McKinsey cites “Manual ticketing workflows” as a key factor holding back legacy IT infrastructure.
But pairing Microsoft Power Automate Workflows with DeskDirector’s ticketing system enables organizations to automate a vast range of workflows - saving a considerable amount of time and manual effort.
This is not just about improving the ticketing processes itself; it helps the entire organization operate more efficiently, improve customer relations and build confidence in IT systems.
Here are 5 of the most impactful workflows to automate using our power automate premium connector:
When a new hire joins the team, they need to be introduced to the IT system. Their permissions need to be set, and they need to be given sign-ins for various platforms and tools. Equally, when an employee leaves the company, their accounts need to be removed for security reasons.
The traditional onboarding process involves a great deal of back-and-forth between IT personnel and department leaders. Even when tickets are issued manually, they are often not received by the correct technician or passed along efficiently - leaving the new employee waiting around to start work.
With Power Automate and DeskDirector, the new employee’s manager creates an onboarding ticket and technicians are immediately altered in their Microsoft Teams environment.
The process is then automated: the ticket is assigned to the appropriate technician; a task list is appended to the ticket; and the approvals required at each stage of onboarding are routed - all automatically.
Automation ensures the onboarding process is standardized and optimized, to create a seamless experience for the new hire. Tickets are also resolved 4x faster due to the decreased number of touch points, and end-user satisfaction is increased by an average of 20%.
When a ticket is issued, it needs to be approved by a specific person to progress to the next stage. However, if the appropriate party isn’t altered to the ticket - or simply misses it because they are too busy - the entire process stalls, and the original issue is not resolved quickly enough.
Automating approvals has two parts: routing and reminders. When the ticket is issued, Power Automate automatically attaches the relevant parties to the ticket so that their approvals are sought. This contains a “due date”, after which they will receive reminders - ensuring that they don’t simply forget about the ticket. Similarly, you can create escalation rules so that supervisors are alerted if a ticket approval stalls for too long.
The same process is followed through each stage of the ticket lifecycle so that the ticket moves to the next relevant party without any manual action.
Manual approvals are rife with human-error and lack standardization. As a result, approvals often take far too long and create friction between teams and departments - as individuals are forced to chase down the approvals they need.
Using Power Automate approval workflows not only ensures the same process is always followed; it saves a great deal of time and effort, making it easier for every team to receive the support they need.
When a ticket has been dealt with, the original submitter needs to close it. But this is often seen as a low priority task; even if the submitter receives multiple notifications, they may not get around to closing the ticket. This creates a backlog and forces tech personnel to focus on closing tickets - rather than resolving new ones.
Automation in your Microsoft ticketing systems enables automatic ticket closing. Nobody has to manually close the ticket; tickets are simply removed from the queue after a predetermined period.
Automation ensures that tech personnel don’t get overwhelmed with big queues and can give their attention to new tickets. As a result, the entire ticketing system is smoother, and issues are resolved more quickly.
When a large volume of tickets is being produced, it’s important to include extra information so that they are dealt with efficiently. This could be the request type, which company or client the ticket is intended for or any number of other factors.
When a ticket is issued, you can “tag” this information as metadata. A user might, for example, “tag” the Problem Management team and then escalate ticket priority for that team. This will mean the team is alerted to the ticket, sees that it is a high priority - and resolves it more quickly.
Automated tagging simply means that tags are added to specific ticket types automatically when they are submitted.
When tickets are tagged automatically, the entire ticketing process is expedited. Priorities are communicated more easily, issues are dealt with quicker, and all parties save time and effort.
Tickets cannot always be immediately resolved. But without clear communication, the submitter may be left unsure whether their issue has been registered and when they can expect a solution, while the tech personnel dealing with the ticket may not have the information they need.
Status updates create a clear line of communication, so that end-users are notified when the status of a ticket is changed - and what, if any, action is required.
DeskDirector enables you to automate status update notifications. Whenever an end-user changes the status of a ticket, a notification will automatically be sent to the end-user’s desired communication point - which could be through the DeskDirector portal, email or their Microsoft Teams app.
Automated status updates save a lot of time for all parties, as well as reducing the amount of the manual work involved in resolving tickets. It also increases the efficiency of communication and helps tickets get resolved more quickly.
The workflows we’ve covered would be more than enough incentive to use DeskDirector’s power automate premium connector. But there are many more workflows to explore.
Want to learn more about them?