PC Desktop Consulting and Support Services

Progent's Co-managed Help Desk Service
Progent's Co-managed Help Desk service is designed for organizations with between 50 and 500 end users and enables your IT team to divide responsibilities for Help Desk services transparently between your in-house network support staff and Progent's nationwide pool of certified IT support technicians, engineers and subject matter experts (SMEs). Progent's Co-managed Help Desk service is a joint IT service solution based on ConnectWise Manage, the industry-leading Professional Services Automation platform for administering IT support requests, issuing trouble tickets, assigning responsibility, monitoring status, and producing management reports. The cost for Level 1 IT support for Progent's Shared Help Desk service is typically less than $18 per user per month.

Progent's Co-managed Help Desk Service provides a smooth extension of your core IT support team. Client access to the Help Desk, provision of technical assistance, escalation, trouble ticket generation and updates, performance measurement, and management of the support database are cohesive regardless of whether incidents are taken care of by your internal network support staff, by Progent's team, or by a combination. All client support calls are triaged as Level 1, 2 or 3 issues. Progent focuses on whatever service levels you specify (typically Levels 1 and 3). Initial support calls are routed either to your internal network support group or to Progent's Technical Response Center, based on your instructions. Level 2 or 3 issues can be promoted to Progent's Experts Team of subject matter experts (SMEs). The escalation procedure is transparent to your users. You have complete versatility to extend or shrink your share of IT support work as circumstances demand. Progent takes care of startup deployment and provisioning of the professional services PSA software plus documentation, testing and education.

Progent's Technical Response Center (TRC)
Progent's Technical Response Center (TRC) has been delivering online IT assistance for over two decades and serves active customers in every state in the U.S. (refer to Progent's client testimonials.) The TRC maintains the pool of seasoned computer experts who can handle Level 1 issues, which make up the majority of Help Desk support requests. The Technical Response Center, like Progent's Experts Team, uses the ConnectWise Manage professional services automation software platform to streamline ticketing, tracking, responsibility assignment, problem escalation and management reporting. This proven solution prevents issues from being ignored and offers users clear visibility of all services delivered. Progent's TRC is committed to 90% live answer rate and allows Progent's Co-managed Help Desk Services to include a 60-minute service-level agreement (SLA). Support hours are 5am to 7pm PST on standard business days. Extended support times and on-premises support are available at additional cost. To learn more about the TRC, see The Technical Response Center Customer Commitment.

Definition of Service Levels
Progent provides three levels of remote technical support, which align with industry-recognized Tier 1 through Tier 3 service. You can pick which service levels will be provided wholly or shared by Progent's support team and your in-house resources. The size and technical breadth of Progent's roster of SMEs enables rapid and efficient ticket escalation and makes it possible to count on Progent as a single source for most IT problems at any service level. Also, Progent's practice of knowledge transfer allows important service problems to migrate from higher to lower levels as solution techniques become documented and standardized so they can be performed by less knowledgeable and less expensive support personnel.

Support levels are described as:

• Level 1 Support: Filters Service Desk calls and provides basic technical support and troubleshooting, such as password resets, printer configurations, break/fix procedures, ticket assignment and promotion to Level 2 and Level 3 support. A Level 1 tech gathers and analyzes information about the user's issue and determines the best way to resolve the problem. Level 1 service may also provide assistance for familiar Level 2 and Level 3 problems where mitigation solutions have previously been recorded.
• Level 2 Support: Generally handles break/fix, setup issues, debugging, application or OS deployment, and hardware fixes including onsite fixes or coordinating depot services. Level 2 support deals with escalated issues that Level 1 support is not equipped to resolve. Level support will sometimes migrate to Level 3, based on the issue and the way the Help Desk operates.
• Level 3 Support: Debugging, setup, DBA, and migrations for server, cloud integration, email, file shares, and common infrastructure issues. In addition to having the ability to find solutions to novel problems, a Level 3 engineer usually has the most experience.

This particular implementation of Progent's Shared Help Desk Service has a 4-phase ticket lifecycle:

1. Your employees generate requests through the online support, a dedicated telephone number, or simply by sending an email to a designated mailbox. This immediately becomes an open request in the ticket system.
2. Progent's Technical Response Center (TRC) gets the trouble ticket request and determines if it will be serviced or promoted to your in-house Service Desk.
3. Your Help Desk receives the promoted open request and determines the appropriate means to service the problem. If needed, your Service Desk can forward the trouble ticket request back to Progent for assignment to Progent's Experts Team.
4. Progent gets the revised trouble ticket request, identifies the best suited subject matter exert from the Experts Team, and tasks the designated subject matter exert to co-operate with your IT group until the problem is fixed or closed.

