Service desk overview

BMC Helix ITSM: Service Desk acts as a single point of contact for user requests, user-submitted incidents, and infrastructure-generated incidents. It uses automated incident management and problem management processes to help IT organizations respond quickly and efficiently to conditions that disrupt critical services. BMC Helix ITSM provides you end-to-end services even in the most complex enterprise environment.

The BMC Helix ITSM user interface provides an intuitive, social, and mobile service desk experience that enables a more knowledgeable and collaborative workforce organized around IT roles, not modules.

Quick overview

An organization must address immediate incidents to carry out its business. These incidents are the focus of the incident management process. In addition, it is essential to detect, analyze, and resolve problems in the infrastructure.

The following BMC Helix ITSM: Service Desk applications automate the incident and problem management processes to enable IT to respond quickly and efficiently to conditions that disrupt critical services:

Incident Management
—Gets users up and running after disruptions.
Problem Management
—Determines the root cause and corrects it by using BMC Helix ITSM: Change Management processes.

Using BMC Helix ITSM interface provides several benefits:

Fast and efficient ticket logging
Information for quick ticket resolution
Easy collaboration and knowledge sharing
Mobile experience

Fast and efficient ticket logging

BMC Helix ITSM provides a single interface to create multiple ticket types such as incidents, work orders, change requests, or service requests. Ticket creation is faster with a limited number of required field values because of the following features:

Automatic creation of a ticket as you take notes during a customer call - Smart Recorder uses predictive text and options to help you quickly record notes while talking to your customers. You can add the customer name, contact name, and affected assets by using special indicators in Smart Recorder, and the system provides a list of available options as you type your notes. Based on keywords in your notes, BMC Helix ITSM starts to create the ticket in the background. After you finish taking your notes, you can create the ticket with the click of a single button.

Easy identification of users, related assets and incidents, and available templates while you create tickets - As you take notes while talking to a customer, use special characters, and Smart Recorder displays a list of customers or assets available in the system. You can select the appropriate customer or asset as you type, and these details are automatically displayed in the ticket that is created. Based on keywords in your notes, Smart Recorder displays a list of available templates to use when creating the ticket.

Information for quick ticket resolution

When you take notes in Smart Recorder, BMC Helix ITSM uses keywords to display resources that you can use to resolve the ticket, such as a list of related knowledge articles.

You can also use the Ask HelixGPT tab on the incident screen for a conversational experience when finding information that helps you resolve the incident. For example, instead of reading through the knowledge articles, you can ask specific questions on the Ask HelixGPT tab and get real-time summarized answers.

Easy collaboration and knowledge sharing

BMC Helix ITSM provides a chat application through which you communicate with other members of your team to get help or provide help in resolving a ticket. Create knowledge efficiently and collaboratively as part of the support role. When agents use Smart Recorder to record tickets, the system automatically searches for knowledge articles, making it easier for agents to use knowledge articles.

Mobile experience

BMC Helix ITSM is available on mobile devices. You can access BMC Helix ITSM through your mobile web browser without any additional configuration. The changes already applied to screens through configuration or customization are also visible in the mobile browser. The mobile applications have most of the same capabilities as the web interface, and also include a few mobile-optimized features for scanning and receiving assets.

Product roles

BMC Helix ITSM: Service Desk aims to simplify the routine activities of the following roles:

Service Desk Analysts—The interface between the service owner organization and its customers. Service desk analysts are usually first-line support staff.
Specialists—Subject matter experts. Specialists are usually second-line and third-line support staff. Their main responsibility is to provide an accurate analysis and a diagnosis of their assigned incident requests to restore service to the affected users. Specialists also work on problem investigations and known errors as assigned.
Group coordinators—Team members who coordinate the assignment of incident requests to support staff. Group coordinators are responsible for the quality and integrity of the incident management processes and for the work of their support group members.
On-Duty managers—Team members who take over the responsibility from service owners when the owner is not available to perform the incident escalation handling procedure. In these situations, the on-duty manager decides whether an escalated incident must be resolved by implementing an emergency change, by recovering the affected service at its continuity site, or by continuing the resolution of the incident within the incident management process.
Service owners—Team members who create and assign incident requests. Service owners also decide whether an escalated incident needs to be resolved by implementing an emergency change, by recovering the affected service at its continuity site, or by continuing the resolution of the incident within the incident management process.
Problem coordinators—Team members who are responsible for the quality and integrity of the problem management process. Problem coordinators have full access to problem investigations and known errors assigned to their support groups.
Users—Employees who need assistance from the IT support staff to resolve an incident or implement a change. Anyone in an organization can be a user.

