PC Desktop Support Services

Progent's Co-managed Service Desk
Progent's Co-managed Help Desk service is intended for organizations with 50 to 500 users and allows your IT team to divide responsibilities for support services seamlessly between your in-house support staff and Progent's nationwide roster of certified IT support engineers and subject matter experts. Progent's Shared Service Desk is a collaborative IT service solution based on ConnectWise Manage, the industry-leading Professional Services Automation (PSA) platform for managing IT support calls, generating tickets, designating ownership, monitoring status, and producing management reports. The price for Level 1 IT support for Progent's Co-managed Help Desk service is typically less than $18 per user per month.

Progent's Co-managed Service Desk provides a transparent supplement to your core support resources. End user access to the Help Desk, provision of support, escalation, ticket generation and updates, efficiency measurement, and maintenance of the service database are consistent whether issues are taken care of by your corporate IT support staff, by Progent, or a mix of the two. All client service calls are triaged as Level 1, 2 or 3 issues. Progent takes responsibility for whatever service level or levels you specify (usually Levels 1 and 3). Initial service calls are assigned either to your internal network support resources or to Progent's Technical Response Center, depending on your instructions. Level 2 or 3 incidents can be escalated to Progent's Experts Team of subject matter experts (SMEs). The escalation process is transparent to your clients. You have unrestricted flexibility to extend or shrink your share of technical support activity as circumstances demand. Progent provides initial deployment and provisioning of the professional services automation software as well as workflow documentation, validation and training.

Progent's Technical Response Center
Progent's Technical Response Center has been providing online IT support for more than two decades and serves active clients in each state in the U.S. (see Progent's customer testimonials.) The TRC provides the pool of veteran desktop experts who can handle Level 1 issues, which make up the majority of Help Desk support calls. The TRC, like Progent's Experts Team, uses the ConnectWise Manage professional services automation software platform to automate ticketing, tracking progress, responsibility assignment, problem escalation and reporting. This proven solution keeps issues from being overlooked and gives users clear visibility of all support services delivered. Progent's TRC is committed to 90% in-person answer performance and allows Progent's Shared Help Desk program to offer a 60-minute service-level agreement. Service hours are 5am to 7pm PST on normal business days. Extended hours and on-premises help are offered at additional cost. To learn more about the TRC, visit Progent's TRC Customer Commitment.

Definition of Service Levels
Progent provides three levels of online IT support, which correspond to industry-standard Tier 1 to Tier 3 service. You can select which service levels will be provided wholly or shared by Progent and your internal service group. The size and scope of Progent's roster of subject matter experts (SMEs) allows rapid and efficient ticket escalation and makes it possible to rely on Progent as a single source for most IT issues at any Tier. Also, Progent's provision of knowledge transfer permits key service issues to move from higher to lower levels as solution workflows become recorded and standardized so they can be handled by less knowledgeable and lower-cost service staff.

Service levels are described as:

• Level 1 Support: Filters Service Desk calls and delivers baseline IT help and troubleshooting, like password issues, printer set up, break/fix instructions, ticket assignment 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 can also provide assistance for identified Level 2 or Level 3 problems where mitigation solutions have previously been recorded.
• Level 2 Support: Generally addresses break/fix, configuration issues, debugging, application or OS deployment, and hardware repair such as onsite fixes or coordinating depot support. Level 2 support involves escalated issues that Level 1 support is not qualified to resolve. Level 2 service can sometimes evolve to Level 3, depending on the issue and the way the Service Desk operates.
• Level 3 Support: Troubleshooting, setup, DBA, and repair for server, datacenter, messaging, collaboration, and common integration problems. Besides possessing the capability to deploy solutions to novel problems, a Level 3 consultant typically has the most real-world experience.

This particular deployment of Progent's Co-managed Help Desk Service has a 4-phase trouble ticket lifecycle:

1. Your employees generate service requests via the online service portal, a dedicated telephone number, or simply by sending an email to a designated mailbox. This immediately launches an open request in the ticket system.
2. Progent's Technical Response Center (TRC) receives the trouble ticket request and determines whether it will be handles or promoted to your internal Help Desk.
3. Your Help Desk gets the forwarded ticket request and decides the best means to service the issue. If necessary, your Service Desk can in turn send the trouble ticket request back to Progent for resolution by Progent's Experts Team.
4. Progent gets the revised ticket request, selects the most appropriate SME from the Experts Team, and tasks the chosen SME to work with your support staff until the problem is fixed or closed.

