Desktop Support Expertise

Progent's Shared Help Desk Service
Progent's Co-managed Service Desk is designed for organizations with between 50 and 500 users and enables your information technology team to divide responsibilities for Help Desk services transparently between your in-house network support staff and Progent's extensive pool of certified IT support technicians, engineers and subject matter experts. 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 managing IT service calls, generating tickets, designating ownership, monitoring progress, and generating management analytics. The price for Level 1 support for Progent's Shared Help Desk service averages below $18/user/month.

Progent's Co-managed Service Desk provides a transparent supplement to your internal network support group. User interaction with the Help Desk, delivery of support services, problem escalation, trouble ticket generation and tracking, efficiency measurement, and management of the service database are consistent whether issues are resolved by your corporate IT support staff, by Progent's team, or a mix of the two. All end-user support requests are ranked as Level 1, 2 or 3 issues. Progent takes responsibility for whatever service level or levels you assign (usually Levels 1 and 3). Initial service requests are assigned to your internal network support organization or to Progent's Technical Response Center, based on your requirements. Level 2 or Level 3 tickets can be referred to Progent's Experts Team of subject matter experts (SMEs). The escalation process is transparent to your end users. Your business has unrestricted flexibility to extend or shrink your part of support activity as needed. Progent provides startup installation and provisioning of the professional services automation software as well as workflow documentation, testing and training.

Progent's Technical Response Center (TRC)
Progent's Technical Response Center has been delivering remote IT assistance for more than two decades and serves active customers in every state in the country (refer to Progent's client testimonials.) The TRC maintains the pool of certified computer experts who can handle Level 1 trouble tickets, which make up the majority of Service Desk service calls. The TRC, like Progent's Experts Team, uses the ConnectWise Manage professional services automation (PSA) platform to streamline ticketing, tracking, responsibility delegation, problem escalation and reporting. This system keeps issues from falling through the cracks and gives clients continual understanding about all services delivered. Progent's TRC is committed to 90% in-person answer performance and enables Progent's Co-managed Service Desk program to offer a 60-minute service-level agreement. Service times are 5am to 7pm PST on standard work days. Extended support hours and onsite help are offered at additional cost. To learn more about Progent's TRC, visit The Technical Response Center Customer Commitment.

Definition of Service Levels
Progent provides three levels of remote IT service, which align with industry-standard Tier 1 through Tier 3 support. You can choose which service levels will be provided exclusively or in part by Progent and your in-house service group. The size and scope of Progent's roster of subject matter experts enables rapid and efficient escalation and makes it possible to count on Progent as a single source for the majority of support issues at any Tier. Also, Progent's practice of knowledge transfer permits important support problems to migrate from higher to lower Tiers as resolution processes become documented and normalized so they can be performed by less knowledgeable and less expensive support personnel.

Service levels are defined as:

• Level 1 Support: Filters Service Desk calls and delivers basic IT support and debugging, such as password resets, printer configurations, break/fix procedures, ticket routing and escalation 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 support for familiar Level 2 and Level 3 issues where mitigation solutions have previously been recorded.
• Level 2 Support: Generally handles break/fix, setup problems, troubleshooting, software installations, and hardware repair such as on-premises fixes or orchestrating depot support. Level 2 support involves promoted issues that Level 1 support is not equipped to handle. Level 2 service can sometimes evolve to Level 3, depending on the issue and the manner the Service Desk operates.
• Level 3 Support: Debugging, configuration, database administration, and repair for OS and applications servers, datacenter, email, collaboration, and various integration issues. In addition to having the ability to find fixes to novel problems, a Level 3 consultant usually has the most experience.

This sample deployment of Progent's Shared Help Desk Service has a four-stage ticket lifecycle:

1. Your users generate requests for support via the browser-based support, a dedicated telephone number, or simply by sending an email to a specific email address. This immediately launches an open request in the trouble ticket system.
2. Progent's Technical Response Center receives the ticket request and determines whether it will be serviced or escalated to your internal Help Desk.
3. Your Help Desk gets the promoted open request and decides the best means to resolve the issue. If needed, your Service Desk can promote the trouble ticket request back to Progent for assignment to Progent's Experts Team.
4. Progent receives the revised ticket request, selects the best suited subject matter exert from the Experts Team, and assigns the designated subject matter exert to co-operate with your IT team until the problem is fixed or closed.

