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How to improve your IT support workflow

What is an IT ticketing system?

As hard as developers and network engineers work to create perfect networks, software, and websites, it’s not always that simple. Team members are bound to experience issues with software or hardware at some point, and it’s important to have a streamlined process for addressing those issues to keep your organization moving forward.

IT support tickets are one way to simplify internal IT issues. You can use an internal IT ticketing system to elevate issues to your IT team, who can review and address service requests individually.

Are you considering creating a ticketing system? Learn how ITSM software can help you streamline your organization’s response to IT issues.

What is an IT ticket?

An IT ticket is a support ticket used to track and manage IT-related issues. It’s another way to describe a service request, such as an incident report or technical support query. Team members who experience issues create IT tickets, which allow  IT teams to address them promptly.

Jira Service Management helps organizations create a standard system for responding to, coordinating, and fulfilling IT tickets.

How IT ticketing systems work

IT tickets follow a specific process during their lifecycle, beginning with the creation of the ticket. When a team member experiences an IT issue, they can create a ticket that will be sent to your IT team. When a ticket is created, it’s categorized based on the ticket type and priority.

Once a ticket has been categorized, it’s sent to the appropriate IT team member for fulfillment. At this stage, your IT team takes the necessary steps to resolve the issue before closing the ticket.

Automation is key in streamlining IT operations by making ticket management and prioritization easier. Automated workflows can automatically categorize and prioritize tickets, making ticket submission and assignment more efficient.

Why businesses need IT ticketing systems

Using an IT ticketing system helps streamline the process. Without an IT ticketing system, teams have to take the time to contact the IT team with specific issues they’re having, which leads to longer response times. Your IT team must also spend more time manually categorizing and prioritizing tickets since those processes aren’t automated or streamlined.

A structured IT support system helps you improve response times, reduce downtime, and create a better user experience. Tickets are automatically categorized and prioritized using automated workflows, so your IT team receives tickets faster. Consistent incident management creates a better user experience, while reduced downtime minimizes losses that impact your bottom line.

Every organization should have a service desk with a streamlined ticketing system to save time and money.

Benefits of using an IT ticketing system

No matter what types of products or services you develop, you can reap the benefits of using an IT ticketing system. A streamlined IT ticket system reduces downtime and improves response times, making your organization more efficient and leading to a better customer experience. Learn more about some of the benefits of building a service desk.

Improved organization

Organization is one of the biggest challenges regarding IT tickets and incident response, especially if your business processes many tickets. To process tickets efficiently, you must categorize and prioritize each ticket to determine what to work on first and which team members will be assigned to each ticket.

Using an IT ticketing system saves you the effort of manually categorizing, prioritizing, and assigning each ticket. Instead, you can use automation to organize tickets and ensure they’re sent to the right team members.

Automating organization is essential when you’re processing a lot of tickets. It’s easy to manually prioritize and organize tickets when you only receive one or two per week. Larger organizations with higher ticket volumes can save time by switching to an IT ticketing system.

Enhanced communication

Usually, team members communicate directly with your IT team to discuss and resolve IT-related issues. While that may seem simple enough, communicating isn’t always easy when there are many moving parts within your organization. 

With an IT ticketing system, created tickets are sent directly to your IT team to be fulfilled. Instead of contacting the IT team directly, anyone within your organization can submit an IT ticket in just a few minutes.

Clear communication is essential to keeping your organization efficient. When everyone is on the same page and collaborating to identify and resolve issues, you have more resources to focus on your next project or product.

Data-driven insights

Using IT service management (ITSM) software can help your organization harness the power of data to drive the long-term decision-making process. IT ticketing systems allow you to collect data about the issues and trends you see to determine the recurring problems and what you need to prioritize. This is crucial because it helps you reduce the frequency of recurring issues in the future.

The more data you collect about your IT tickets and the common issues people are facing, the smarter decisions you can make. If people have an issue performing a specific action or connecting to a piece of software, you can find alternative solutions that reduce the likelihood of those issues.

IT ticketing systems automatically collect data about your IT tickets, so you don’t have to expend valuable resources learning what you need to improve. Instead, you can focus on resolving individual support tickets and fixing the issues that lead to those tickets.

Key features to look for in an IT ticketing system

When choosing an IT ticketing system, you want to look for one that offers features your organization needs. Choosing the right IT ticketing system can help you simplify ticket organization, data collection, and ticket responses.

Automation is an essential feature in IT ticketing systems. When key processes like categorizing and prioritizing tickets are automated, your IT team can focus more on resolving issues. Automation also makes it easier for various teams to communicate clearly with IT team members.

Your ticketing system should also integrate with other ITSM tools and offer reporting capabilities. Integrating and automating everything allows you to collect data to inform future decision-making.

Jira Service Management offers a simple solution for IT teams to organize and triage incoming IT tickets. Customers and employees can use the self-service portal to submit tickets and check their status. As tickets are received, they’re sent to queues, making it easier to triage, track, and assign tickets to the right team members.

You can also use Jira’s service management templates to get started fast. With service management templates, you don’t have to create anything from scratch — simply configure the default request types and add your own based on your organizational needs.

Best practices for managing IT tickets

It’s important to do things correctly when managing IT tickets. You should have clear guidelines for prioritizing and categorizing tickets and a support workflow for responding to them. Integrating a knowledge base also provides customers and employees with a reference for necessary information.

Clear documentation is essential when managing IT tickets. Every ticket should be clearly documented and categorized so it’s sent to the appropriate team. Timely responses help minimize downtime and its impact on your bottom line.

As time passes, it’s important to revisit your ticketing system and make necessary improvements. Continuous improvement to support workflows and ticket organization can empower your IT team.

IT ticketing systems vs ITSM

IT service management (ITSM) is a broad term for delivering and managing IT services. IT ticketing systems are one aspect of ITSM, but several other parts make up ITSM, including change management and asset management.

IT ticketing support systems specifically deal with how you submit, receive, process, and resolve tickets. Because IT ticket systems are an aspect of ITSM, choosing a ticketing system that integrates with your ITSM software is crucial.

Optimize IT support with Jira Service Management

If you want to optimize your IT operations and streamline IT ticket management, Jira Service Management (JSM) can help. Jira uses AI-powered workflows, automation, and self-service capabilities to enhance the IT ticketing process.

Jira also integrates with DevOps and ITSM tools, allowing you to combine your resources to resolve incidents and deliver the best service quickly. More efficient IT ticket processing means you have more resources to focus on your next project.

Try Jira Service Management today to see how AI-powered workflows can transform your IT ticketing.