Highlights of Progent's Help Desk Service
Important features of Progent's Co-managed Service Desk program include:

• Pooled desktop support from Progent's Technical Response Center team
• Level 1 remote help available 5 days a week, 5am-7pm Pacific Time, One-hour SLA
• Discounted hourly rate with per-minute granularity for Level 1 support for end users
• Average price of Level 1 support is approximately $18 montly per user
• Level 2 and Level 3 help from Progent SME provided on request at Progent's standard consulting fees
• De-escalation allows issues that at first require Level 2 or 3 support to migrate to a lower, less costly Level once procedures are documented
• StreamlineIT includes a full version of ConnectWise Manage PSA software with secure multi-tenant support

• Available only in USA and US territories
• Initial startup fee dependent on complexity of the deployment
• Beginning the first day, Progent assigns you a Technical Resource Center (TRC) Coordinator and a TRC Service Lead to resource, assign and communicate with your team and your clients. The TRC Service Lead will work with you to create a What Goes Where document to help seamlessly escalate issues to your team or de-escalate back to Progent's support engineers.
• Live Answer of inbound service requests to Progent Technical Response Center with a target of 90% Live Answer of all requests
• After determining if server or network infrastructure assistance is needed, some service calls will be passed to Level 2 or Level 3 support
• All assistance that needs Level 2 or Level 3 expertise will be worked on by a Progent expert after receiving customer authorization
• 1 hour SLA for Level 1 desktop support in most cases
• Level 1 Support is for your client users and covers Windows-based computers and Apple systems
• Progent Level 2 or 3 support will be charged at standard hourly consulting prices
• Progent will provide personnel - Technical Response Center (TRC) desktop specialists during standard hours, Level 2 and 3 as required
• Progent will dedicate a phone number and email mailbox for inbound support requests
• Free Remote Control software with screen sharing for streamlined technical support
• Free ProSight IT Asset Management system for professional IT documentation management
• All Level 1 remote service is charged at a discounted hourly rate with per-minute granularity
• All Level 1 support will be performed online, no onsite support included
• All on-premises work will be invoiced at standard consulting rates
• All onsite work will have an added fixed charge as well as any documented travel costs
• All travel expense projections will be provided and need client agreement before work or travel will be undertaken
• Projects and distinct Statements of Work (SoWs) will have their own estimates and costs stated and will be performed only after authorization by customer

First Phase

• Create your custom Help Desk experience, setting up your internal team, service locations, and client data
• Progent's consultants will work closely with your service team to review current inbound support requests
• Configure your inbound support request service to incorporate a mailbox, software agents, and a dedicated phone number

• Progent provides ticket management training for your service group
• Jointly define core workflow and escalation procedures
• Integrate all your teams and resources that will provide IT support
• Develop the announcement description and selling of the new Help Desk solution
• Pick a defined location or manageably-sized groups to onboard initially
• Bring more users into the system at determined intervals

• Study reports and system setup for proper data and processes
• Add additional reports or fields required to enhance the detection or tracking of frequently seen issues
• Identify key information that could enable a better resolution percentage for Level 1 support requests

• All users have been exposed to the support desk and can access it
• All relevant client and hardware information is entered into the service system
• You are able to exchange and manage tickets smoothly between your in-house team and Progent
• You are able to view service performance and trends

• Keep total control over your IT service issues: you determine what trouble tickets are forwarded to Progent's service desk or handled by your internal service staff.
• Rapid access to additional IT support experts when and if you require them: Progent's professional services PSA software automatically distributes internal trouble tickets or permits you manually escalate to Progent's Technical Response Center.
• Efficiency: Progent's IT support experts will review your inbound support requests and propose missing data that would promote an improved resolution rate for typical desktop issues. Progent's Call Desk experts can also assist you to improve tag management to expedite solutions.
• Transparency: Progent's Co-managed Help Desk acts as a virtual extension of your internal support desk with unified ticketing and reporting so no ticket falls between the cracks.
• Contented employees: Users have the ability to monitor the progress and status of their IT support requests rapidly and conveniently.
• Management insight: You benefit from the metrics, responsibility assignments, and activity monitoring of an advanced PSA platform to help you to create a custom-designed Service Desk experience that delivers top business value.
• Focus on your strategic business activities, not IT support calls and unhappy end-users: Your IT managers escape being bogged down trying to manage day-to-day service requests.

Check Out Progent's White Paper: Is Co-managed IT a Good Idea?
Even though having your own fully-staffed internal IT services team can be a burden from the budgetary standpoint, many businesses opt for that strategy since it provides more control over their information system management. But did you realize that you can continue to reap the benefits of a managed services provider using the co-managed network support approach. The shared services model allows your organization to keep in command over your network infrastructure while supplementing your local IT team simply and economically.