Key Features of Progent's Help Desk Service
Important features of Progent's Shared Service Desk offerings include:

• Pooled Level 1 help from Progent's Technical Response Center (TRC) team
• Level 1 remote help available 5 days a week, 5am-7pm PST, One-hour SLA
• Discounted hourly rate with one-minute granularity for Level 1 desktop support for clients
• Average cost of Level 1 service is around $18 per user monthly
• Level 2 and Level 3 support from Progent SME provided as an option at Progent's normal consulting fees
• De-escalation allows issues that initially require Level 2 or Level 3 support to move to a lower, less expensive Tier after procedures are documented
• StreamlineIT includes a full version of ConnectWise service desk software with secure multi-tenant support

• Offered only in the United States and territories
• Initial startup charge based on complexity of the deployment
• Beginning the first day, you are assigned by Progent a Technical Resource Center (TRC) Coordinator and a TRC Service Lead to resource, assign and communicate with your service group and your users. Progent's TRC Service Lead will work with you to develop a What Goes Where document to help seamlessly escalate issues to your service group or de-escalate back to Progent's support engineers.
• Live Answer of inbound service calls to Progent Technical Response Center with a target of 90% Live Answer of all requests
• After deciding if server or network infrastructure support is needed, some service requests will be escalated to Level 2 or Level 3 support
• All assistance that needs Level 2 or 3 expertise will be handled by a Progent consultant after receiving your authorization
• 1 hour SLA for Level 1 desktop support in most cases
• Level 1 Service is for users and covers Windows-based computers and Apple devices
• Progent Level 2 or 3 support will be charged at regular hourly consulting rates
• Progent will provide resources - Technical Response Center desktop engineers daily, Level 2 and Level 3 as required
• Progent will provide a phone number and email mailbox for inbound service requests
• Free Remote Control agent with screen sharing for efficient technical troubleshooting
• Free ProSight IT Asset Management services for IT documentation management
• All Level 1 remote service is charged at a special hourly rate with per-minute granularity
• All Level 1 service is done remotely, no on-premises support included
• All onsite work is invoiced at standard hourly consulting rates
• All onsite work will have an additional fixed fee plus any documented travel costs
• All travel expense estimates will be disclosed and need customer approval before support services or travel will be performed
• Contracted projects and distinct Statements of Work (SoWs) will include their individual estimates and fees outlined and will be performed only after approval by client

First Phase

• Build your custom Help Desk experience, including your internal support group, locations, and client data
• Progent's consultants will work closely with your company's support group to analyze current inbound support requests
• Configure your inbound help request service to incorporate email, software agents, and a dedicated phone number

• Progent delivers ticket management education for your company's service group
• Jointly create core workflow and ticket escalation procedures
• Add all your teams and resources that will deliver support
• Create the roll-out description and promotion of the new Call Desk environment
• Designate a specific location or small groups to onboard initially
• Integrate more users into the system at determined intervals

• Review reports and system configuration for proper information and workflow
• Create additional reports or fields required to improve the detection or monitoring of frequently seen IT problems
• Identify missing information that could allow a higher resolution percentage for Level 1 service calls

• All clients have been introduced to the service desk and can connect to it
• All required user and equipment information is entered into the support system
• You can exchange and administer tickets smoothly between your in-house support group and Progent
• You can view daily, weekly and monthly support performance and trends

• Keep complete control over your IT service issues: you decide what tickets are escalated to Progent's support group or handled by your in-house service team.
• Immediate access to additional IT support experts when you need them: Progent's professional services automation software programmatically routes in-house tickets or allows you manually forward to Progent's TRC.
• Productivity: Progent's team will review your inbound support requests and propose additional data that would allow an improved success rate for typical desktop requests. Progent's team can also help you with tag creation to expedite problem resolution.
• Seamlessness: Progent's Co-managed Help Desk is a seamless supplement to your in-house Help Desk with unified ticketing and documentation so no ticket drops between the seams.
• Contented employees: End users have the ability to follow the progress of their IT service calls rapidly and easily.
• Management insight: You have the measurements, responsibility assignments, and performance monitoring of an advanced PSA platform to assist you to build a custom-designed Help Desk experience that delivers maximum business value.
• Focus on your strategic business issues, not IT service calls and disgruntled workers: Your IT managers escape being saddled with handling day-to-day support requests.

