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Company Name: Siemens

The Challenge
For Siemens PT&D, centrally managing internal IT support for nearly 1,000 employees across five geographically-dispersed divisions is a challenge in itself. Factor in the company’s IT department initiatives of installing a new Citrix® environment, rolling out Microsoft® Office 2003, upgrading to Microsoft® Exchange 2003, and replacing its current ERP system with SAP™, and it becomes clear that IT support needs to be extremely responsive and efficient, without requiring unnecessary man hours.

David Inman, Manager of Information Technology, is responsible for the IT help desk at Siemens PT&D. When he joined the company, the IT group was using the Remedy® IT Service Management Suite and had gone through one upgrade cycle. According to Mr. Inman, “after evaluating the IT infrastructure at Siemens, we determined that the solution was too expensive to maintain in-house. And, we didn't have the manpower required to manage and input changes - we are simply too busy. We were further constrained by our limited budget for annual consulting, support, and maintenance.” In 2001, Siemens PT&D opted out of its Remedy maintenance contract and sought new support automation solutions. During his initial research, Mr. Inman came across UniPress® Software’s FootPrints® and Track-It!® by Intuit®.”

Mr. Inman and another staff member ran extensive tests on each solution. “We loaded each solution, tested them on the back- and the front-end (for the agent), and entered sample tickets to replicate day-to-day IT support issues.” Mr. Inman and his colleague also scrutinized each solution’s reporting capabilities, and participated in product-demonstrations with vendor representatives.

The Choice
Ultimately, after the thorough evaluation process, Siemens PT&D selected FootPrints from NJ-based UniPress Software. “We really like FootPrints, and the biggest draw was its web-based architecture,” Mr. Inman said. “We always envisioned our help desk to be on the web so users can go online from any location to fill out and submit their tickets.”

“We really like FootPrints, and the biggest draw was its
web-based architecture,”
-- David Inman, Manager of Information Technology

Once the final decision was made, Mr. Inman assembled a five-person team for a half-day planning session to discuss what they liked about the old system and how to do more with the new FootPrints system. From there, they developed all the menus, mapped data sources within the system, and finalized the layout. After going live with FootPrints, Siemens PT&D initially duplicated tickets in both the Remedy solution and FootPrints. At the end of the successful three-day period, the entire support automation function was switched to FootPrints.

The Solution
Today, Siemens PT&D uses FootPrints to provide IT support, including PC and network support to 1,000 employees across five divisions. When asked what type of employees FootPrints supports, Mr. Inman says, “It can be anybody from senior executives, to blue or white-collared employees.” He explained that when employees have an IT problem such as a malfunctioning computer, or if they simply forgot a password, they can submit their support requests via multiple channels, including email, the web, or phone. If they call in a request, agents have FootPrints open at all times. According to Mr. Inman, “quick tickets make it so easy for our agents. For example, password resets can be done by just clicking on a ticket and FootPrints automatically fills in the required information. The agent only has to enter the customer identifier such as an email address or an employee’s last name.”

Anatomy of Siemens PT&D Email Support and Issue Management with FootPrints
When an employee submits a support request via email, the request is immediately assigned a “request” status within FootPrints. Request tickets are then assigned to agents, and the user receives an email stating, “Your ticket has been assigned.” Once the agent beings working on the ticket, he or she designates it as “work-in-progress,” and the ticket process work begins. If more information is required from the user, the agent can enter information in the ticket and forward it into a “customer-pending” queue. An email is sent back to the employee stating, “This is the status of your ticket and to proceed we need some additional information. Could you please reply to this email with this information.” When that message returns to the help desk, the ticket goes into a “customer-responded” status, and from there, the agent knows that the customer has responded. Then, if the problem is fixed, the ticket is considered “closed” with information indicating that the employee has agreed that the issue is resolved and has agreed to the closing of the ticket. When a ticket is closed, FootPrints sends another email to the user stating that the ticket has been closed. If the ticket was closed in error, the user is instructed in the email message to please contact the technical support center to either open another case, or have the case re-opened. If additional work is required, then it returns to the “work-in-progress” queue and the ticket cycle continues.

Business Rule Automation
“We have also used FootPrints to set specific times that a ticket can stay in a certain status,” Mr. Inman said. “If a ticket goes un-edited for seven days, then we receive a pop-up message alerting us of the delay. That happens for up to four weeks. Then the ticket turns red and triggers a screen-pop reminder that appears on agents’ computer screens. When I review the list, I know that a ticket has been open for too long. Our goal is to set business rules for closing tickets. For instance, if a ticket needs input by a customer who hasn’t responded for more than three days, it sends another message to the user saying ‘please update this ticket.”

Self-Service Online
To further assist employees, the company has also set up a self-service site through FootPrints. This self-service web portal gives employees access to frequently-asked IT questions and to a growing knowledge base. If this content does not provide the answers sought, the site directs employees to submit a trouble ticket or view their past open and closed tickets. The company has even set up kiosks that employees can use to access the web and submit a ticket. This is done in case employees cannot connect at their desktop or if they personally do not have dedicated PC’s. To access the online support site, employees do not have to fill out any of their personal information. FootPrints simply recognizes them based on their email address.

LDAP Integration
“Using the FootPrints Dynamic Address Book Link, we were able to easily map indices in FootPrints, making it very seamless to import real-time contact data into our help desk tickets,” explained Mr. Inman. “When a ticket is received by an agent, it is pre-populated with key employee information required to resolve the problem and close the ticket faster.”

Reports
Mr. Inman also notes that FootPrints’ built-in customizable flashboard features are valuable as they help him and his team dynamically monitor help desk activity and performance. “We have a whiteboard outside the help desk where we physically post weekly performance statistics including the number of open versus closed tickets, total number of tickets by priority, and average close time,” Mr. Inman said. “With simple pull-down menus and report templates, FootPrints makes it extremely easy to set up and run these reports.”