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IT operations control room

Work through a fictional office IT problem in four quick choices and see what each one changes. Then, if you like, run a full service desk queue.

Time
About 5 minutes an incident
Related service
Managed IT & Support

Fictional data, run in your browser. It doesn’t connect to, scan or change any real system, and nothing you choose is sent to exQ.

Illustrative simulation

Step 1 of 4

Try it in a minute

A fictional accounting firm of 25 people. It’s 9:05 on Monday, and staff say the shared files won’t open. You look after their IT. What do you do?

First step?

Want more? The full simulation has more settings, more scenarios and the reasoning behind every result.

Explore in more depth
Illustrative simulation

Demonstration environment: a fictional office of about 40 people.

Operational summary

New
5
In progress
0
Workaround in place
0
Escalated
0
Resolved
0

Incident queue

Five distinctions

Priority isn’t complexity
Priority comes from impact (who and what is affected) and urgency (how soon it hurts). A one-line fix can be P2; a hard problem can wait if little depends on it.
A symptom isn’t a cause
“Outlook keeps asking for my password” is a symptom. The cause is whatever produces it. Fix only the symptom and the same call comes back.
A workaround isn’t a resolution
A workaround restores work for now; a resolution removes the cause. Both are useful, and the record should say which one happened.
Resolution isn’t prevention
Resolving fixes this incident. Prevention (monitoring, a better process, a design change) stops the next one, and is usually the cheaper of the two.
Closing isn’t recording
A ticket closed with “fixed” teaches nobody anything. A useful record says what was found, what was done and what remains uncertain.

INC-1041

Finance manager keeps being asked for a password

Reported by
Finance manager
Channel
Phone call
Affected
One person
Status
New
“Outlook keeps asking for my password, and now I can’t get into email at all. I have payments to approve before the bank’s 2pm cut-off.”

Known so far

  • Started at about 9:10 this morning.
  • Nobody else has reported an email problem.
  • They changed their password yesterday, when prompted.

Set the priority

Impact is who and what is affected; urgency is how soon it starts to hurt. Together they set the priority.

Impact
Urgency

Timeline

  1. +0 min

    Reported by the finance manager (phone call).

Five distinctions

Priority isn’t complexity
Priority comes from impact (who and what is affected) and urgency (how soon it hurts). A one-line fix can be P2; a hard problem can wait if little depends on it.
A symptom isn’t a cause
“Outlook keeps asking for my password” is a symptom. The cause is whatever produces it. Fix only the symptom and the same call comes back.
A workaround isn’t a resolution
A workaround restores work for now; a resolution removes the cause. Both are useful, and the record should say which one happened.
Resolution isn’t prevention
Resolving fixes this incident. Prevention (monitoring, a better process, a design change) stops the next one, and is usually the cheaper of the two.
Closing isn’t recording
A ticket closed with “fixed” teaches nobody anything. A useful record says what was found, what was done and what remains uncertain.

What the control room shows

Good support is less about knowing every fix than about working each problem in the right order and leaving a useful record behind.

  • Impact and urgency set the priority

    Impact is who and what is affected; urgency is how soon it starts to hurt. One person approving payments before a bank cut-off can outrank a whole team with a nuisance, and a simple fix can still be top priority.

  • Checks are chosen, not run by habit

    Each check costs time and should narrow the possibilities. Reinstalling software or replacing hardware before reading the logs is expensive guesswork, and often leaves the real cause in place.

  • The cause has to be established

    A likely explanation isn’t a confirmed one. Confirming the cause before changing things avoids fixing the wrong problem, and is what makes the record trustworthy.

  • Fix, work around or escalate

    A workaround keeps people working; a fix removes the cause; escalation hands the problem to the owner who can fix it, with evidence. Many incidents need two of the three, and the record should say which happened.

  • Every incident ends in prevention

    Monitoring, a better process or a design change stops the next incident. The preventive follow-up is usually the most valuable line in the record.

  • What a real service adds

    A real service desk works within agreed response targets, knows your environment and its history, and spots patterns across incidents. These five examples are fictional and simplified; none describes a real client.

Discuss managed IT support with exQ.

The Lab shows the principles. Your environment, requirements and priorities decide the answer, so tell us about them. We reply to every enquiry within one business day.

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