SERVICE DESK SUPPORT
DISA uses industry best practices as a systemic approach to managing the client relationship, whereby ownership and accountability in the organization are keys to successful partner care and a measurement of service support. This has proven to be a simplified, predictable, professional, high-quality service interface for post-deployment support for partner/DISA agreed upon services outlined in the service level agreement (SLA). The approach addresses services which include, but are not limited to, a support environment through an integrated common set of tools, processes, workflows, and human resource management based on proven best practices.
The Service Desk is partner-focused, with a trained support staff ready to address a partner's request. As soon as the staff responds to a call, they “own” the incident or problem and are responsible for obtaining information from the partner in an organized and professional manner. This process includes incident and problem management with continual follow up until the issue or question is resolved to the partner's satisfaction.
Key objectives include:
- Ensure that DISA provides consistent, knowledgeable interactions with partners
- Integrate partner focus into everyday operations
- Provide high-quality, predictable, and professional partner interfaces
- Partner with and support a specific partner, with responsibility and accountability to that partner
- Shorten the response timeline for the resolution of partner incidents
- Ensure a consistent point of contact for the diverse concerns of each partner
The Service Desk manager has oversight responsibility for development, continuous improvement, and uniform implementation of Service Desk support standards and processes.
Service Desk managers and operations staff are responsible for accomplishing all assigned activities, tasks, and functions in accordance with all work instructions.
The management and operations staff is also responsible for notifying the Service Desk manager if any information is incorrect or needs improvement.
The Service Desk managers are responsible for assigning accountability for each contact received. Service Desk representatives receive contacts through multiple media such as phone, message queue, and email. For those calls that are not resolved upon first contact, the assigned Service Desk manager is responsible for pursuing resolution in accordance with applicable SLA and operating procedures.
Follow-up notification to the partner is the responsibility of the Service Desk manager, in accordance with the established SLA. When an incident occurs, it is the responsibility of the applicable Service Desk to resolve the incident.
Our partner support provides efficient interfaces between traditional partner service providers, technical support elements, operations, and external support organizations (such as vendors). These interfaces are supported via common standards, integrated common tool suites, and common enterprise procedures as well as the removal of traditional barriers, both physical and procedural. Our successful Service Desk relies on the knowledge elements that pertain to the partner's post-deployment support.
These services are defined as follows:
- Mid-Level Expertise
- Senior-Level Expertise
- Technical Support
- External Support
The Service Desk utilizes the following processes and sub-processes:
- Communicate with partners
- Respond to initial contacts
- Conduct ongoing communication
- Complete communication
- Assign Accountability
- Find Solutions
- Resolve Trouble Management Actions Requests
- Provide Tracking
Receiving System-Generated Information
System-generated information consists of system messages or alerts that are internally generated by indirect contacts. A message/alert notifies the Service Desk of a system event or condition that may provide information affecting one or more open incidents. These events may be manually monitored, or they may have automated interfaces that generate a notification or even initiate a ticket in the tracking system.
Examples may include:
- If significant, the system messages or alerts initiate a notification
- The message/alert has the characteristics of either a first contact or a follow-on contact
- Dependent on the initial root cause analysis, the appropriate action will be taken
Overview
DISA is dedicated to monitoring the success of support delivery on all promised service levels and ensuring partner satisfaction. DISA wants partners to know that someone understands the business impact of their issues, empathizes with their situations, and will “stay with them” until the issue is resolved.
DISA is in a constant state of improvement with leading edge operational philosophy, technical procedures and tools for maintaining partner relationships. The Service Desk supports a strong, partner-focused environment and highly responsive post-deployment support services. Common standards, procedures, and centralized enterprise tools for all operating locations ensure partners receive the same predictable high-quality services regardless of processing location. Success in meeting these responsibilities must be addressed from both the internal operations perspective and the external partner perspective.
Ticket Priorities
- Five: Indicates maintenance or a scheduled action.
- Four: Results in user/operator inconvenience or annoyance, but does not affect a required operational or mission essential capability; results in inconvenience or annoyance for development or support personnel, but does not prevent the accomplishment of those responsibilities.
