Client
Our client is a rapidly growing mid-sized enterprise industry in USA, with a workforce of over 800 employees across multiple locations. As a technology-driven organization, the client prioritizes operational efficiency and seamless employee experiences.
Challenge
Our client had a previous helpdesk system that was subscription driven – and the old solution was aimed at bigger enterprises with overhead that focused on more extensive functionality than what the internal team needed. This discrepancy resulted in high prices, unwanted application features and a difficult user interface for the customer service agents and employees. As a result, the system faced low take-up rates and wasteful spending. What’s more, given that the helpdesk operated outside of Microsoft 365, employees and agents faced a disconnected experience with extra logins and disjointed ticket data. Process changes/machine transitions might require vendor support or IT involvement, causing a lagin improvement and adding complexity to the system’s ability to support business requirements.
Leadership wanted a simplified helpdesk that lived inside their Microsoft 365 ecosystem, eliminated the need for subscriptions and unnecessary complexity, and empowered internal “citizen developers” to make small changes. Key challenges included:
- High costs and excessive features for a small support team.
- Siloed data and multiple logins outside Microsoft 365.
- Lack of agility—difficult to update or customize the system without vendor involvement.
- Desire for a low-code, integrated platform easily managed and improved by in-house users.
Solution
In response to identified needs, the client implemented a streamlined IT Help Desk application that was developed entirely on the Microsoft Power Platform Support Services and integrated with Microsoft 365. This integration facilitates a seamless user experience, automates workflows, provides robust analytics, and allows for straightforward low-code customization by in-house citizen developers.
- SharePoint Online serves as the secure, centralized backend for all tickets, assignments, comments, and ticket history.
- Power Apps Canvas App gives employees (requestors) a simple way to raise and track their own IT tickets, communicate with agents via comments, and check ticket status.
- When a ticket is created, a gatekeeper reviews the request and assigns it to the appropriate agent.
- Agents work on assigned tickets, update status, and collaborate with requestors through comments. When an issue is resolved, they add a resolution note and mark the ticket as resolved.
- The ticket then goes back to the requestor, who reviews the resolution and either closes the ticket or reopens it if further assistance is needed.
- Power Automate manages all notifications, reminders for overdue tickets, and automates the workflow.
- Power BI dashboards deliver real-time insights into support trends, resolution times, and user satisfaction.
- Using a low-code platform, internal “citizen developers” can also easily modify workflows or features to adapt to changing business requirements —without relying on outside vendors.
This all-in-one approach enables an interactive, open, and efficient IT help desk experience for the entire staff.
Result
- Significant Cost Savings: Enjoyed significant cost savings in subscription by making the most of their investment in Microsoft 365.
- High Adoption & Simplicity: Your business savvied talent and IT staff will thank you with the easy-to-use interface, so familiar, it looks and feels like Microsoft software; less time in training, less issues and pain-free deployments.
- Centralized Oversight: All troubleshooting tasks are automatically logged in Microsoft 365, making it easy to audit, analyze and troubleshoot.
- Agile & Customizable: Citizen developers and IT staff can quickly update workflows, forms, or notification settings without external vendor involvement.
- Improved Support Quality: Real-time analytics and feedback allow management to identify trends, resolve recurring issues, and continuously enhance the employee support experience.
Tools Used
- Power Apps Canvas App
- SharePoint Online
- Power Automate
- Power BI
- Microsoft 365 (Outlook & Teams)