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

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

Complementary Services
Progent has packaged the ProSight suite of remote monitoring and management (RMM) services to streamline critical processes related to network management, cybersecurity and upkeep. These RMM services can be integrated with Progent's Co-managed Help Desk service by installing agent apps on computers to be monitored and managed. Notifications sent by these agents can be forwarded automatically to Progent's Technical Response Center, managed via the ticketing and tracking system, and triaged for Level 1, 2 or 3 support.

Examples of ProSight Remote Monitoring and Management services include:

• ProSight Email Guard: Email Content Filtering, Spam Blocking and Data Leakage Protection:
  ProSight Email Guard is Progent's spam and virus filtering service that incorporates the infrastructure of top data security vendors to deliver web-based control and world-class protection for all your inbound and outbound email. The hybrid architecture of Email Guard managed service combines a Cloud Protection Layer with an on-premises gateway appliance to offer advanced protection against spam, viruses, Dos Attacks, DHAs, and other email-based malware. Email Guard's cloud filter acts as a preliminary barricade and keeps the vast majority of threats from making it to your network firewall. This decreases your exposure to inbound threats and saves system bandwidth and storage space. Email Guard's onsite security gateway appliance provides a further layer of inspection for inbound email. For outbound email, the local security gateway offers AV and anti-spam protection, policy-based Data Loss Prevention, and email encryption. The local gateway can also help Exchange Server to monitor and protect internal email traffic that stays within your security perimeter. For more information, visit Email Guard spam filtering and data leakage protection.

• ProSight Active Security Monitoring: Behavior-based Threat Scanning and Ransomware Defense:
  ProSight Active Security Monitoring is an endpoint protection (EPP) service that utilizes cutting edge behavior analysis tools from SentinelOne to defend physical and virtual endpoint devices against modern malware assaults like ransomware and email phishing, which routinely escape traditional signature-matching AV products. ProSight ASM safeguards on-premises and cloud resources and provides a single platform to automate the entire threat lifecycle including filtering, infiltration detection, mitigation, remediation, and post-attack forensics. Top capabilities include one-click rollback with Windows Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) and automatic network-wide immunization against new attacks. Progent is a SentinelOne Partner, dealer, and integrator. Find out more about Progent's ProSight Active Security Monitoring (ASM) endpoint protection and ransomware recovery with SentinelOne technology.

• ProSight Data Protection Services: Cloud Backup and Disaster Recovery:
  Progent has worked with leading backup technology companies to create ProSight Data Protection Services, a selection of management offerings that provide backup-as-a-service. All ProSight DPS services automate and track your backup operations and enable transparent backup and fast recovery of critical files/folders, apps, images, and virtual machines. ProSight DPS lets your business protect against data loss resulting from equipment failures, natural calamities, fire, malware like ransomware, user mistakes, malicious insiders, or application glitches. Managed services in the ProSight Data Protection selection include ProSight Altaro VM Backup, ProSight 365 Total Backup (formerly Altaro Office 365 Backup), ProSight DPS ECHO Backup using Barracuda purpose-built storage, and ProSight DPS MSP360 Hybrid Backup. Your Progent service representative can help you to identify which of these managed backup services are most appropriate for your IT environment.

• Patch Management: Patch Management Services:
  Progent's managed services for software and firmware patch management provide organizations of any size a versatile and cost-effective alternative for evaluating, validating, scheduling, applying, and tracking updates to your ever-evolving IT network. In addition to optimizing the protection and functionality of your IT network, Progent's patch management services permit your IT staff to concentrate on line-of-business projects and tasks that derive maximum business value from your information network. Learn more about Progent's patch management services.

• ProSight Duo Multi-Factor Authentication: Access Security, Endpoint Policy Enforcement, and Protected Single Sign-on (SSO):
  Progent's Duo MFA service plans incorporate Cisco's Duo cloud technology to protect against stolen passwords through the use of two-factor authentication. Duo enables single-tap identity confirmation on Apple iOS, Google Android, and other personal devices. Using Duo 2FA, whenever you sign into a protected online account and enter your password you are requested to verify your identity via a unit that only you have and that is accessed using a different network channel. A broad selection of devices can be utilized for this second form of authentication such as an iPhone or Android or wearable, a hardware token, a landline phone, etc. You may designate multiple verification devices. For more information about ProSight Duo identity authentication services, refer to Cisco Duo MFA two-factor authentication (2FA) services for access security.