Help Desk - Corrective actions

Prevention is better that correction It is much better to prevent users from damaging or breaking expensive IT in the first place. This is known as pro-active problem management. It has been suggested by industry experts (well,...us actually) that users should be 'means tested'. That is undergo IT-literacy tests- supervised by us IT experts- before being allowed to use, or more accurately 'abuse' IT.

Corrective actions When a User reports an incident, this user should be matched against the problem user database and the problem user incident count updated. Problem analysis is concerned with identifying problem users and taking appropriate action. For example if the problem user is continually raising incidents about disc space (Capacity management) the problem user record should be routed to the capacity management team to ensure appropriate 'performance tuning actions are taken such as tidying up or deleting all the important user files and requesting computer operations to delete any backups. When the action is taken, the corrective action response carried out should be recorded against the problem user record. The next time the user raises an incident the Help Desk can check against the problem user record to see which corrective action was carried out in order to determine its effectiveness. For example if the user phones up in a panic mode jabbering on about 'my files have gone...please you've got to help me, I don't know what to do....please, please help' the corrective action can be deemed a success.