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5 Things to Consider Before Purchasing a Help Desk System for Your K-12 School District

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Technology specialists and technicians are unsung heroes in school districts — and often wear many hats in the course of a day. As 1:1 programs have proliferated, the need for tech support has increased exponentially. 

If it seems like your support staff is stretched thin, it might be time to consider implementing or upgrading your help desk system. 

There are many choices out there, so when evaluating help desks, here are some factors to consider: 

1. Select a Help Desk with Staff and Students in Mind

When choosing a help desk system for your school district, it is important to consider the end users: students and staff.

Adding a help desk with a few with a few essential features to make the experience as streamlined as possible will help alleviate stress and promote adoption in your technology department. 

Customizable Problem Types 

Select a help desk with customizations that fit your district’s needs. With customizable problem types and sub-problem types, you can filter information to easily find tickets, minimize steps, and help resolve issues quickly. 

Empower Users to Resolve Issues Differently 

Ensure the help desk you select has the ability to create a knowledge base. By creating searchable FAQ articles, you can empower customers to troubleshoot issues on their own. 

Ideally, the system will automatically present knowledge base articles to the individual by identifying keywords when creating a ticket. Reducing simple, common queries frees up your team and gives them more time to focus on complex projects while also providing timely support to staff and students. 

Maximize Visibility with Integrations 

Choose a help desk system that integrates with other systems. By building a platform where asset management and help desk systems work together, users can easily submit tickets with device information prepopulated, helping technicians resolve tickets even faster. 

If a student is experiencing an issue with their Chromebook, they can submit a ticket to the IT department for assistance. With an integrated help desk system and asset management platform, the ticket immediately includes information such as the assignment information, serial number, location, and any outstanding fees. 

Prioritize Service Level Agreements 

A help desk with SLA targets will inspire confidence in your staff and students. An SLA, or Service Level Agreement, is a defined agreement between the service team and the end user to outline expectations. 

Opt for a help desk that enables your school district administrator to create and assign priorities that outline how quickly each ticket should be addressed and, ultimately, how quickly it can be resolved. Designating a specific time for each priority level allows your technicians to spend less time interpreting incoming tickets. Instead, they will have a realistic expectation of how much time a ticket will take to resolve, leading to easy prioritization. 

Faster Help Desk Ticket Resolution Times, Enhanced Asset Tracking and Accountability 

Read how Jacksonville City Schools bid adieu to clunky device repair processes and introduced easy-to-use help desk ticket submissions and asset tracking, leading to faster ticket resolution times, easy reporting, and enhanced accountability.

2. Select a Solution That Sets Your Support Team Up for Success 

While it is essential to consider your staff and students’ needs, it is also important to select a help desk solution with your technicians in mind. 

Reporting and Insights Designed for K-12 

Select a solution that can generate important insights to monitor the health of your school district’s assets. Prioritize options that allow customizable reporting that provides visibility into department performance, team workflows, and trends.

Once Again: Integrations That Maximize Visibility 

Yes, this is called out above, but it is worth mentioning again. A help desk solution that integrates with other essential systems will create a powerful platform to support your technology team. Asset management and Single Sign-On integration enables efficient data centralization, decreasing the need to gather information from multiple systems. Integrations help the team to resolve issues efficiently and effectively. 

End-of-Case Surveys 

A help desk should allow visibility and oversight into department service. With end-of-case surveys, administrators can gather feedback from staff and students who work with service providers to monitor satisfaction levels.  

3. Ensure Your Solution Has These Essential Features 

When considering your future help desk options, be sure the system you select checks all of the following “essential features” boxes — not just nice-to-have options. Consider your school district’s needs when prioritizing features. 

Some examples of “must-have” instead of “nice-to-have” features include: 

4. Schedule a Demo with Core Users 

When you are ready to explore help desk options, schedule a demo with your core stakeholders. 

Consider which department personnel will be on the call. Make sure to include individuals who will utilize the product and stakeholders responsible for gaining buy-in and communicating implementation. 

5. Develop an Implementation Plan 

Even before you’ve made a final decision regarding a new ticketing system, you will want to have a plan in place for the switch. 

Your team’s next challenge is to successfully communicate new mindsets, processes, and responsibilities to school district staff to ensure a smooth user and project adoption. 

This guide to evaluating K-12 help desk systems will help you confidently approach vendors with key questions, so you can determine which system is right for you. 

Simpler Device Tracking and Easier Ticketing

Hawkins County Schools uses Frontline Asset Management and Help Desk Management to track and support thousands of devices. Here’s how they went from paper work orders to customized workflows and an easier system for students, staff, and technicians alike.

Read More

Frontline Help Desk Management is Designed to Meet the Needs of K-12 School Districts 

As technology plays a greater role in instruction, the need to address support requests quickly only grows. Frontline Help Desk Management makes it easy to manage the influx of work orders to spend less time managing tickets and more time resolving them. 

Teachers, staff, and students can submit help desk tickets through an online portal with built-in shortcuts for any assets already assigned to them in Frontline Asset Management. By integrating your platform with other systems, such as your SIS, you can simplify workflows with even further automation. Integrating Help Desk Management with Asset Management, providing customizable workflows, and maximizing the visibility of your school district’s asset health can help you save time, money, and resources. 

Discover Help Desk Management today
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