Check Out Progent's White Paper: Is Co-managed IT a Good Idea?
Even though supporting your own fully-staffed local IT services staff can prove expensive from the cost standpoint, plenty of companies opt for that approach because it provides greater flexibility with their information system management. But did you know that you can still reap the advantages of a managed IT services provider using the shared network service model. Adopting the shared model enables your organization to stay in charge of your IT infrastructure while supplementing your internal IT services staff simply and affordably.

To find out more, read our white paper: Is co-managed IT a good idea? (PDF - 632 KB).

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

Optional Services
Progent has packaged the ProSight suite of remote monitoring and management (RMM) services to automate vital processes associated with IT management, cybersecurity and maintenance. Any of these RMM services can be integrated with Progent's Shared Help Desk service by installing agent software on machines to be tracked and managed. Alerts sent by these software agents can be routed directly to Progent's Technical Response Center (TRC), processed via the ticketing and monitoring system, and categorized for Level 1, 2 or 3 treatment.

Examples 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 and email encryption service that incorporates the infrastructure of leading data security vendors to provide web-based management and comprehensive protection for your email traffic. The hybrid architecture of Email Guard combines a Cloud Protection Layer with an on-premises gateway appliance to provide complete protection against spam, viruses, Dos Attacks, DHAs, and other email-based threats. The cloud filter serves as a first line of defense and keeps most threats from reaching your network firewall. This reduces your exposure to external attacks and saves network bandwidth and storage. Email Guard's onsite security gateway appliance adds a further layer of inspection for inbound email. For outgoing email, the on-premises security gateway provides AV and anti-spam filtering, protection against data leaks, and email encryption. The local gateway can also assist Microsoft Exchange Server to monitor and safeguard internal email that originates and ends within your security perimeter. For more details, see ProSight Email Guard spam and content filtering.

• ProSight Active Security Monitoring (ASM): AI-based Threat Analysis and Ransomware Defense:
  ProSight Active Security Monitoring (ASM) is an endpoint protection (EPP) service that utilizes next generation behavior machine learning technology from SentinelOne to defend physical and virtual endpoints against modern malware assaults like ransomware and email phishing, which easily get by legacy signature-matching AV products. ProSight Active Security Monitoring protects on-premises and cloud-based resources and offers a unified platform to address the complete threat progression including protection, detection, mitigation, cleanup, and post-attack forensics. Top capabilities include one-click rollback using Windows Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) and real-time network-wide immunization against new threats. Progent is a SentinelOne Partner, dealer, and integrator. Learn more about Progent's ProSight Active Security Monitoring 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 product companies to create ProSight Data Protection Services, a portfolio of offerings that deliver backup-as-a-service (BaaS). All ProSight DPS products automate and monitor your data backup processes and allow non-disruptive backup and rapid recovery of vital files, apps, images, and VMs. ProSight DPS helps you protect against data loss resulting from equipment breakdown, natural calamities, fire, cyber attacks like ransomware, user error, ill-intentioned employees, or application bugs. Managed services available in the ProSight DPS portfolio include ProSight DPS Altaro VM Backup, ProSight 365 Total Backup (formerly Altaro Office 365 Backup), ProSight DPS ECHO Backup using Barracuda dedicated storage, and ProSight MSP360 Hybrid Backup. Your Progent consultant can help you to identify which of these fully managed services are most appropriate for your network.

• Progent's Patch Management: Patch Management Services:
  Progent's managed services for patch management offer businesses of all sizes a flexible and cost-effective alternative for assessing, validating, scheduling, implementing, and documenting software and firmware updates to your dynamic information system. In addition to maximizing the security and functionality of your IT network, Progent's patch management services free up time for your in-house IT team to focus on line-of-business projects and tasks that deliver maximum business value from your network. Find out more about Progent's software/firmware update management support services.

• ProSight Duo Multi-Factor Authentication: Access Security, Endpoint Policy Enforcement, and Protected Single Sign-on (SSO):
  Progent's Duo authentication managed services utilize Cisco's Duo cloud technology to protect against compromised passwords by using two-factor authentication (2FA). Duo supports one-tap identity verification with iOS, Android, and other out-of-band devices. Using 2FA, whenever you log into a protected application and give your password you are requested to confirm your identity on a unit that only you have and that is accessed using a separate network channel. A wide selection of out-of-band devices can be utilized for this second means of authentication including an iPhone or Android or watch, a hardware token, a landline phone, etc. You may register multiple validation devices. To find out more about Duo two-factor identity authentication services, refer to Cisco Duo MFA two-factor authentication services for access security.