Sometimes it feels like it ultimately tallies up to the second number, as though 2/3 of the first number’s big project ideas are for something we already have and forgot about or only really got the hang of using it as a hack for something else. Bonus points if one is repeated annually!
Everyone wants Best Practice…
until it’s different than what they do now.
4 Likes
4 Likes
LOL… usually I am the Best Practice Police.
But I don’t get to carry sidearms. Phooey.
And my Intimidating Glare is neither very intimidating nor very glaring.
I don’t mind people throwing around “best practice” as a buzzword…as long as they practice what they preach in their respective areas of concern.
1 Like
We use Zendesk for user helpdesk ticketing system and Zendesk Guide Articles for the how to guides. This encompasses all of IT.
“Projects” and longer term development are tracked in SmartSheets. We have one SmartSheet called “Change Management” for all the little requests - new dashboard, a BPM here and there, etc. Our team basically budgets about 10% of our time to squeeze in the Change Management tasks, and I’ll go through and prioritize the list once a month or so… Upper Management doesn’t get involved in these tasks.
Our big projects each have their own SmartSheet where we can get really granular with timelines and resource allocation, etc… These are things like “build a new website” or “implement Doc Star”, and we work with upper management to get funding, buy-in, and prioritization on all of these.
1 Like
Helpdesk toolset won’t help me…LOL…the usual final score on everything is Priority 1, Buy-in 0.
1 Like
I’m constantly saying this. It’s great when users take the initiative to dig into Epicor a bit more to see what it can do (versus those who are too scared to click a button/link that has a word on it related to what they are trying to do), but they don’t live in it like us admins do, so I’m frequently having to back out of their “solutions” into what the problem is that they’re trying to solve.
3 Likes
I’ve come to the conclusion that this is a universal truth which I cannot change. I still try to walk folks through forming a problem statement that can define a desired outcome and metrics of success. It only sticks with maybe one person out of dozens. But then there are twice as many of us, and that’s got to be a solution for something.
6 Likes
Oh I have a story about that. Spoiler alert: I was one of those people that didn’t get it.
I went to college for mechanical engineering, and I transferred schools after 2 years. The school that I transferred to, they had a special class just for us transfers. The dean taught it. Another spoiler alert: we made her miserable.
The class was simple - the dean would read a word problem and we would have to identify what was the problem.
Well, us engineers were HORRIBLE at this. We would consistently presume the root cause and state that as the problem. Or we’d identify an effect as the problem.
Example:
It’s 7 AM. Fred has an important meeting at 10 AM. If he misses this meeting, he will be fired. Fred’s car will not start this morning. Yesterday he drove it for 20 miles past empty. The nearest gas station is 4 miles away.
What’s the problem?
- Fred’s car will not start - NO
- He ran out of gas - NO
- He needs a ride to the gas station - NO
- He stinks at planning - NO
The problem is that Fred needs to a way to get to the meeting on time.
If he could fly, then that’s an option. The problem is not the car nor the gas. Those sure are not helping to be part of the solution, but they are not the problem.
Eventually it clicked for us. Also joining the Army helped me with problem solving - being yelled at will do that.
8 Likes
Olden day: Fred walks through 10 miles of snow barefoot, makes it to meeting
Modern day: Fred calls Uber, makes it to meeting.
I didn’t need to join the Army to get that
The common sense? Or the yelling?
Modern day: Fred dials in via Teams.
I didn’t say he had to be there in person.
You’re assuming…
However, if his job is on the line, he should show up in person. He should infer that, yes.
3 Likes
Hmm yes, but sometimes you don’t want the grunts to be too good at solving problems. My dad said when he was in Vietnam they weren’t allowed to have any weapons on base even when they were close enough to the front line because the rank and file wanted to kill those in leadership as much as the enemy 
So you had to form a big line at the armory whenever there was an attack 
3 Likes
The yelling. I had, have and will continue to retain very little common sense.
Point taken. Never assume, it just makes an ass outta u and me
This is all reminding me of a random opinion I’d heard a while ago. AI will successfully replace us just as soon as management and users can accurately ask for what they need.
4 Likes
Neva gonna happen 
3 Likes
We tried the free/cheap route for a long time, many years in fact. After hopping a bunch of different systems (Excel, Spiceworks, Zend, then Freshdesk), finally gave in and got Jira. It has a learning curve but no regrets at this point, wish we had done it many years ago.
3 Likes
TLDR…
But, what I used at different places,
- Email… It sucked
- spice works, it sucked less
- HubSpot, and Monday at the same time. the implementation was a joke.
- Epicor ITSM. Not too bad actually if you have had exposure to Epicor eFrontIffice
- Epicor Help desk in E9, with some simple work flows a simple dashboard or two it worked really well for not only internal support, but customer support, downside was the lack of ability to digest email attachments, but in hindsight, more to do with lack of developer experience. At that company we even integrated Epicor ITSM with E9 to give the customers a portal they could login to, to log and review tickets, definitely a different approach would be taken today if it was to be revisited. The best thing I liked about the approach was all the information was in one place for the users. No need to jump in and out of different systems.
My understanding is that not a lot has changed in help desk, but I think it is one of the biggest misunderstood and overlooked modules, all because of the lack of understanding, and people want to use service now or sales force etc. I say look what you are already licensed for and see if you can make it work before going down the external route. Pretty sure there havas been some good write ups in the past on it here. I think you will be pleasantly surprised, in particular the capability of being able link cases to soo many things in the system (orders, parts jobs, customers just to name a few)
2 Likes