Enterprise Approach
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, the Information Technology Dept. extends its "Tier 1 Support" as a service to a variety of government functions, including:
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Desktop and application support for the Dept. of Human Services staff |
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Desktop and application support for the Bank of North Dakota staff |
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Application support for ConnectND Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), in conjunction with the Office of Management and Budget and the ND Public Employee Retirement System |
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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 |
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Support for e-Government application authentication and "Contact Us" questions from the ND Web Portal |
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Directory support for citizens calling the ND State Capitol switchboard at 701 328-2000 |
Many 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 the efficiently and effectively supports customers.
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. And 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.
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The IT Service Management Application Guide (2.5Mb pdf) offers helpful advice for our technical staff |
