USER INTERVIEW
Name: Troy
Company: IOSS
Industry: Infrastructure
Job Title: IT Specialist
What are your key responsibilities?
Solve IT issues from software installation to company’s application upgrade
What outputs do you produce?
Install software on individual’s computer, upgrade company’s applications
For whom?
IOSS
How is your success measured?
Percent of software issues resolved and completed
Which software installation problems interfere with your success?
- There are too many requests sitting in queue for me to handle
- Lack to tracking process for each request, leading to many requests processed but not completed
- It takes too much time out of my work time to just handle the software installation issues that I don’t get to work on anything else
- The paperwork is too tedious and can easily get lost
- It is difficult to prioritize which requests to response to if they are not business critical
- Each request received via email has to be manually read over to understand what software the user needs. There is no standard software request format
- There are too many steps for me to do to get a software installed
How do you receive software request to be installed now? (current process)
What problems do you have with the current process?
- Too many requests received each day…more than I can handle
- Receive too many phone calls from requesters to check up on the status of their requests
- Every request is in the form of paperwork, which I have to input manually into my database that I built in MS Assess
- Entering information into my own database takes too long to handle
- Manual input of information into my database occasionally contains typos…resulting in occasional inability to search the database
- Currently, I am also responsible for emailing a buyer if a software license needs to be purchased
- I am also the one to have to check up on the PO status from the buyer (via phone/email)
- When a license is denied, I have to let the requester know by phone or email.
- When a license has been granted, I have to let the requester know and schedule a time for him/her to bring his/her computer to my desk to get it installed
- Scheduling a time to meet with individual requesters becomes such a challenge due to scheduling conflicts, etc
- It’s time-consuming to just schedule a time to meet with the user.
- No communication from buyer if a PO has been approved/rejected.
- If the computer is a desktop, I have to physically go to install software on it…which takes time to just travel back and forth between different buildings
- Once the software has been installed, I have to send an email to the user for documentation purpose of the completion of the request
- I have to input information (date/time) the request has been completed into my database
What can a new system do to improve the current process?
- Everything should be automated if possible
- Faster response from buyer
- There should be a way to update request status without having to send emails to the requester
- Automatically links the progress of the request from the time I handle the request, to the request sent to the buyer to get a license, to a PO being issued, to PO being approved/denied, to license has been granted, to software being ready to install, to automatic installation by requester at his own desk/time.
- Automatically document/record the workflow without manually maintaining it in my current database
- Requester should have access to look up request’s status without calling/emailing me for status
- Provide an online form that that requester uses to submit a software installation request to ensure speedy process, standard information given by the requester, completed relevant information given, automatically files this request to some database
- We’ve got many similar or repeated requests due to requester getting a new computer or so…There should be a system to check each request against what has been requested before by that same person so that the 2nd and thereafter request does not need to be completely looked at again
- Each request should contain a key word so that I can filter only important and special licensed software to manually analyze the request
- All requests for standard, non-restricting software should be handled by an automated system directly without requiring human interaction
- New system should free up my time by 50% to allow me to work on other IT projects
What are your expectations for usability of the product?
- Training of this new system should not take longer than 1 week
What are your expectations for training?
- Provide documentation on how each process work in details that I will be able to troubleshoot the system if needed
- Training to take less than 1 wk