Computer Support for Midsize Companies

Progent's Shared Help Desk Service
Progent's Shared Help Desk service is designed for organizations with between 50 and 500 users and allows your information technology staff to split activity for Service Desk support transparently between your internal support staff and Progent's extensive pool of IT support technicians, engineers and subject matter experts (SMEs). Progent's Co-managed Help Desk service is a collaborative IT support system based on ConnectWise Manage, the industry-leading Professional Services Automation (PSA) tool for managing IT support requests, issuing trouble tickets, designating ownership, tracking progress, and producing management analytics. The cost for Level 1 IT support for Progent's Co-managed Help Desk service is typically under $18 per user per month.

Progent's Co-managed Service Desk offers a smooth supplement to your internal support team. Client access to the Service Desk, provision of technical assistance, problem escalation, ticket creation and updates, performance metrics, and management of the support database are cohesive whether issues are taken care of by your internal support resources, by Progent's team, or both. All client support requests are triaged as Level 1, 2 or 3 incidents. Progent takes responsibility for whatever service levels you specify (typically Levels 1 and 3). Original service calls are assigned to your in-house IT support group or to Progent's Technical Response Center (TRC), based on your preferences. Level 2 or Level 3 incidents can be referred to Progent's Experts Team of subject matter experts (SMEs). The assignment activity is transparent to your users. Your business has unrestricted versatility to extend or shrink your part of technical support work as needed. Progent takes care of startup installation and provisioning of the professional services automation software plus documentation, validation and training.

Progent's Technical Response Center (TRC)
Progent's Technical Response Center (TRC) has been delivering online IT help for more than twenty years and has active customers in each state in the U.S. (refer to Progent's client testimonials.) The Technical Response Center maintains the pool of certified computer technicians who can resolve Level 1 issues, which make up the bulk of Service Desk support calls. The Technical Response Center, like Progent's Experts Team, uses the ConnectWise Manage professional services automation (PSA) platform to streamline ticketing, tracking progress, responsibility delegation, problem escalation and management reporting. This keeps tickets from being ignored and offers clients clear understanding about all support services provided. Progent's TRC is committed to 90% live answer performance and enables Progent's Co-managed Help Desk Services to offer a 60-minute service-level agreement (SLA). Service hours are 5am to 7pm Pacific Time on normal business days. Extended hours and onsite help are offered at extra cost. To learn more about Progent's Technical Response Center, see The Technical Response Center Customer Commitment.

Service Levels
Progent offers three levels of online IT help, which align with industry-recognized Tier 1 to Tier 3 support. You can choose which service levels will be provided exclusively or shared by Progent's support team and your internal staff. The depth and technical breadth of Progent's roster of SMEs enables rapid and efficient escalation and permits you to rely on Progent as a single source for most support problems at any service level. In addition, Progent's practice of knowledge transfer permits important service problems to move from higher to lower levels as solution workflows become documented and standardized so they can be handled by less skilled and less expensive service staff.

Service levels are described as:

• Level 1 Support: Categorizes Help Desk requests and delivers basic IT support and debugging, like password resets, printer configurations, 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 support can also provide assistance for identified Level 2 or Level 3 issues where solutions have previously been documented.
• Level 2 Support: Generally addresses break/fix, configuration issues, debugging, application or OS deployment, and hardware fixes such as in-house fixes or orchestrating depot services. This Level deals with promoted issues that Level 1 personnel are not equipped to handle. Level 2 service will occasionally escalate to Level 3, based on the problem and the manner the Service Desk operates.
• Level 3 Support: Troubleshooting, setup, database administration, and fixes or updates for OS and applications servers, datacenter, email, collaboration, and common infrastructure issues. In addition to having the capability to find solutions to novel issues, a Level 3 consultant typically has the most real-world expertise.

This sample implementation of Progent's Shared Help Desk Service has a four-phase trouble ticket lifecycle:

1. Your users initiate requests via the browser-based service portal, a dedicated phone number, or simply by sending a message to a dedicated email address. This automatically launches an open request in the trouble ticket system.
2. Progent's Technical Response Center (TRC) gets the open request and decides whether it will be serviced or forwarded to your internal Service Desk.
3. Your Service Desk receives the escalated ticket request and determines the proper method to service the issue. If needed, your Service Desk can in turn promote the ticket request back to Progent for resolution by Progent's Experts Team.
4. Progent gets the updated trouble ticket request, identifies the most appropriate subject matter exert from the Experts Team, and tasks the chosen SME to work with your IT group until the problem is solved or closed.