- Three: Adversely affects the accomplishment of an operational or mission essential capability, but a work-around solution is known; adversely affects technical, cost, or schedule risks to the project or to life cycle support of the system, but a work-around solution is known.
- Two: Adversely affects the accomplishment of an operational or mission essential capability and no work-around solution is known; adversely affects technical, cost, or schedule risks to the project or life-cycle support of the system and no work-around solution is known. Based on DISA Policy criteria of action type and length of outage, this action request could be reportable to the Global NetOps Center (GNC).
- One: Prevents the accomplishment of an operational or mission-essential capability; jeopardizes safety, security, or other requirement designated critical. Based on DISA Policy criteria of Action Type and length of outage, this action request could be reportable to the GNC.
- LEVELS OF SUPPORT
- SERVICE DESK SKILLSET
- PERFORMANCE STANDARDS
Service Desk Levels of Support
Level I
- Optional service (additional cost to partner)
- Calls received: from end user to service desk
- First call is to DISA CSD for resolution
- Open tickets
Level II
- Basic service (included within the rates)
- Tier I service desk analyst (SDA)
- Security
- Core operating system (OS) & Enterprise System Management (ESM) software maintenance
- Tier II System Administration (SA) (if managing the servers)
- Monday-Friday (0800-1600)
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Note: If the entire Partner user base is located in the same time zone, core service hours are based upon that location. If the Partner user base is geographically dispersed, the hours are determined by the location of the personnel remotely managing the workload. If touch labor is necessary, the hours will be based upon the physical location of the equipment.
- Two-hour call back for emergencies
- One time per month, scheduled maintenance window
- Extended to every workload we manage
- Calls received from component's Service Desk
- Service Desk to Service Desk (e.g. LI-LII, LII-LII, LIII-LII)
- Partners’ end users call component’s Service Desk
Level III
- Optional service (additional cost to partner)
- Calls received from vendor/subject matter expert (SME) Service Desk to Service Desk
- Issues elevated to 3rd party (i.e. BOC, Oracle, McAFee, SUN, Microsoft)
- Possess intimate knowledge of a given business, such as:
- Logistics
- Accounting and finance
- Security
- Health care
- Software package or other subject matter
- Vendor support
SERVICE DESK SKILLSET
Tier I
- Basic Services (included within the rates)
- SDA Support
- Open tickets
- Collects partner contact and incident information
- Provides ticket number
- 5-10 minute First Call Resolution (FCR)
- Unable to resolve, assigns to Tier II
- Password resets
- Answers phones/emails 24x7
- Redirects misrouted calls
- Ensures consistent ticket updates
- Notifies Service Desk Lead on critical/high visibility incidents
- Closes fixed tickets
- Proactive asset infrastructure monitoring
Tier II
- Optional service (additional cost to Partner)
- Application support
- Load application release/patches
- Application management and modification
- Tech support
- DBA
- SA - Operating Environment (OE)
Tier III (optional - not routine)
- Optional service (additional cost to Partner)
- External support
- Vendor
- Developer for specific product/service
PERFORMANCE STANDARDS
DISA CSD shall make a good faith effort to meet or exceed the following operational objectives. Circumstances beyond DISA CSD control (i.e. commercial power outages, natural disasters, inefficient application software releases, customer's local communications problems, etc.) are excluded. DISA CSD will take prompt corrective action when these objectives are not being met.
| Service | Service Objective | Service Description |
| Interactive Availability |
98.5% availability |
Portion of network/system controlled by DISA CSD available to the customer during the interactive window. |
| Batch Throughput (mainframe) |
95% or better completion rate and delivery |
Completion rate and delivery by specified time during the batch window specified in the SLA. Customer initiated batch-processing outside the batch window will be processed as resources permit. |
| Job Failure Notification |
Within 30 minutes |
During normal working hours. Notification will be made after duty hours as requested by the customer. |
| Data Retrieval Services |
15 Minutes 4 Hours 36 Hours |
Tape, on site (mount) Tape, off site (local) Tape, off site (backup-site) |
| Capacity Utilization Reports |
Monthly |
Provides previous month’s capacity data for DISA CSD – provides processing hardware. |
| Web-Based Invoices |
Bi-weekly |
Billing amounts charged to MIPRs at the service level |