Guide To Expanding Help Desk Software Across Departments

One of Issuetrak’s biggest strengths is its customizability. It’s so configurable, it can easily slide into a variety of different usages across different industries, or even within the same organization.

In fact, we often see our customers decide to expand their use of Issuetrak from one department to across their organization after working with the software. At Issuetrak we use the product throughout our departments: Support, Accounting, IT, and HR each have their own Issuetrak sites for managing their processes, tracking issues, and keeping organized.

Not every organization will need multiple Issuetrak sites; however, some may be able to utilize a single site! We’ll help you decide which choice is the best for your company.

Where Do I Begin?

In order to begin the expansion process, you first need to determine exactly what you need out of your expansion. Here are a few good questions to ask yourself:

• Are the users in this new group different from those who are currently using the Issuetrak site?
• Are the issues they’ll be working with highly sensitive or confidential in nature?
• Do you want to completely separate all system-wide dropdowns?
• Is the scope and reach of this new department vastly different than your current site?

Separate Sites vs. One Site

If the answer to any of those questions was yes, you might want to consider a second site for your additional usage.

There are a number of reasons why you might want to stay with a single site versus expanding to a second instance of Issuetrak, or vice-versa. Here’s a quick rundown of the pros for each option:

Pros of Using One Site

• Processes and workflows for all departments are stored and managed in one centralized spot
• Users only have to remember one website and one login
• Agents whose tasks span multiple departments can track their work in a single place
• Management has an easy view into everything at once

Pros of Using Multiple Sites

• Keeps highly confidential issues, such as ones belonging to HR, private
• Keeps the user base of each instance completely separate
• Administrators will only see their own department’s issues
• No system-wide dropdowns (such as substatuses)

Test It Out!

If you’re leaning towards using a single site, we recommend trying things out with a test site to ensure everything works smoothly. Our Support Team can help both Cloud and On-Premises customers with test sites.

You’ll want to be particularly mindful of these four Issuetrak features as you set up your test site (and later your actual site):

Classes: The Dashboard lets you filter by Class. Using Classes allows you to separate out issues for those who have visibility into every issue.

Groups: Assigning issues to Groups creates silos for agents to work from, allowing them to focus on completing their own work without having to sift through irrelevant issues.

Departments: If both the users and the issues need to stay separated, you can use the internal flag on Departments to restrict issue visibility to either assigned to or submitted by users of a specific Department.

Projects: Only users who are involved with a project can see the issues tied to that project. Exclusive projects can be useful in controlling issue visibility.

What’s Next?

Ready to expand your Issuetrak site across your organization? Our Best Practices guide in the Help Center offers even more tips and guides for how to prepare your team for the process.

Once you’re ready to begin, reach out to your Account Manager to get things started. We’ll be happy to assist you through the process and provide support every step of the way!