Key Features of Progent's Help Desk Service
Important aspects of Progent's Shared Service Desk offerings are:

• Pooled desktop help from Progent's Technical Response Center (TRC) staff
• Desktop remote support available 5 days a week, 5am-7pm Pacific Time, 60 Minute SLA
• Discounted per-hour support rate and per-minute granularity for Level 1 support for clients
• Average price of Level 1 service is about $18 per user per month
• Level 2 and Level 3 support from Progent SME provided on request at Progent's normal consulting rates
• De-escalation permits issues that at first require Level 2 or Level 3 expertise to move to a lower, less costly Tier once procedures are documented
• StreamlineIT includes a complete implementation of ConnectWise Manage PSA software with secure multitenancy

• Available only in the United States and territories
• One-time startup fee dependent on complexity of the solution
• Starting day one, Progent assigns you a Technical Resource Center (TRC) Coordinator and a TRC Service Lead to resource, assign and communicate with your team and your users. Progent's TRC Service Lead will work with you to create a What Goes Where document to help seamlessly escalate tickets to your service group or de-escalate back to Progent's support engineers.
• Live Answer of inbound support calls to Progent Technical Response Center with a target of 90% Live Answer of all requests
• After determining if server or networking support is needed, some requests will be passed to Level 2 or Level 3 support
• All support requiring Level 2 or 3 service will be handled by a Progent SME after receiving client authorization
• 1 hour SLA for Level 1 desktop support in most cases
• Level 1 Service is for end users and covers Windows-based systems and Apple systems
• Progent Level 2 or 3 support will be charged at regular hourly consulting prices
• Progent will provide resources - Technical Response Center (TRC) desktop specialists daily, Level 2 and 3 as required
• Progent will provide a toll-free phone number and email mailbox for incoming support calls
• Free Remote Control software with screen sharing for efficient IT support
• Free ProSight IT Asset Management services for cloud-based IT documentation management
• All Level 1 remote service is billed at a discounted hourly rate with per-minute granularity
• All Level 1 support is done online, no onsite work included
• All onsite support is billed at regular consulting rates
• All on-premises support will have an additional fixed charge as well as any specific travel expenses
• All travel cost estimates will be disclosed and need customer agreement before work or travel will be undertaken
• Projects and separate Statements of Work will have their own estimates and costs defined and will be undertaken only after authorization by customer

First Steps

• Create your custom Help Desk environment, setting up your in-house team, locations, and user information
• Progent's consultants will work with your company's support team to analyze current incoming support calls
• Configure your inbound help request service to include a mailbox, software agents, and a dedicated telephone number

• Progent delivers ticket management training for your service group
• Work together to establish basic workflow and escalation processes
• Integrate all your teams and assets that will deliver support
• Develop the roll-out message and selling of the new Service Desk solution
• Pick a defined location or small clusters of users to onboard initially
• Integrate more users into the solution at a workable pace

• Study reports and system setup for proper information and workflow
• Create additional reports or fields needed to enhance the identification or tracking of frequently seen issues
• Surface pivotal information that might enable a higher resolution rate for Level 1 support calls

• All clients have been exposed to the support system and can connect to it
• All relevant client and hardware information is entered into the support system
• You can exchange and administer tickets smoothly between your internal support group and Progent
• You are able to track service performance

• Keep total control of your IT support requests: you choose what tickets are escalated to Progent's support group or taken care of by your in-house service team.
• Quick access to additional IT service experts when you require them: Progent's professional services automation software programmatically distributes internal trouble tickets or allows you manually escalate to Progent's TRC.
• Efficiency: Progent's IT support experts will analyze your incoming support requests and identify missing information that would promote an improved success rate for common Level 1 requests. Progent's Call Desk experts can also assist you with tag management to speed up solutions.
• Seamlessness: Progent's Shared Service Desk works as a virtual extension of your in-house Call Center with unified ticketing and reporting so nothing drops through the seams.
• Contented workers: Users can follow the progress of their IT service calls rapidly and easily.
• Management insight: You benefit from the measurements, responsibility assignments, and performance monitoring of a modern PSA platform to help your organization to create a custom Service Desk environment that provides maximum business value.
• Concentrate on your strategic business initiatives, not IT support calls and disgruntled workers: Your network managers escape being saddled with handling common service requests.

