PC Desktop Support Services

Progent's Co-managed Service Desk
Progent's Shared Service Desk is intended for businesses with between 50 and 500 users and permits your information technology team to divide responsibilities for support services seamlessly between your in-house network support team and Progent's nationwide roster of certified IT support technicians, engineers and subject matter experts. Progent's Shared Help Desk service is a joint IT support solution based on ConnectWise Manage, the industry-leading PSA platform for administering IT support requests, generating tickets, assigning responsibility, monitoring status, and producing management analytics. The cost for Level 1 IT support for Progent's Shared Help Desk service averages under $18 per user per month.

Progent's Shared Help Desk Service offers a smooth supplement to your in-house support staff. End user access to the Help Desk, delivery of support services, escalation, trouble ticket creation and tracking, efficiency metrics, and management of the support database are cohesive whether issues are resolved by your internal support group, by Progent, or by a combination. All client service requests are ranked as Level 1, 2 or 3 issues. Progent focuses on the support level or levels you select (typically Levels 1 and 3). Original support requests are routed either to your in-house network support group or to Progent's Technical Response Center (TRC), based on your preferences. Level 2 or 3 incidents can be promoted to Progent's Experts Team of subject matter experts (SMEs). The escalation procedure is transparent to your end users. Your business has complete versatility to expand or shrink your part of IT support activity as required. Progent takes care of startup installation and onboarding of the professional services automation software plus workflow documentation, testing and training.

Progent's Technical Response Center
Progent's Technical Response Center (TRC) has been providing online IT assistance for more than two decades and serves active customers in each state in the country (refer to Progent's client testimonials.) The Technical Response Center provides the pool of seasoned desktop technicians who can handle Level 1 tickets, which make up the majority of Help Desk service calls. The Technical Response Center, like Progent's Experts Team, uses the ConnectWise Manage professional services automation software platform to automate ticketing, status tracking, responsibility assignment, problem escalation and management reporting. This prevents problems from being ignored and gives clients clear visibility of all support services delivered. Progent's TRC targets 90% live answer rate and allows Progent's Co-managed Service Desk program to include a 60-minute service-level agreement (SLA). Service hours are 5am to 7pm Pacific Time on standard work days. Extended support hours and on-premises help are offered at extra cost. For more details about the TRC, see Progent's TRC Customer Commitment.

Service Levels
Progent offers three levels of online technical help, which correspond to industry-recognized Tier 1 to Tier 3 support. You can select which support levels will be handled wholly or shared by Progent's support team and your internal resources. The size and technical breadth of Progent's roster of SMEs enables rapid and efficient ticket escalation and permits you to count on Progent as a one-stop source for most support issues at any service level. Also, Progent's provision of knowledge transfer allows important support issues to move from higher to lower Tiers as solution processes become recorded and standardized so they can be performed by less skilled and lower-cost support personnel.

Support levels are defined as:

• Level 1 Support: Categorizes Help Desk calls and provides baseline IT help and troubleshooting, like password issues, printer set up, break/fix procedures, 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 support can also include support for identified Level 2 or 3 problems where mitigation solutions have previously been recorded.
• Level 2 Support: Primarily handles break/fix, configuration issues, debugging, application or OS installations, and hardware repair such as onsite fixes or orchestrating depot support. This Level involves promoted issues that Level 1 support is not qualified to resolve. Level 2 will sometimes escalate to Level 3, based on the issue and the way the Service Desk is structured.
• Level 3 Support: Debugging, configuration, database administration, and fixes or updates for server, cloud integration, messaging, collaboration, and common integration issues. In addition to possessing the capability to deploy solutions to novel issues, a Level 3 engineer typically has the most expertise.

This particular deployment of Progent's Shared Help Desk Service has a 4-stage trouble ticket lifecycle:

1. Your clients initiate service requests via the browser-based service portal, a dedicated telephone number, or simply by sending a message to a dedicated mailbox. This automatically launches an open request in the trouble ticket system.
2. Progent's Technical Response Center (TRC) gets the trouble ticket request and decides whether it will be serviced or escalated to your in-house Help Desk.
3. Your Service Desk receives the escalated open request and decides the best way to resolve the problem. If necessary, your Help Desk can in turn send the ticket request back to Progent for assignment to Progent's Experts Team.
4. Progent receives the updated ticket request, selects the most appropriate subject matter exert from the Experts Team, and assigns the chosen SME to co-operate with your support group until the problem is solved or closed.

