Introduction
First call resolution (FCR) is an important metric that is becoming more popular within organisations.
The goal of FCR is to resolve a customer’s issue the first time they raise it with the support desk, therefore saving time and money by eliminating the need for a follow-up call from either the customer or the IT engineer who was assigned the issue.
Cireson Remote Support
This is where the Cireson Remote Support applications come to the rescue, by either using the solution via its own portal or with it integrated into the Cireson Analyst Portal, which runs on top and enhances Microsoft System Center Service Manager (SCSM).
Cireson Remote Support uses the Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) Client so there is no need to deploy another client to your devices. 😊
These apps give your IT Support Team the power to view and remotely troubleshoot devices, users, processes, deployments and more, thereby maximizing the team’s productivity and helping them achieve those FCR SLAs set by the organisation.
With Cireson Dashboard Designer you can easily report on these FCR percentages, keeping your Service Desk Manager happy with a live dashboard displaying these metrics.
These apps are split up into nine Device Management and five User Management applications as detailed below.
Device Management:
- Device Insights – system information
- Remote Actions – server actions, SCCM client actions, WMI actions, computer tools
- Patch Control – view and install Microsoft patches
- Process Insights – view, stop/start processes
- Service Control – view, stop/start services
- Collection Control – add/remove device to SCCM collections
- Software Control – view, repair & uninstall device installed software
- User Affinity – add/remove users to device
- Deployment Insights – view software deployment status information
- Software Deployment – securely deploy software to devices and users
- Script Control – Create and remotely deploy PowerShell scripts to devices
User Management:
- User Insights – user information
- Account Control – disable/enable account, reset password, unlock/lock account
- Device Affinity – add/remove devices to user
- Deployment Insights – view software deployment status information
- Group Control – add/remove users to AD groups
- Announcements – Deliver announcements in real-time on targeted devices
- Software Deployment – securely deploy software to devices and users
Cireson Remote Support Portal Overview
Within the Computers pane you can get an overview of the devices discovered, and it’s from here that you can simply click on a device to start managing it. These panes are fully sortable and searchable.
You will also see two quick launch buttons and an ellipse button for quick access to some of the most commonly used apps.
When you click on a device you get the full Device Remote Support flyout, displaying the nine applications as detailed previously. It’s from here that your IT Team will be able to start managing that device.
The Users pane also provides the same experience.
First Call Resolution Example
For this example, we will not be running through all the apps that Cireson Remote Support provides, but a select few to help resolve a specific issue. (Click here for more info on all of the Remote Support Apps).
Let’s say you have an end user who raises a ticket with you regarding performance issues with their device, maybe they are not technical and will not be able to provide you with a lot of information around the issue itself.
Now, to start troubleshooting this performance issue you can either click on the device if they have provided the name, or if they didn’t, you can simply click on the user’s name and from there see the user’s primary device to manage it.
The first app you are presented with is Device Insights, where you can see key info about the device, and look for any performance issues that may be related to any of the below:
Check 1 – Possible low memory issue
Check 2 – Possible low disk space issue
Check 3 – Out-of-date antivirus definition which is a known issue
Check 4 – Device needs a reboot after having Microsoft updates installed
Check 5 – Possible print driver issue or even an NIC issue (click on the other tabs within this app)
Via the Remote Actions app we are going to run a Remote PowerShell action, and by using a simple script, pull the latest Windows event log errors from that device to see if anything suspicious is reported.
There might be an older version of some software installed on this device, and by clicking on the Software Control app you can view what is installed and also run repair/uninstall tasks.
From here you can identify that this device still has a very old application that has a known memory leak issue. You can now go ahead and silently uninstall the software from this device.
As this user still requires the software, you can now go to the Collection Control app and from there add the device to the latest software collection for this application. Then, returning to the Device Insights app, you can click on the Machine Policy action to force that device to pull down the latest collection info and start the deployment of that application.
As you can see from the above example, we have managed to resolve the issue that was reported. Using the Cireson Remote Support solution, we interrogated the device and uninstalled/reinstalled the troublesome application behind the scenes without having to disturb or take up any of the end user’s time.
Security Settings
With Cireson Remote Support you also can setup RBAC within the portal for your different support teams, allowing you to define what each team sees and what actions they can execute.
As seen below, I have allowed members of the ‘1st Line Support’ team access to only a few of the Remote Actions apps, as I don’t want them to be able to run remote PowerShell commands or reboot devices. 😊
Configuring security for Remote Support is easy and intuitive.
The first thing we need to do is click on the + button to create a new Application Role.
Once the New Application Role pane has opened, we have an option to copy previous permissions/mapped roles from an existing role. This is a nice feature as it saves time spent reselecting basic permissions when creating similar roles.
From there we can simply select what we want the role to have permissions to. We can scroll or search for permissions or use the navigation menu to the right of that screen to choose the section you want to apply security to.
Once we have completed the selection and saved the relevant permissions for the role, we then need to click on the Mapped Roles button and choose the AD user group(s) that we want to be applied to this application role.
Conclusion
With its simple-to-use interface and powerful security settings, Cireson Remote Support solution is key to any organisation running Microsoft System Center who is looking to help their IT Support teams achieve FCR, bringing down those SLAs and keeping the end users happy. For more info on Cireson Remote Support and to see all of the applications in action, please watch our overview webinar here.