Product features

BMC Helix ITSM provides simple, easy to implement and use, predictive and industry leading service management capabilities.

Helps in implementing and aligning your organization's IT goals to ITIL best practices
Delivered in the cloud, hybrid, or on-premise option
Gives you persona-based user experience that helps you perform effectively in your role
Leverages built-in Knowledge-Centered Service (KCS) for faster and accurate resolution of tickets and fulfill requests

BMC Helix ITSM: Service Desk provides the following key features:

Feature	Description
Incident Management	The objective of the application is to resolve incident requests as quickly as possible by priority. The primary goal of the Incident Management process, according to ITIL standards, is "to restore normal service operation as quickly as possible with minimum disruption to the business, thus ensuring that the best achievable levels of availability and service are maintained." An incident is any event that is not part of the standard operation of a service and that causes an interruption to or a reduction in the quality of that service. An incident request is typically initiated in response to a customer call, a service request, or an automated event. The Incident Management process also handles customer requests for service.
Problem Management	The Problem Management process minimizes the number of incidents by proactively preventing incidents, errors, and other problems. Problem investigations are usually triggered by an incident review or by an application that generates events. After a problem investigation identifies the cause, this information can result in a known error, which describes the root cause as well as the proposed structural solution to remove the root cause. An important ITIL objective is investigating and resolving problems in a continuing effort to cut costs and improve services. A problem investigation helps an IT organization get to the root cause of incidents. The investigation initiates actions that help to improve or correct the situation, preventing the incident from recurring.

Feature

Description

Incident Management

The objective of the application is to resolve incident requests as quickly as possible by priority. The primary goal of the Incident Management process, according to ITIL standards, is "to restore normal service operation as quickly as possible with minimum disruption to the business, thus ensuring that the best achievable levels of availability and service are maintained."

An incident is any event that is not part of the standard operation of a service and that causes an interruption to or a reduction in the quality of that service. An incident request is typically initiated in response to a customer call, a service request, or an automated event. The Incident Management process also handles customer requests for service.

Problem Management

The Problem Management process minimizes the number of incidents by proactively preventing incidents, errors, and other problems. Problem investigations are usually triggered by an incident review or by an application that generates events. After a problem investigation identifies the cause, this information can result in a known error, which describes the root cause as well as the proposed structural solution to remove the root cause.

An important ITIL objective is investigating and resolving problems in a continuing effort to cut costs and improve services. A problem investigation helps an IT organization get to the root cause of incidents. The investigation initiates actions that help to improve or correct the situation, preventing the incident from recurring.

Product documentation

Use these links to quickly find information that will help you get started working with BMC Helix ITSM: Service Desk. The links are organized by roles:

Role	Goal	Where to go
Service Desk Analysts	To manage an incident request through its lifecycle—starting with registration, through assignment, resolution, and on to closure	Managing-incident-requests
Problem Coordinator	To manage a problem investigation through its lifecycle	Managing-problem-investigations-and-known-errors
Developer	To create or modify an incident, and query an incident or a list of incidents by using web services and interfaces	Incident-Management-SOAP-web-services
	To create or modify problem investigations and known errors, and query a record or list of records by using web services and interfaces	Problem-investigation-SOAP-web-services
Administrators	To perform tasks to onboard users to BMC Helix ITSM: Service Desk	Setting-up-and-going-live
	To configure Incident Management to suit your organization's business needs	Setting-up-incident-management
	To manage configuration items, including creating and modifying CIs and managing inventory for bulk and non bulk CIs	Managing-configuration-items
	To configure Problem Management with rules that best suit your organization's business needs	Configuring-Problem-Management-rules
End user	To learn how an incident request flows through different statuses in its lifecycle	Learning-about-Incident-Management
	To learn how a problem investigation flows through different statuses in its lifecycle	Learning-about-Problem-Management

Legacy interfaces

Progressive Web Application (PWA) screens in BMC Helix ITSM provide a modern, mobile-friendly interface that is similar to classic Smart IT. The steps involved in performing the basic processes, such as creating tickets, viewing related items such as tickets, assets, or knowledge articles, and updating profile information, are reduced when compared to using the classic Mid Tier screens of BMC Helix ITSM: Service Desk. Additionally, the PWA screens are customizable and extensible like the classic Mid Tier screens. Administrators can tailor the interface to the specific business needs of the company.
The following screenshots show the classic Smart IT and Mid Tier interfaces:

Classic Smart IT interface

Create New_Incident screen_SmartIT.png

Classic Mid Tier interface

Create New_Incident screen_Midtier1.png