CLIENT SUPPORT

Posted: November 27th, 2013

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CLIENT SUPPORT

Assessment Task 1 Part A

Service Level Agreement

Service levels are not usually met due to poor communication to the clients and failure to determine the expectations of the customers. Therefore, better communication is fundamental in achieving consensus regarding the items to be included in the service levels as well as setting the expectations of the customers. Thus, determining service levels required in IT services and the supporting desktop users is essential. In People Source, the SLA support services should cover the needs of the clients. The facilitator should provide better service especially assign workers in the IT department to help customers. Workers in the IT department should be trained in a way that they should handle customers because this sector seems to be an obstacle to better development of the business.

In addition, the stakeholders of People Source should design their website better in order to enable the casual jobseeker find the job allocation easily. They should set strategies and goals as well as a clear vision indicating what should be achieved. People Source should make an effort in order to create change in the organization. This will enable them to improve in their support services in providing satisfactory services to their customers. The stakeholder and the entire business unit should agree on a particular service level that should be measured in terms of service level management. Since the casual staffing sectors are the ones who provide the highest revenue to People Source, People Source should establish effective SLA. This is through gathering information on the level of services needed as well as time spent to produce the output.

Developing a basic IT SLA requires an appropriate plan. An effective SLA must contain a service level objective. In order to manage the expectations of customers in People Source, the SLA can be worth considering. It would be designed in a way that would meet a common understanding about diverse services provided in the IT department, priorities and duties of employees. It is vital to manage the expectations of the realistic accomplishments. SLA should be taken as a vital tool for communication purposes because it opens up the communication process. Therefore, People Source can use the SLA tool in communication purposes and conflict prevention. When developing the SLA, the following should be included in an SLA.

1. Intent statement

The intent statement’s aim is to provide a foundation for cooperation between the employees regarding IUT services and the agency for the supportive services provided. This will ensure timely and effective support services to the end users.

2. SLA objectives

Some of the objectives developed include creating conducive IT environment in order to promote effective support services. Another one can be documenting roles to every part involved in the agreement process. The second one is ensuring the IT sector delivers high quality services to their clients and ensuring a common understanding upon the LA principles required in service level measurements. Lastly, defining in detail the services that should be provided such as desktop services, E-mail services, help desk services, applicant services and many others.

3. Agreement period

The IT SLA should contain the agreement period, which will indicate the beginning date both parties started working together. The agreement would be reviewed and the review will cover up the services offered at every IT level.

4. Representatives

The agency should nominate the representatives responsible for SLA monitoring and maintenance. This should be included in the table whereby one side should indicate the agency name and the other side indicates the agency representatives.

5. Reference documents

This level provides section for documents that serves as a basis for policies as well as procedures followed by IT agency operations. It defines the required support levels and computer faults prioritization by the People Source agency. They provide copies to their clients in order to ensure that compliance required with agency standards can be achieved. These copies indicate support services and the updating date.

6. SLA monitoring

The successive monitoring SLA level depends on the comprehensive performance as well as accuracy of credible and reliable information provided to customers. Additionally, it depends on the service provided from supportive areas. Support services should be monitored and measured regularly. The actual level should then be compared with the agreed objective levels by both agencies on a regular basis. In case of any discrepancies, the agencies are expected to identify and provide reasons for the occurrence of differences.

7. SLA Management

There are varied processes involved that should be included in the document regarding the SLA management. These include the tracking, measurement, documentation, business continuity and management change requests. These are crucial thus when developing an IT SLA, they should be included in the document because they will help the agency in monitoring and evaluation process. Other things that should be included in the SLA management document are the review process, new escalating implementation and the process of approval because they will enable People Source to make the necessary changes.

9. Roles and responsibilities

            This section outlines the roles and responsibilities each party should play in ensuring the service objective in an organization are met. The roles and responsibilities of each employee and the agency should be included in the SLA document. This is because the IT sector in People Source has diverse support services in particular sectors. Therefore, each employee should be assigned his or her role to play in a specific sector to enable the organization to operate smoothly. Moreover, the agency should assign employees to work in the helpdesk and integrate the knowledge as well as the website for effective communication process within the organization. Moreover, this section should identify the stakeholders or governance managing the IT SLA of People Source.

10. IT complaints

All the IT complaints connected to operational help service such as support level expectations, actual support delivered and personnel responsible are included. In addition, any other related issues received from either the party are written and distributed concurrently to the signatories.

11. Appendixes

The appendix table is included and this is where additional information, which might be, related to the agreement especially the supported software or hardware services are recorded.

