Helpdesk software boosts user support at the MAC

The MAC Services Group has replaced its helpdesk software, helping boost the quality and speed of the company’s user support.

The MAC, a subsidiary of Oil States International, is an owner-operator of workforce accommodation and services in Australia. The MAC develops, owns and operates villages for people that work and live in regional areas of economic significance and has over 9000 permanent rooms under management in Australia.

Until recently, the company’s Australian-based IT team relied on a combination of products to manage user support for all Oil States International Asia Pacific offices as well as the company’s 600 Australian-based employees. Although the IT team could create and deploy service levels, data could not be shared within the company across different regions. This raised difficulties whenever the IT team tried to create centralised reports or wanted to establish global change management processes.

The MAC decided to replace its helpdesk software and deploy LANDesk’s Service Management suite. The solution has provided the MAC with functionality ranging from inventory, software deployment, operating system provisioning, licence monitoring, policy management and patch management.

It has helped the IT group to boost the quality and speed of user support, and has introduced time-saving efficiencies. “For example, we have been able to dramatically reduce the time to work through a new starter process - where this previously involved multiple manual steps and face-to-face coordination within the department, it is now all done within the LANDesk product,” said Daniel Schubert, general manager - information technology at the MAC.

Dashboards have been introduced to identify IT support issues and highlight support staff workloads. Support has been enhanced through the introduction of a remote control capability for support staff, enabling them to see and diagnose user issues firsthand, without leaving their desks.

Another benefit is the ability to share information with overseas offices. The MAC Services Group IT team is part of a global Oil States International project team and the adoption of LANDesk as a common backbone has made it easier for the Australian team to directly partner with peers in the US, Canada and UK as they design solutions.

The solution is also being used to catalogue the MAC’s application environment and manage its software inventory. “The software has reduced the time it takes for us to deploy hardware because the request process and tracking has become easier. We’re also meeting audit requirements more effectively through consolidation of information.

“It's all coming into one place,” Schubert says. “We can drill down from an incident into the inventory to get a more complete picture. All in all, IT has better visibility of incidents, a better understanding and knowledge of devices and where they are. In turn, the business is receiving better response times from the IT department and this allows them to get on with running the business.”

Improved processes and information have resulted in a 20 to 25% reduction in the number of calls to the helpdesk. The solution’s security and patch functionality have reduced manual processes for user management by 20 to 30%. It has also increased the organisation’s security and ability to comply with regulatory requirements.