Using Project as a Help Desk

[DonovanL]

We're thinking about using Project 2007 Server for our project-based work.
However, we also do support-based work via a Help Desk site that we built
internally. We're trying to find out if we could use Project 2007 Server for
the support-based work and for the Help Desk.

Does anyone have any experience doing this? Any info you can share would be
helpful to us.

 

[Mike Glen]

Hi Donovan,

Try posting on the server newsgroup. Please see FAQ Item: 24. Project
Newsgroups. FAQs, companion products and other useful Project information
can be seen at this web address: http://project.mvps.org/faqs.htm

Mike Glen
Project MVP

 

[Andrew Lavinsky]

I've played w/ that concept, and decided it was a bad idea for a number of
reasons. If you're seriously looking at a Help Desk, I would strongly recommend
getting an intro to ITIL Service Operations, specifically Incident and Problem
Management. After doing that, you'll realize a need for a relational database
underpinning your Help Desk.

I have toyed w/ creating a simple relational database using Access and SharePoint,
and that might be feasible, but using Project Server itself for this purpose
would not be a great idea - too much work to get a square peg to fit in a
round hole.

-A

 

[DonovanL]

Thanks for your response. We could simply setup a Help Desk using a
SharePoint template. However, we're trying to avoid creating a new billing
mechanism. We already plan to use Solomon (Dynamics SL) to link with Proect
2007 & use that for billing purposes. If we could also setup some kind of
help desk using Project 2007, it would be simple to use Solomon as the
billing tool for that as well.

 

[Rod Gill]

Might sound attractive, but the cost of training and maintaining Project as
a help desk solution would far exceed the cost of a new billing system or
interface. If you are a small organization create a new system in Access, if
not, buy a Help desk solution.

Look at the cost of buying and implementing AND the cost of not doing it.

--

Rod Gill
Microsoft MVP for Project

Author of the only book on Project VBA, see:
http://www.projectvbabook.com

 

[Andrew]

The SharePoint template is possibly good as a Proof of Concept - and even
then, it's not very good. I would never use it for production.

If you're small enough, Access would be a much better option. I agree w/
Rod.

There's also a couple of Open Source solutions I believe - although the
names escape me right now.

-A

 

[Andrew]

I'd also recommend you call up the guys at TimeControl
(http://www.timecontrol.com/). They do a lot of work in this area, and might
be able to help you out.

-A