What Does The Service Desk Do For The Help Desk?

Many long-term IT professionals grew up in an IT helpdesk environment. However, as organizations move into the IT Service Management (ITSM) environment, the focus is on providing IT service services to customers and employees rather than help desk service. Many IT professionals wonder what an IT service desk is and how it differs from a traditional IT help desk.

With that in mind, what is the difference between an IT help desk and an IT service desk?

Traditional Features Of The IT Help Desk

Traditional IT help desks have focused on repair / breakdown activities and basic provisioning services, such as user profiling, network privilege management, termination activities, and email management. We support the introduction of new IT technologies and services. The IT Help Desk is primarily compatible with internal users and provides some form of support to external clients as needed. These act as a single point of contact (SPOC) for IT support activities.

The IT help desk is reactive. Solve everyday problems, such as resetting passwords, repairing printers, and helping with device problems. Many people refer to help desk support services as tactical support focused on IT strategies, both in developing new initiatives and to help keep those initiatives going. IT help desks are usually BMC Track-IT! Use a tracking system such as: Software that provides automated ticket registration and routing, self-service options, and a knowledge base. The ticket reporting feature also helps IT support comply with key service level agreements (SLAs).

Traditional IT help desks perform a subset of ITSM and customer service functions, primarily in the areas of incident management, problem management, knowledge management, and some IT services and provisioning. A help desk may exist without a corresponding service desk, but IT service desks often incorporate the responsibilities and functions of the help desk into that functionality.

It Service Role

The IT Service Desk focuses on IT Service Management (ITSM) and business needs. ITSM refers to all the activities, policies, and processes that an organization uses to implement, manage, and improve the delivery of IT services. Organizations achieve these ITSM goals by implementing some best practices that cover various areas, including:

A catalog of IT services of available IT services that is provided by the service desk and that users can request and request IT services.

An incident management system that covers the problems that traditional IT support environments offer.

Provisioning and configuration services such as user services, hardware, software, configurations, applications.

An event management system that monitors "state" changes in IT services and configuration items and determines whether appropriate actions should be taken in response to the changes. Event management enables staff to obtain assurance of service (ensure service is working properly), provide audit reports, and improve service.

A problem management activity that aims to prevent recurring incidents and problems from occurring, eliminate recurring incidents, and mitigate incidents that cannot be avoided.

It provides systems for other types of IT services, such as change management, launch and deployment management, service testing, vendor management, service level management, service catalog management, availability management.

The Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) Framework provides a framework of predefined best practices and standard processes for implementing ITSM. Implementation of ITSM best practices and processes is supported by ITIL-validated service platforms, such as BMC FootPrints Service Desk software.

Within ITSM, the IT service desk can provide a complete implementation of ITSM needs. Like the help desk, the IT service desk acts as a single point of contact (SPOC), but the focus shifts to become a SPOC between the service provider (not just the IT department) and the user .

IT service desks are considered strategic rather than tactical because they focus on business needs and can focus on solving, solving existing problems, as well as continuously implementing, monitoring, and improving IT processes. The IT service desk is reactive and proactive. It has an integrated help desk function and is responsive when using incident and event management functions. However, you can also become proactive through interacting with ITIL Continuous Service Improvement (CSI) practices, which cause recurring problems.

Big Difference

IT service desks perform many of the same functions as traditional IT help desks. The difference lies in focus and scope. Traditionally, where IT helpdesks have focused on incident management, deployment support, and basic provisioning, helpdesk services form only a subset of the functionality provided by IT service desks. Service Desk covers everything you need to plan, implement, manage and improve your IT services, and covers all the functions of your IT organization and line of business owners, contributors and resources. And ITSM and ITIL have their own frameworks to provide these features. Simply put, the service desk is much broader in scope and power than a help desk and covers all aspects of IT service delivery to internal and external customers.