Assessment Task 1 Part B

Service Level Agreement negotiation to management

The service level measurements should be agreed on and the agreement should define the stakeholders as well as duration of the agreement. The SLA should define the scope of areas included and define the service ownership agreed on. In order for People Source to succeed, the SLA should estimate the internal costs for the services provided in the IT sector. This is fundamental because it will act as guidance towards better management in the PeopleSource. Moreover, including the range of services provided in the company and discussing them more with the client is crucial. The IT sector provides diverse services such as help desk services, data centre services, application support, e-mail services, misc applications installment and other services. Thus, when making negotiations with the clients, it is better to make an agreement on which services are best suitable for them. The SLA should identify the major stakeholders governing these sections and every client should be assigned a specific role.

The facilitator should agree with the employee on particular period or time of performing different IT jobs. Each IT job should have a detailed description of each service as well as the associated committed performance levels. In every section, there should an inclusion of the minimum number of the major SLA. There should be a measurement period in relation to diverse IT jobs. There should be a negotiation on the time and date when the SLA should be measured. However, this should include or exclude the national holidays.

There should be a summary of the development time and resources for any required IT project. This summary should be documented depending on the service level management such as, tracking reports and making changes where necessary and implementation of new services. The summary should include the review and approval process. Additionally, developing better service quality especially designing properly the knowledge database should be carried out. This can be done through implementing a new database for developing on vision applications. The negotiation should have the third parties because they might provide additional information relevant to the agreement on quality hardware and software services provision to customers.

Assessment Task 2

Summary report of the meeting

The stakeholders involved in the meeting include David Hunt, the network and web development personnel, Susan Bargins, the software developer and Graham Salter, the hardware and software support service provider. Others are Jason Tan, a mobile IT technician, John Lennon and Harrison Clerk who are the managers from different IT branches. The following are the questions, which were asked during the interview process and their responses. First, what are the technology and the functionality of the system? From this question, the stakeholders responded that the IT system provides diverse support services such as network and web development services, e-mail services, LAN services and helpdesk services. Its functionality is to create an effective communication process in New Zealand and other parts across the globe.

Secondly, what is the help desk system? The stakeholders responded that the help desk is a system designed to provide assistance or facilitate easy communication within the organization. It helps in making effective communication between the employees and IT department. Thirdly, what are the main problems of the system? One of the problems is that the organization does not have the current formal helpdesk system. Whenever users need help, one of the IT support personnel may come to solve the issue, sometime people may call the helpdesk and not get any response, another problem is that the issues are not well documented and followed up for declaration thus making the system unsuitable in the organization.

Lastly, how does People Source maintain the record of the problems? This organization uses unique criteria in maintaining the record of their problems. For instance, the software and hardware support services record the details of problem equipment, type, mode and the serial number of the product. They record details of operating environment and incase the installation requested complete hardware or software details to be installed, they are recorded in the fault document section.

Assessment Task 3

Action plan

An organization does not plan to fail but instead they fail to plan and therefore fail. Therefore, each action taken should include, what actions will occur, who will carry out changes, when they will take place, what resources are required to make theses changes and the communication method used. For instance, the following template indicates an example of an action plan for IT system.

The above is an illustration of an action template. The change request form should include the IT project name, the one who prepared it, date and control number. The request information, impact analysis results, final recommendations and change request signatures should be included. The helpdesk procedures should clearly explain every part of the SLA extensively. It should offer new practical awareness, planning and implementation as well as review processes.

Assessment Task 4

Change management plan

The solution of the problem especially the problem of helpdesk system can be solved through implementing a formal method and documenting the issues well. This is vital because it will contribute to better communication within the organization thus creating better change in IT system. In addition, the IT management should create a contingency plan, which will act as an emergency to any problem that will need an urgent attention. The contingent plan should have a clear guideline and it should be included in the IT SLA management document. In the disaster event or any other circumstances requiring the contingency plan, the normal organization will shift to the contingency organization.

Testing plan and training plan are very crucial and therefore, the service provider should ensure that the new plan formulated is tested to proof its performance. The testing plan will document strategies for verifying and ensuring that the IT support services meet their designed specifications as well as the requirements. Additionally, training plan can be conducted in the organization. It should identify the needs of an organization, skills required for the workforce, appropriate approaches used and the resources available for training. When planning training programs, evaluation of current skills, aims of training, values and culture should be considered. Lastly, adjustment made to the SLA is to include penalties connected to failure to meet or surpass the service metric levels. The service provider should have a service level goal for SLA management because without a goal, People Source will not improve their performance.