ITD offers contracted, customized, 24/7 Tier-1 support to agencies as an alternative to managing their own internal help desks.

Derek, Dennis, and Al from the ITD Service Desk

Government entities are finding that even though they provide unique services, they share commonalities when it comes to supporting their customers. The philosophy of an enterprise Service Desk is to blend people, process, and technology in a way that efficiently and effectively supports customers.

Benefits

People

An Enterprise Service Desk allows for the widest window of coverage using the most efficient level of staffing. It leverages the skills of customer-centric analysts to log, categorize, prioritize, and in some cases resolve incidents; thus freeing more technically focused staff from constant interruptions and reprioritization of work. Customers also love having a single point of contact to report problems, ask questions, request information, and provide feedback.

Process

A common framework for incident management has been adopted from the industry "best practices" published within the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL). The enterprise process manages incidents throughout their life-cycle; even if they cross agency boundaries. Guidelines have been adopted for common components, such as categorization and prioritization. Service Level Objectives have been defined to help manage customer expectations. Key Performance Indicators are collected to measure results across the enterprise.

Technology

A toolset for managing incidents across the enterprise has been implemented. Incidents may be transferred from one business unit to another, yet data can be secured to meet the requirements of each agency. By sharing hardware components, software licensing, and administrative resources, a feature-rich system is obtainable at an affordable price.

Requesting Service

Contact ITD's Service Desk to discuss your options or arrange a demonstration.

Existing Customers

Organizations everywhere are overhauling their support structures. Gone are the days of the helpless desk. Today, service is strategic.

As a result, an enterprise approach towards support has emerged within the State of North Dakota. Today, ITD extends its Tier-1 support service to a variety of government functions, including:

Desktop and application support for the Department of Human Services staff

Desktop and application support for the Bank of North Dakota staff

Desktop and application support for the Job Service North Dakota staff

Application support for ConnectND Enterprise Resources Planning, in conjunction with the Office of Management and Budget and the ND Public Employee Retirement System

Application support for Criminal Justice Information Sharing (CJIS), in conjunction with the Office of the Attorney General, State Courts, Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, ND State's Attorneys, and law enforcement agencies statewide

Support for e-government application authentication and "Contact Us" questions from the North Dakota Web Portal

Directory support for citizens calling the North Dakota State Capitol switchboard at 701 328-2000

Associated Rates

The people you support should be encouraged to reach out for assistance. Therefore, rates are typically based on the number of potential customers rather than on the number of incidents reported each month. ITD charges $6.50/month/FTE within each supported entity. Customized per-incident rates are also available for supporting public-facing applications. In either case, agencies typically incur a one-time software licensing fee for the people they have resolving incidents.

The Help Desk Institute's 2009 Practices and Salary Survey estimates the fully-burdened cost for email and phone incidents to be between $15 and $18 nationally. ITD averages just over $3 per incident for its clients.