly. Run through every step each time you create the report. It is important to always discuss the report to evaluate whether requirements have changed. Is the report still used? If so, for what? Does the report still meet the requirements? In short, stay curious and take action!
28 WORKING SMARTER
PATRICK MACKAAIJ
is a consultant and team leader at TOPDesk. He specializes in technical issues and optimizing processes..
he standard for calendar files is iCalendar (.ics), the successor of vCalendar (.vcs). Both formats are
save it as an iCalendar file. Enter all data in the appointment that you would like to include later via the corresponding card in TOPdesk such as location, start and end time, reminder and other information (figure 1). You can use the file Example subject.ics as a template for the text file that you can generate using the Events module. It looks like this:
11.0 MIMEDIR//EN VERSION:2.0 METHOD:PUBLISH BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART:20111003T070000Z DTEND:20111003T083000Z LOCATION:Example location TRANSP:OPAQUE SEQUENCE:0 UID:040000008200E00074C5B7101A82E00 800000000609243833971CC01000000000 00000001000000051C368D673084C439D BE9FE4B56C1A0E DTSTAMP:20110912T084832Z
simple flat text files that can be read in to most calendar software, including Microsoft Outlook. TOPdesk can create calendar files using the Events module. You can then include a link to the calendar file on the server in an email.
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SUMMARY: Example subject PRIORITY:5 X-MICROSOFT-CDO-IMPORTANCE:1 CLASS:PUBLIC BEGIN:VALARM TRIGGER:-PT15M ACTION:DISPLAY DESCRIPTION:Reminder END:VALARM END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR
on the server. TOPdesk will then run the file MoveFile.cmd, a batch script that will move the temporary file (variable %1) to a location from which the TOPdesk Operator can access it through the TOPdesk server. This location is configured in the batch script. You can create the batch script in the TOPdesk installation master folder, using the following content: move %1 web\open\TOPdesk-ics\%2.ics Before you do this, ensure that you have
changed. The start date will appear as follows: [Planned_Start_Date;13] Next, link the action that you have created to the corresponding events. For a reservation, this would be the moment that the card is created or changed.
Please note: The implemented iCalendar rfc5545-functionalities depend on the software that you are using. Microsoft Outlook 2003 for instance does not process additional attendees.
created the folder TOPdesk-ics on the TOPdesk server in the folder /web/open. Replace the fields in bold in Example 1 with fields to be inserted. For the appointment, copy the unique ID from the card in TOPdesk [-UNID-] to UID (unique ID). The
date format in TOPdesk is different from that of the iCalendar default. To adjust this, select the inserted date field. Right-click on the field with your mouse and select XML Date/Time (yyyy-MM-ddTHH:mm:ss). Tip: You can also adjust the date format manually by adding ;13 to it. For example, for a reservation insert the start and end date and the time that the card was
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Editorial
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The TOPdesk Magazine covers subjects that are topical in the world of professional service desks in IT, facilities and other service providing organizations. TOPdesk Magazine is intended for managers, service desk employees, facilities organizations and electronic city councils anyone who is involved with supporting clients on a daily basis. This concerns both the processes and the technology behind these services. TOPdesk Magazine is a TOPdesk publication Tel: +31 (0)15 270 09 00 Fig. 2 Generating a calendar file in the Action Explorer Email: editorial@topdesk.com Chief Editor: Nienke Deuss Editors: Nienke Deuss, Timme Hos, Milou Snaterse, Niek
1. Stop the TOPdesk server (service) 2. Open etc/webdefault.xml in notepad 3. Search for the command </servlet-mapping> and insert the following text directly below it: <mime-mapping> <extension>ics</extension> <mime-type>text/calendar</mimetype> </mime-mapping> 4. Start the TOPdesk server (service) Ask your TOPdesk application manager to check this setting each time TOPdesk is updated. When an event (defined by you) occurs, your agenda software will open an appointment that you can save in your agenda. You can check this by opening the generated .ics file in your browser. If you wish to include the link to the .ics file in an email, you can give it an even neater appearance by using HTML. If you also use a file icon for an agenda item in the link, the recipient will probably not even spot the difference between an attachment and a link.
Steenhuis, Nicola van de Velde Translators: Leah Clarke, Hazel Hollis, Nicola van de Velde Contributors: Rob Haaring, Jolanda Harper-Simonis, Renske van der Heide, Patrick Mackaaij, Jordi Recasens, Lydje Snieders Layout: Cathy van den Berg, Elise Kerner, Design Agency DDC Photography: Ted Erkkila, Aad Hoogendoorn, Robin Kuijs, Jonas Mertens, Kees Muizelaar Copy editor: Nicola van de Velde A print run of 5,000 Quarterly magazine Languages: Dutch, English
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tips + tricks
The symbol
Some TOPdesk users have spotted it already: If you move your mouse over the bar at the bottom of the screen in a total overview in TOPdesk, a pi symbol appears.
Clicking on this symbol will open a card from an overview directly in a new window. This enables you to quickly identify the URL of a specific card. You may need to know the URL of a servlet to create a new User card, for example. By clicking on the pi symbol in the overview of all User cards, you can easily copy the URL of the card from the new window. The Help and Support site is frequently updated with new content, such as manuals or tips on how to get more out of TOPdesk. You can access the Help and Support site by clicking on the question mark above an overview in TOPdesk, or from the menu option Help > Help and Support. You can also look up solutions via our Extranet twenty-four hours a day: www.extranet.topdesk.com
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