Key Features of Progent's Service Desk
Top features of Progent's Shared Service Desk offerings are:

• Pooled Level 1 help from Progent's Technical Response Center team
• Desktop online support available 5 days a week, 5am-7pm Pacific Time, 60 Minute SLA
• Discounted per-hour rate with per-minute granularity for Tier 1 support for end users
• Average price of Level 1 support is around $18 per user monthly
• Level 2 and Level 3 support from Progent SME available as an option at Progent's standard consulting fees
• De-escalation allows issues that initially require Level 2 or Level 3 support to drop to a lower, less expensive Level once procedures are documented
• StreamlineIT includes a complete version of ConnectWise service desk software with secure multi-tenant support

• Offered only in USA and US territories
• One-time 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, appoint and communicate with your service group and your clients. Progent's TRC Service Lead will work with you to create a What Goes Where document to help seamlessly escalate tickets to your team or de-escalate back to Progent's team of engineers.
• Live Answer of inbound service calls to Progent Technical Response Center with a goal of 90% Live Answer of all calls
• After determining whether server or networking assistance is required, some requests will be passed to Level 2 or 3 support
• All support that needs Level 2 or Level 3 expertise will be handled by a Progent SME pending customer approval
• 1 hour SLA for Level 1 desktop support in most cases
• Level 1 Service is for end users and applies to Windows-powered computers and Apple devices
• Progent Level 2 or 3 services will be provided at standard hourly consulting rates
• Progent will provide skilled personnel - Technical Response Center (TRC) desktop engineers during standard hours, Level 2 and Level 3 as required
• Progent will dedicate a phone number and email mailbox for inbound support requests
• Free Remote Control app with screen sharing for streamlined technical troubleshooting
• Free ProSight IT Asset Management system for network documentation management
• All Level 1 remote service is billed at a special hourly rate with per-minute granularity
• All Level 1 support will be done online, no on-premises support included
• All onsite support is invoiced at standard hourly consulting rates
• All on-premises work will have an added fixed charge plus any specific travel expenses
• All travel cost estimates will be provided and require client agreement before work or travel will be undertaken
• Projects and separate Statements of Work (SoWs) will include their own estimates and fees outlined and will be undertaken only following authorization by client

First Phase

• Build your personalized Help Desk experience, setting up your internal support group, service locations, and user data
• Progent will work closely with your support group to review current incoming service calls
• Set up your inbound support request service to include a mailbox, software agents, and a dedicated phone number

• Progent provides ticket management training for your support team
• Jointly establish core workflow and ticket escalation processes
• Add all your staff and assets that will provide support
• Develop the roll-out message and promotion of the new Call Desk environment
• Select a defined location or manageably-sized clusters of users to onboard first
• Bring more users into the solution at determined intervals

• Review reports and system setup for efficient data and processes
• Add any reports or fields needed to improve the detection or monitoring of common IT problems
• Surface missing data that might enable a higher resolution rate for Level 1 support requests

• All clients have been exposed to the service desk and can connect to it
• All relevant user and equipment information is populated in the support system
• You can exchange and administer tickets transparently between your internal support group and Progent
• You are able to monitor service performance

• Retain complete control of your IT support requests: you decide what tickets are forwarded to Progent's support desk or taken care of by your in-house service staff.
• Quick access to supplemental IT support professionals when you need them: Progent's professional services automation (PSA) software automatically distributes internal trouble tickets or allows you manually forward to Progent's TRC.
• Productivity: Progent's IT support experts will analyze your incoming support requests and propose additional information that would promote an improved success rate for typical desktop issues. Progent's IT support experts can also assist you with tag creation to speed up problem resolution.
• Transparency: Progent's Shared Service Desk acts as a virtual extension of your in-house Help Desk with unified ticketing and documentation so nothing falls between the seams.
• Happy employees: Users have the ability to track the progress and status of their IT support requests rapidly and conveniently.
• Management insight: You benefit from the metrics, responsibility assignments, and activity reporting of an advanced PSA platform to assist you to create a custom Call Center environment that provides top business value.
• Concentrate on your core business activities, not IT service calls and unhappy users: Your IT management personnel escape being saddled with trying to manage common service calls.