Key Features of Progent's Service Desk
Top features of Progent's Co-managed Help Desk program include:

• Pooled desktop support from Progent's Technical Response Center team
• Level 1 online support available 5 days a week, 5am-7pm PST, One-hour SLA
• Discounted hourly support rate with one-minute granularity for Tier 1 desktop support for clients
• Typical price of Level 1 service is about $18/user/month
• Level 2 and Level 3 support from Progent subject matter expert available as an option at Progent's standard consulting fees
• De-escalation allows issues that initially require Level 2 or 3 expertise to move to a lower, less expensive Tier after procedures are documented
• StreamlineIT provides a complete version of ConnectWise service desk software with secure multitenancy

• Available only in USA and territories
• Initial setup fee dependent on complexity of the solution
• Live Answer of incoming support requests to Progent Technical Response Center with a goal of 90% Live Answer of all calls
• After deciding whether server or networking assistance is needed, some calls will be escalated to Level 2 or 3 support
• All support that needs Level 2 or Level 3 expertise will be worked on by a Progent expert after receiving your authorization
• 1 hour SLA for Level 1 desktop support in most cases
• Level 1 Service is for users and applies to Windows-based systems and Apple systems
• Progent Level 2 or 3 support will be provided at standard hourly consulting prices
• Progent will provide personnel - Technical Response Center desktop engineers daily, Level 2 and Level 3 as needed
• Progent will provide a toll-free phone number and email mailbox for inbound support requests
• Free Remote Control app with screen sharing for streamlined IT troubleshooting
• Free ProSight IT Asset Management solution for network documentation management
• All Level 1 online support is billed at a special desktop hourly rate with one-minute granularity
• All Level 1 support will be done online, no onsite support included
• All onsite work will be invoiced at regular consulting rates
• All on-premises support will have an additional fixed fee as well as any specific travel expenses
• All travel expense estimates will be disclosed and require customer agreement before support services or travel will be performed
• Projects and distinct Statements of Work will have their own estimates and fees stipulated and will be undertaken only after approval by client

First Phase

• Build your personalized Service Desk experience, setting up your internal team, service locations, and user data
• Progent's consultants will work with your support group to review current incoming service calls
• Set up your inbound help request service to include email, software agents, and a dedicated telephone number

• Progent provides trouble ticket management training for your service team
• Jointly define core workflow and escalation processes
• Integrate all your teams and resources that will deliver support services
• Create the roll-out message and promotion of the new Service Desk solution
• Designate a defined location or manageably-sized groups to onboard first
• Integrate additional users into the system at determined intervals

• Study reports and system setup for efficient data and processes
• Create any reports or fields needed to enhance the detection or monitoring of common IT problems
• Surface key information that could allow a better success rate for Level 1 service calls

• All clients have been introduced to the support desk and can access it
• All necessary user and hardware information is populated in the service system
• You can transfer and administer trouble tickets smoothly between your internal support group and Progent
• You are able to monitor support performance and trends

• Retain total control of your IT service requests: you choose what trouble tickets are forwarded to Progent's service desk or taken care of by your internal service team.
• Quick availability of supplemental IT service professionals when you require them: Progent's professional services PSA software automatically routes in-house tickets or allows you manually forward to Progent's TRC.
• Efficiency: Progent's Call Desk experts will review your incoming support requests and identify additional data that would promote a higher resolution rate for typical desktop requests. Progent's consultants can also help you to improve tag management to expedite problem resolution.
• Seamlessness: Progent's Co-managed Help Desk is a virtual supplement to your in-house Call Center with unified ticketing and reporting so no request drops through the seams.
• Happy workers: End users can monitor the status of their IT support calls quickly and easily.
• Management insight: You benefit from the metrics, responsibility assignments, and performance monitoring of an advanced PSA platform to help you to build a custom-designed Service Desk experience that provides maximum business value.
• Focus on your core business initiatives, not IT support requests and unhappy workers: Your network managers avoid being bogged down handling day-to-day support calls.

Read Progent's White Paper: Is Co-managed IT a Good Idea?
Even though maintaining your own fully-staffed in-house IT services team can prove a burden from the cost perspective, plenty of companies opt for that strategy since it offers greater control over their network management. Yet did you realize that your company can continue to leverage the advantages of a managed services provider within the co-managed network service approach. The shared model enables your organization to stay in control over your network infrastructure while reinforcing your own IT services staff simply and economically.

For more information, check out our white paper: Is co-managed IT a good idea? (PDF - 632 KB).

