Employee Help Desk System with SharePoint (On-Premise)

SharePoint
January 06, 2025

Employee Help Desk System with SharePoint (On-Premise)

Introduction

SharePoint is a powerful collaboration platform that can be customized to meet various business needs. This blog demonstrates how to build a real-time Employee Help Desk System using SharePoint On-Premise. It includes ticket management, notifications, and a dashboard for monitoring.

1. Understanding the Requirements

Objective: Build a centralized help desk system to manage employee tickets.

Key Features:

Employees can submit tickets through a SharePoint list.
Help desk agents are notified in real-time.
Dashboard to monitor ticket statuses and SLAs.

2. Setting Up SharePoint On-Premise

Prerequisites

SharePoint 2016/2019 On-Premise installed.
SharePoint Designer 2013 for workflows.
Administrative access to SharePoint Central Admin.

Create a Help Desk Site

Open SharePoint Central Administration.
Create a new team site and name it Employee Help Desk.
Configure permissions:
- Employees: Contribute permissions.
- Help Desk Agents: Edit permissions.
- Admins: Full Control.

3. Design the System

Step 1: Create a Ticket Submission List

Navigate to the Help Desk site.
Create a custom list named Tickets with the following columns:
- Title (Single Line Text): Ticket title.
- Description (Multiple Line Text): Detailed description.
- Category (Choice): Issue category (e.g., IT, HR, Finance).
- Priority (Choice): High, Medium, Low.
- Status (Choice): New, In Progress, Resolved, Closed.
- Assigned To (Person/Group): Agent assigned.
- Created By (Default): Auto-populated by SharePoint.
- Created Date (Default): Auto-populated by SharePoint.

Step 2: Configure Notifications with Workflows

Open SharePoint Designer 2013.
Connect to your Help Desk site.
Create a new workflow for the Tickets list:
- Trigger: When a new item is created.
- Action: Send an email notification to the assigned agent.

Example Email Template:

Subject: New Ticket Assigned - {Current Item: Title}

Body:

A new ticket has been assigned to you.

Details:

- Title: {Current Item: Title}

- Description: {Current Item: Description}

- Priority: {Current Item: Priority}

- Assigned By: {Current Item: Created By}

Publish the workflow.

Step 3: Create Views for Real-Time Monitoring

All Tickets View: Displays all tickets with key details.
My Tickets View: Filters tickets by the logged-in user.
Dashboard: Use a combination of views and web parts to summarize:
- Total Tickets.
- Tickets by Status.
- Average Resolution Time.

4. Adding Real-Time Features

Enable Real-Time Notifications

Configure SharePoint Alerts:
- Users can subscribe to alerts for updates on tickets they created or are assigned to.
- Alerts are sent via email or SMS (if configured).
Use PowerShell to automate alert subscriptions for new users:
Add-PSSnapin Microsoft.SharePoint.PowerShell
$web = Get-SPWeb "http://yoursharepointsite"
$list = $web.Lists["Tickets"]
$user = $web.EnsureUser("DOMAIN\\username")
$list.AddAlert($user, "New Tickets")
Implement SignalR for Live Updates (Optional)
1. Deploy a custom web part using SharePoint Framework (SPFx).
2. Use SignalR in the web part to display live updates of ticket changes.
5. Advanced Customization
Integrate with Microsoft Teams (Optional)
1. Create a Microsoft Teams channel for the Help Desk.
2. Use Power Automate to send ticket updates to the Teams channel.
Generate Reports with Power BI
1. Export the Tickets list to Power BI.
2. Create interactive dashboards showing:
  - Ticket trends.
  - Average resolution time by agent.
  - SLA compliance.
6. Testing and Deployment
1. Test the workflows by creating sample tickets.
2. Verify email notifications are sent correctly.
3. Test the dashboard to ensure ticket data is updated in real-time.
7. Presenting to the Client
Key Points to Showcase:
- Ease of Use: Demonstrate how employees can quickly submit tickets and track status.
- Efficiency: Highlight real-time notifications and the dashboard's insights.
- Scalability: Explain how the system can be extended for additional workflows or integrations.

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Employee Help Desk System with SharePoint (On-Premise)