IT Support HelpDesk Using SharePoint 2010

thanks to www.edutechnow.com 

As with most IT Support departments in School, I have run a web based IT helpdesk for a number of years. The problem I have found, with many of the products on the market, is that it’s very difficult to find one that meets all of your needs and is simple to use.
As the core functionality all I need from a HelpDesk is the ability for staff to report issues or feature requests and for there to be a level of communication between the IT Support team and the user who reports the fault.


I have used InfoPath 2010 to create the form.

At its core, the form contains a field that pulls out the logged on users name and email address. The field then just has a series of text boxes and drop down lists.
The user reporting the fault simply has to complete the one text box and click the Submit button.

Workflows

The key to how this form works and what gives it the ability to provide a communication line between the user and the IT Support team are the workflows attached to the SharePoint 2010 list.
For the next steps in this post you will need to have SharePoint Designer 2010 installed, which you can download from the Microsoft website using one of the links below:

• 32 bit
• 64 bit

From the ribbon select list.

Now select Workflow Settings and Create a Workflow in SharePoint Designer.

SharePoint Designer 2010 will launch and load up the Create List Workflow wizard.

The first step is to name the workflow, in this case I am going to create 2 workflows, and the first one is for when a new item is created in the HelpDesk list. Once you have named it click on OK.
You will now be presented with a screen that looks like the one below.

This workflow is going to be very simple; all I want it to do is email a member of the IT Support team who can then assign the jobs to the relevant members of the team.
To do this click on Action from the ribbon and select Send Email.

The screen will now change to look like this:

Click on these users.

You could enter basic details into the email and then the recipient could go to the HelpDesk list to view the request. I wanted to add a bit more to the email so that the recipient can see straight away who, what and where.
To add these fields into your email click on the Add or Change Lookup button.

The selection shown above will add the name of the staff member who reported the fault. Click OK to add it to the email.
Here is our finished email with relevant fields added using the method explained above.

You just need to make sure that the workflow runs automatically. To do this click on the Workflow Settings option from the ribbon.

Ensure that in the Start Options section the Start workflow automatically when an item is created is ticked and that no other boxes are ticked.

Now select Save and Publish from the ribbon.

So now when a new item is created an email will be sent to a member of the support tem with the details of the fault report, but what happens when the report is updated or closed. I need to create a workflow that will email the relevant members of the team and the member of staff who reported the fault.
From the list create a new workflow using SharePoint Designer 2010. In this workflow it will have 2 steps, to add a step click on the Step icon in the ribbon.
We now have 2 steps:

The first step sends an email to the staff member who reported the fault.

The 2nd step sends an email to the member of the IT support team to who the task was assigned

I only want this workflow to run when an item is changed, to do this select the Workflow settings icon from the ribbon and set the tick boxes in the Start Options for when an item is changed

Now select Save and Publish from the ribbon

Filtering the List

On the main staff page of the HelpDesk I added a webpart for the list with a couple of links to the guidelines and the submit page

The permissions on the list are set so that users can only see items they have created but members of the IT Support team can see all the HelpDesk items

As well as only being able to see their own requests i also wanted to filter it so only open ones showed on the main page. To do this I edited the web part and set the current view details
Firstly only show 3 fields

and then set the filter to only show items that aren’t closed

So when a user logs they only see items that they created and that are not closed

Submitting A HelpDesk Request

When you normally add an item to a list it takes you back to the list, I don’t want this to happen. To achieve this I created a link to the new form file that once it is submitted it returns the user back to the main staff page. The link looks like this
 http://sharepoint:82/Staff/Lists/HelpDesk/NewForm.aspx?Source=/Staff/SitePages/Home.aspx