City of Naperville

“GroupLink® provided us with a system that is tailormade to our specific needs. Our categories are fully customized to fit our organization.”

Jay Carlson, City of Naperville

The Problem

Historically, the City of Naperville used an in house, key-based help desk system. This system was very difficult for the majority of employees to use. Jay Carlson, Network Administrator for the City of Naperville, stated, “The first and biggest problem was getting our staff to use it. The system was basically useless unless you were a guru.”

The IT staff was overworked. “We were receiving phone calls, emails, and were being stopped in hallways all too often with questions ranging from printer issues to a simple request like how to access the internet,” Carlson said. End users were not satisfied. Carlson explained, “The problem was cyclical in nature in that people wouldn’t address their problems with IT personnel because they needed to do so over and over again.”

“When we were asked questions in casual circumstances there was virtually no way to trace the process,” Carlson added. Without the ability to track incident requests, technician workloads could not easily be managed.

The city personnel needed a help desk system that allowed each of the 1,000 network users to easily submit requests, view the progress of the requests, and access solutions to common problems.

Addressing the needs of individual support teams and providing the tools to succeed

The Solution

By implementing the everything HelpDesk® solution by GroupLink®, the City of Naperville employees have an easy-to-use web-based help desk system that allows them to submit incident requests and track the progress online. End users have the ability to find solutions to common problems via the online Knowledgebase. This increases user satisfaction and reduces technician workload.

With everything HelpDesk®, the City of Naperville has developed a simple process for incident management and request fulfillment. What was once a time consuming and unsuccessful process is now accomplished quickly.

“GroupLink provided us with a system that is tailor-made to our specific needs. Our categories are fully customized to fit our organization,” Carlson said.

“The question we heard most in IT was, ‘What do I do next?’ Now with everything HelpDesk®, we simply point them in the right direction and off they go,” Carlson added.

Technicians are able to access their incident requests from any web enabled device, letting them manage their own workloads. This also increases user satisfaction and reduces the time spent on each task.

Conclusion

The processes that have been developed by the City of Naperville using everything HelpDesk® have greatly increased staff efficiency and end user satisfaction. The IT staff easily manages their responsibilities while supporting each network user.

“We handle everything from swapping out a keyboard to setting someone up with internet access,” Carlson said. “Our IT department handles a great deal of different tasks, from many different departments and sites. everything HelpDesk really helps us help them.” With increased technician efficiency and improved response time, end users are more satisfied.