Download Progent's White Paper: Is Co-managed IT a Good Idea?
Although having your own fully-staffed local IT services team can prove expensive from the cost standpoint, many organizations opt for that strategy since it gives them more control over their network management. But did you know that you can continue to reap the advantages of a managed services provider using the shared IT support model. This shared services model permits your business to stay in control over your network infrastructure while supplementing your internal network support staff simply and affordably.

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

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

Optional Services
Progent has developed the ProSight family of remote monitoring and management (RMM) services to streamline vital activities associated with network administration, cybersecurity and upkeep. Any of these services can be used with Progent's Shared Call Desk service by deploying agent apps on computers to be tracked and managed. Alerts sent by these software agents can be forwarded directly to Progent's Technical Response Center (TRC), processed through the trouble ticket and monitoring system, and triaged for Level 1, 2 or 3 treatment.

Samples of ProSight RMM packages 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 technology of top information security companies to deliver centralized management and world-class security for all your inbound and outbound email. The powerful structure of Email Guard managed service integrates a Cloud Protection Layer with a local gateway device to provide complete protection against spam, viruses, Denial of Service (DoS) Attacks, Directory Harvest Attacks, and other email-borne threats. The Cloud Protection Layer serves as a first line of defense and blocks most unwanted email from making it to your security perimeter. This reduces your vulnerability to inbound attacks and conserves network bandwidth and storage space. Email Guard's on-premises gateway appliance provides a further layer of inspection for inbound email. For outbound email, the onsite gateway provides AV and anti-spam filtering, protection against data leaks, and email encryption. The on-premises security gateway can also help Microsoft Exchange Server to track and safeguard internal email traffic that originates and ends inside your corporate firewall. For more details, visit Email Guard spam and content filtering.

• ProSight Active Security Monitoring: Behavior-based Threat Scanning and Ransomware Defense:
  ProSight Active Security Monitoring (ASM) is an endpoint protection service that utilizes cutting edge behavior-based machine learning technology from SentinelOne to guard physical and virtual endpoints against modern malware assaults like ransomware and email phishing, which easily escape traditional signature-based AV tools. ProSight Active Security Monitoring safeguards local and cloud resources and offers a unified platform to manage the entire malware attack progression including protection, infiltration detection, mitigation, remediation, and forensics. Top features include one-click rollback using Windows VSS and automatic system-wide immunization against new attacks. Progent is a SentinelOne Partner, reseller, and integrator. Read 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 partnered with leading backup product companies to create ProSight Data Protection Services, a selection of subscription-based offerings that deliver backup-as-a-service (BaaS). All ProSight DPS products manage and monitor your backup processes and allow non-disruptive backup and fast restoration of vital files, applications, images, plus VMs. ProSight DPS lets you protect against data loss resulting from equipment failures, natural calamities, fire, malware like ransomware, human mistakes, malicious employees, or software glitches. Managed backup services in the ProSight Data Protection portfolio include ProSight DPS Altaro VM Backup, ProSight 365 Total Backup (formerly Altaro Office 365 Backup), ProSight ECHO Backup using Barracuda dedicated storage, and ProSight MSP360 Hybrid Backup. Your Progent consultant can assist you to determine which of these fully managed backup services are best suited for your network.

• Patch Management: Patch Management Services:
  Progent's support services for patch management offer businesses of any size a flexible and cost-effective solution for assessing, testing, scheduling, applying, and documenting software and firmware updates to your ever-evolving information system. Besides maximizing the protection and reliability of your computer environment, Progent's patch management services allow your in-house IT team to focus on line-of-business projects and activities that derive the highest business value from your information network. Read more about Progent's patch management services.

• ProSight Duo Two-Factor Authentication: Access Security, Endpoint Policy Enforcement, and Secure Single Sign-on:
  Progent's Duo MFA managed services utilize Cisco's Duo technology to protect against compromised passwords through the use of two-factor authentication (2FA). Duo enables single-tap identity verification on Apple iOS, Google Android, and other personal devices. With 2FA, whenever you sign into a protected application and enter your password you are asked to confirm your identity via a device that only you possess and that uses a separate network channel. A wide range of devices can be used for this second means of authentication including a smartphone or wearable, a hardware token, a landline telephone, etc. You may register several validation devices. For more information about ProSight Duo two-factor identity authentication services, go to Cisco Duo MFA two-factor authentication (2FA) services for access security.