Download Progent's Shared Help Desk Datasheet
To view a single-page datasheet in PDF format describing Progent's Shared Service Desk, click:
Progent's Shared Service Desk Datasheet. (PDF - 108 KB)

Optional Services
Progent has developed the ProSight suite of remote monitoring and management (RMM) services to streamline vital activities associated with network management, security and maintenance. Any of these services can be integrated with Progent's Shared Help Desk service by installing agent apps on computers to be tracked and managed. Alerts generated by these software agents can be forwarded automatically to Progent's Technical Response Center, processed through the trouble ticket and monitoring system, and categorized for Level 1, 2 or 3 support.

Samples of ProSight RMM services include:

• ProSight Email Guard: Email Content Filtering, Spam Blocking and Data Leakage Defense:
  ProSight Email Guard is Progent's spam filtering service that incorporates the technology of leading data security companies to deliver web-based management and world-class protection for your email traffic. The hybrid architecture of Progent's Email Guard combines cloud-based filtering with a local gateway appliance to provide advanced protection against spam, viruses, Denial of Service (DoS) Attacks, Directory Harvest Attacks, and other email-based threats. Email Guard's Cloud Protection Layer serves as a preliminary barricade and blocks most threats from making it to your security perimeter. This reduces your vulnerability to external attacks and conserves system bandwidth and storage space. Email Guard's on-premises gateway device provides a deeper level of inspection for incoming email. For outgoing email, the onsite security gateway offers anti-virus and anti-spam protection, protection against data leaks, and email encryption. The onsite gateway can also help Microsoft Exchange Server to monitor and safeguard internal email traffic that originates and ends inside your security perimeter. For more information, visit Email Guard spam and content filtering.

• ProSight Active Security Monitoring (ASM): Behavior-based Threat Analysis and Ransomware Defense:
  ProSight Active Security Monitoring is an endpoint protection (EPP) solution that incorporates next generation behavior analysis technology from SentinelOne to defend physical and virtual endpoint devices against new malware assaults like ransomware and email phishing, which easily escape legacy signature-based anti-virus tools. ProSight ASM protects on-premises and cloud-based resources and provides a unified platform to automate the complete malware attack lifecycle including blocking, infiltration detection, containment, cleanup, and post-attack forensics. Key features include one-click rollback using Windows VSS and automatic system-wide immunization against new threats. Progent is a SentinelOne Partner, dealer, and integrator. Find out more about Progent's ProSight Active Security Monitoring next-generation endpoint protection and ransomware recovery with SentinelOne technology.

• ProSight Data Protection Services: Cloud-based Backup and Disaster Recovery:
  Progent has worked with leading backup/restore technology vendors to create ProSight Data Protection Services, a family of subscription-based management offerings that provide backup-as-a-service. All ProSight DPS services manage and monitor your data backup processes and enable non-disruptive backup and rapid recovery of vital files/folders, applications, system images, and VMs. ProSight DPS lets your business recover from data loss caused by hardware failures, natural disasters, fire, malware like ransomware, human error, malicious insiders, or application bugs. Managed backup services available in the ProSight DPS family include ProSight Altaro VM Backup, ProSight 365 Total Backup (formerly Altaro Office 365 Backup), ProSight ECHO Backup using Barracuda purpose-built storage, and ProSight MSP360 Hybrid Backup. Your Progent expert can help you to identify which of these fully managed backup services are most appropriate for your IT environment.

• Progent's Patch Management: Software/Firmware Update Management Services:
  Progent's managed services for patch management provide businesses of any size a versatile and affordable alternative for evaluating, validating, scheduling, implementing, and tracking updates to your dynamic information system. Besides maximizing the security and functionality of your computer network, Progent's patch management services free up time for your in-house IT team to focus on more strategic projects and tasks that derive the highest business value from your information network. Learn more about Progent's patch management support services.

• ProSight Duo Multi-Factor Authentication: Access Security, Endpoint Policy Enforcement, and Secure Single Sign-on:
  Progent's Duo authentication services incorporate Cisco's Duo cloud technology to protect against password theft by using two-factor authentication. Duo supports single-tap identity verification on iOS, Android, and other out-of-band devices. Using Duo 2FA, when you sign into a secured online account and enter your password you are asked to confirm your identity on a device that only you possess and that is accessed using a different network channel. A broad range of out-of-band devices can be used for this added form of ID validation such as an iPhone or Android or watch, a hardware token, a landline telephone, etc. You can designate multiple verification devices. To find out more about Duo two-factor identity authentication services, go to Duo MFA two-factor authentication services.