Companies often do not have the possibility and financial means to extend the presence times of their IT field support beyond normal office hours. However, it happens again and again that employees urgently need support even later in the evening to complete work or to prepare for the next day. Perhaps there is a hardware malfunction, accessories are missing, or the employee needs a special loaner device, such as a projector for a meeting. To ensure that a solution can be found quickly in such cases, even without human support, an IT automat is available 24/7.
Mark returns to the company late in the afternoon from a customer appointment and notices that his notebook battery has completely drained. Actually, he wanted to leave early today and be home in time for his little daughter's birthday party. But now he has to take care of the defective notebook instead, because he has another customer appointment first thing in the morning the next day, for which he absolutely needs a functioning notebook. He tries to charge the device, but nothing happens. So Mark calls the service desk right away and describes his problem. Unfortunately, the friendly service desk employee can't find a quick repair solution either, so he suggests that Mark get a replacement device from the new digital IT automat in the company foyer.
Innovative IT automats allow you to extend IT field support service hours to 7 days 24 hours without additional staffing.
The service desk agent configures the replacement notebook remotely via wake-on software according to Mark's individual settings and, after just 20 minutes, sends him the access PIN to his smartphone, which he can use to remove the new device from the IT automat. When Mark arrives at the automat, he enters the PIN on the touchscreen, which immediately opens the drawer to a compartment from which he can remove his notebook; he places the defective device in the compartment in exchange and closes it again. Now he gets out of the house on time after all and can look forward to a slice of birthday cake and the shining eyes of his daughter.
With innovative IT automats, you can extend the service hours of IT field support to 7 days 24 hours without additional staffing. Modern devices can not only be used as vending machines, but also support complex processes such as the exchange of a notebook or the issue of smartphones with the help of the service desk. The time at which the IT user actually wants to pick up the device is no longer dependent on the service or opening hours of the field support or service desk. In principle, there are three basic use cases that the IT automat can take on.
Use case 1: The exchange of devices, primarily notebooks, which can be individually fueled and configured to the user's personal settings via the service desk.
Use case 2: Dispensing of various IT accessories in the function of a vending machine, even without the involvement of the service desk or field support
Use case 3: The rental of all types of equipment incl. assignment to cost centers and entry of the rental period
To ensure that the service desk can easily manage and operate the IT automat remotely, it is necessary to connect it to the company's own network. Conveniently, all actions and processes performed with the help of the IT automat are entered directly as tickets from back-office software into the ITSM software and are thus stored in an audit-proof manner. If expensive hardware is removed, the cost center allocation in the ERP system is also carried out automatically via an interface and can be charged accordingly if necessary.
A number of requirements must be met to ensure smooth processing of these self-service variants for resolving hardware defects and hardware issues. For example, the service desk should be fully integrated into the hardware issue in terms of processes, and the IT users must have a precise knowledge of the various use cases and the associated processes so that they know what to do in the event of a fault and can fall back on the services of the IT machine. In this context, Field Support performs the function of a «refiller» and promptly replenishes the IT automat in line with demand.