Once upon a time, if an end user had a computer-related issue, IT support had to leave their desk and pay a visit to the end user. That end user might be located in the office next door, in a neighboring building, or in a town 300 km away. Therefore, for distant remote locations, the common solution was to have on-site technicians to provide support. With time, technology \u2013 and more importantly, communication technology \u2013 advanced, so instead of providing support in person, we could use a remote desktop connection to troubleshoot a great proportion of issues end users may experience, which consequently diminished the need for on-site support personnel.<\/p>\n
This advancement is most visible within the Service Desk organization, as the first line of support, which is described in my previous article ITIL Service Desk types<\/a>. With the abovementioned example of technology advancement, IT organizations achieved better response times, decreased time to resolve issues, and increased service quality in general. Does this mean that automation is the Holy Grail of Service Management?<\/p>\n After that first step in service support automation, IT technicians discovered that the majority of issues end users were reporting were somewhat password related. At that time, best practice for complex passwords and password-related policies was introduced (e.g., password had to be changed once a month, must contain uppercase letter, number and special character, etc.). Users kept forgetting their passwords, mistyping the password and getting locked out of the computer, or simply couldn\u2019t find the right combination that would fit within all constraints.Service automation in retrospect<\/h2>\n
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