In mid-2006, we started works to build a central organization supporting IT system users in TVP SA. At that time, there were about a dozen independent teams in the TVP IT & Communications Center, providing support in various IT areas. Various methods of incident registration were used, the competency scopes were not defined, and there were no procedures to consistently describe Help Desk operations. Defects were reported chiefly by phone, and the number of places to report them to was virtually equal to the number of main IT areas. Due to the lack of a single point of contact, IT service users were burdened with the obligation to initially classify the problems. A user who wanted to report a problem had an additional problem with determining who was competent to solve the original problem. The main assumptions adopted for the project of building a central support organization included: establishing a single point of contact, relieving the users of the obligation to classify the problems, and putting in place unified maintenance procedures supported by a single request database, common for all areas of competence. To implement the assumptions, it was necessary to identify and register existing IT resources and, above all, the provided services. One very important part of the project was to deploy an IT tool to support management of the request handling process. TVP selected the Atmosfera Service Desk system. The deployment started in October 2006. The deployment team focused on the following four main elements:

– list of services and request categories for each service
– database of users with access to the Atmosfera  system
– database of configuration elements used by the users instructions for solving the reported problems

Atmosfera Service Desk in TVP SA

The main assumptions adopted for the project of building a central support organization included:

– establishing a single point of contact,
– relieving the users of the obligation to classify the problems,
– putting in place unified maintenance procedures supported by a single request database, common for all areas of competence.

At the start of the Atmosfera Service Desk implementation project, it was decided to use and integrate the data resources stored in various external systems. Such integration enabled building in a short time and – what’s important – at a low cost, a configuration database necessary to manage the request handling process. This way, all support groups handling the requests have access to user data imported from SAP HR, Microsoft Exchange, and the company phonebook, as well as to detailed information on the hardware and software used by the user reporting the problem (the data is imported from the hardware inventory system and from the LAN/WAN database).
The permanent team, directly involved in the deployment project, included three employees of the TVP IT & Telecommunications Center, and three consultants representing the supplier of the Atmosfera system, i.e. ATM.

The team members from the Center had extensive knowledge of user requirements, and were very committed to their work.Also, they were strongly convinced of the need to change the support model from technology-oriented to service-oriented.
Before launching the project, the team analyzed and cataloged all services provided by the Center, determining their scope and basic parameters.This contributed to a reduction of the project implementation time.The system was put to production on January 15, 2007.From that date, the new help desk, known as the IT Support Center, became the single point of contact for IT system users.The IT personnel was divided into service groups with defined areas of competence:
1st-line support – consultants responsible for registering and analyzing the reported problems, and for either solving them or escalating them to the next lines.
2nd-line support – specialists responsible for less frequently occurring or more complex problems, as well as for problems requiring on-site intervention.
3rd-line support– system administrators and IT specialists responsible for application development.
Each support line has a different dedicated model of functional permits, enabling them to play different roles in the request handling process.The 1st-line support consultants have an Atmosfera console integrated with the telephone infrastructure.This enables automatic identification of the users, based on the originating phone number, which in turn enables making the caller history, status, and profile information automatically available to the consultant.The case registration includes such parameters as reporting time, reporting person, case category, and responsible person/group.Each action performed in connection to the request is recorded in the request’s history which may be actively monitored, also by the user.The second channel for problem reporting is a Web form which enables the users to report and view the problems submitted by themselves and (in the case of managers) by their subordinates.When a request is closed, the user may fill a questionnaire to assess the quality of services provided by the IT Support Center.The data collected this way is used as one of the quality parameters.At present, virtually all reported problems are registered, and their handling is well documented. It enables preparing reliable analyses of the IT Support Center’s operations, of IT systems’ operation, and of the users’ capability to use the systems.
Thanks to the single point of contact and the competent and user-friendly services provided by the IT Support Center, the support quality and user satisfaction have increased. Those parameters are regularly measured through surveys conducted by independent agencies.One such survey was conducted just before the project launch, and next cyclical surveys are planned, the first of them after 6 months of the launch of the new support system.
The analysis of reported requests has shown that some of them are requests for changes in the IT systems.Such requests are handled under a fundamentally different procedure, because investment expenditures are engaged,which in turn requires a formal procedure for analyzing the justification and reaching the investment decision.Therefore, the system will be expanded by adding a module for managing Change Requests in a manner consistent with the approach adopted for IT system user support in TVP SA.The system implementation in the basic scope, including integration works, took 3 months.In parallel, organizational changes were carried out in the IT & Telecommunications Center, aimed chiefly at separating the development function from the maintenance function.Some organizational units were dissolved, and many employees were moved to other units. Also, new employees were recruited internally and externally.Within the maintenance function, the User Support Department has been established, with an extended scope of services to include PC hardware, applications, and telecommunications.