Check Out Progent's White Paper: Is Co-managed IT a Good Idea?
Though maintaining your own self-sufficient internal IT team can be a burden from the budgetary perspective, many businesses opt for that approach because it gives more flexibility with their IT management. But did you know that your company can still reap the advantages of a managed services firm within the co-managed network service strategy. The co-managed services model permits your business to stay in control over your system infrastructure while augmenting your internal IT services group simply and affordably.

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

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

Related Services
Progent has developed the ProSight suite of remote monitoring and management (RMM) services to automate vital activities associated with network administration, cybersecurity and upkeep. Any of these RMM services can be integrated with Progent's Shared Help Desk service by installing agent software on machines to be monitored and managed. Notifications sent by these agents can be forwarded directly to Progent's Technical Response Center, processed via the ticketing and monitoring platform, and categorized for Level 1, 2 or 3 support.

Examples of ProSight RMM packages 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 top information security companies to provide web-based control and comprehensive protection for your inbound and outbound email. The hybrid structure of Email Guard managed service combines cloud-based filtering with an on-premises security gateway appliance to offer advanced protection against spam, viruses, Denial of Service Attacks, Directory Harvest Attacks (DHAs), and other email-based threats. Email Guard's Cloud Protection Layer serves as a first line of defense and blocks the vast majority of unwanted email from reaching your network firewall. This reduces your exposure to external attacks and conserves network bandwidth and storage space. Email Guard's onsite gateway device adds a further level of analysis for incoming email. For outbound email, the onsite gateway offers anti-virus and anti-spam filtering, policy-based Data Loss Prevention, and email encryption. The onsite security gateway can also assist Microsoft Exchange Server to monitor and protect internal email traffic that stays inside your security perimeter. For more details, see ProSight Email Guard spam filtering and data leakage protection.

• ProSight Active Security Monitoring: AI-based Threat Analysis and Ransomware Protection:
  Progent's ProSight Active Security Monitoring is an endpoint protection service that utilizes cutting edge behavior-based machine learning technology from SentinelOne to defend physical and virtual endpoint devices against modern malware attacks such as ransomware and file-less exploits, which easily escape legacy signature-matching AV products. ProSight ASM safeguards on-premises and cloud resources and provides a single platform to address the entire malware attack lifecycle including protection, infiltration detection, mitigation, remediation, and post-attack forensics. Top features include single-click rollback with Windows Volume Shadow Copy Service and real-time network-wide immunization against newly discovered attacks. Progent is a SentinelOne Partner, reseller, and integrator. Learn more about Progent's ProSight Active Security Monitoring (ASM) endpoint protection and ransomware recovery with SentinelOne technology.

• ProSight Data Protection Services: Cloud-based Backup and Disaster Recovery:
  Progent has partnered with advanced backup technology vendors to produce ProSight Data Protection Services (DPS), a portfolio of management offerings that provide backup-as-a-service (BaaS). All ProSight DPS services automate and monitor your backup processes and allow transparent backup and fast restoration of critical files/folders, applications, images, and Hyper-V and VMware virtual machines. ProSight DPS helps you protect against data loss resulting from equipment breakdown, natural disasters, fire, malware such as ransomware, user mistakes, ill-intentioned insiders, or application bugs. Managed backup services in the ProSight DPS family include ProSight DPS Altaro VM Backup, ProSight 365 Total Backup (formerly Altaro Office 365 Backup), ProSight DPS ECHO Backup based on Barracuda dedicated storage, and ProSight MSP360 Cloud and On-prem Backup. Your Progent service representative can help you to determine which of these managed services are most appropriate for your IT environment.

• Patch Management: Software/Firmware Update Management Services:
  Progent's managed services for software and firmware patch management provide businesses of all sizes a flexible and cost-effective solution for evaluating, testing, scheduling, implementing, and tracking software and firmware updates to your ever-evolving IT network. Besides optimizing the security and reliability of your IT network, Progent's patch management services allow your IT team to focus on more strategic initiatives and activities that deliver 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 Protected Single Sign-on (SSO):
  Progent's Duo MFA services utilize Cisco's Duo technology to protect against stolen passwords by using two-factor authentication (2FA). Duo supports single-tap identity verification with Apple iOS, Android, and other personal devices. Using Duo 2FA, when you sign into a secured application and enter your password you are requested to verify your identity via a device that only you have and that uses a different ("out-of-band") network channel. A wide range of devices can be used as this second means of authentication such as a smartphone or wearable, a hardware token, a landline telephone, etc. You may register multiple verification devices. For more information about Duo two-factor identity validation services, go to Duo MFA two-factor authentication (2FA) services.