Computer Support for Small Businesses
Co-managed Help Desk Solutions
Progent's Co-managed Service Desk
Progent's Co-managed Service Desk enables your information technology team to split activity for Service Desk support seamlessly between your in-house support staff and Progent's extensive roster of IT support technicians, engineers and subject matter experts. Progent's Co-managed Help Desk service is a joint IT service solution based on ConnectWise Manage, the industry-leading Professional Services Automation (PSA) tool for administering IT service requests, issuing tickets, designating responsibility, tracking progress, and producing management analytics. The cost for Level 1 IT support for Progent's Shared Help Desk service is typically below $18 per user per month.
Progent's Co-managed Service Desk offers a seamless extension of your internal network support group. End user access to the Help Desk, delivery of technical assistance, issue escalation, trouble ticket creation and updates, performance measurement, and maintenance of the support database are cohesive whether incidents are taken care of by your in-house support group, by Progent, or a mix of the two. All client service calls are triaged as Level 1, 2 or 3 issues. Progent focuses on whatever support level or levels you assign (typically Level 1 and Level 3). Initial support requests are assigned either to your internal network support organization or to Progent's Technical Response Center (TRC), depending on your requirements. Level 2 or Level 3 tickets can be escalated to Progent's Experts Team of subject matter experts (SMEs). The escalation procedure is transparent to your end users. Your business has complete flexibility to extend or shrink your part of technical support work as needed. Progent provides initial installation and onboarding of the professional services automation software as well as documentation, testing and education.
Progent's Technical Response Center (TRC)
Progent's Technical Response Center has been delivering remote IT support for over two decades and serves active customers in each state in the U.S. (refer to Progent's customer testimonials.) The Technical Response Center maintains the team of certified desktop experts who can handle Level 1 trouble tickets, which make up the majority of Service Desk support calls. The Technical Response Center, like Progent's Experts Team, uses the ConnectWise Manage professional services automation (PSA) platform to automate ticketing, tracking, responsibility delegation, problem escalation and reporting. This prevents tickets from being overlooked and gives clients continual understanding about all services delivered. Progent's Technical Response Center is committed to 90% in-person answer rate and enables Progent's Co-managed Service Desk Services to include a 60-minute service-level agreement. Support times are 5am to 7pm PST on standard work days. Extended support hours and on-premises service are available at extra cost. To learn more about the Technical Response Center, visit Progent's TRC Customer Commitment.
Definition of Service Levels
Progent offers three distinct levels of remote technical support, which correspond to industry-standard Tier 1 to Tier 3 support. You can choose which service levels will be provided wholly or in part by Progent and your internal staff. The size and knowledge of Progent's roster of SMEs allows fast and efficient ticket escalation and makes it possible to count on Progent as a one-stop source for most support issues at any Tier. Also, Progent's provision of knowledge transfer permits key service problems to move from higher to lower levels as solution techniques become recorded and normalized so they can be performed by less knowledgeable and less expensive service personnel.
Support levels are defined as:
- Level 1 Support: Filters Help Desk requests and provides basic technical support and troubleshooting, such as password resets, printer configurations, break/fix procedures, ticket assignment and escalation to Level 2 and Level 3 support. A Level 1 tech gathers and analyzes information about the user's issue and determines the best way to resolve the problem. Level 1 support can also include support for identified Level 2 and 3 problems where mitigation solutions have already been recorded.
- Level 2 Support: Generally addresses break/fix, setup issues, debugging, application or OS installations, and hardware fixes including onsite repair or orchestrating depot services. Level 2 support involves promoted issues that Level 1 support is not equipped to handle. Level support can sometimes escalate to Level 3, depending on the issue and the manner the Help Desk is structured.
- Level 3 Support: Troubleshooting, configuration, DBA, and migrations for server, cloud integration, email, collaboration, and various integration problems. In addition to having the capability to find solutions to novel problems, a Level 3 engineer typically has the most real-world experience.
A typical example of a trouble ticket lifecycle is the situation where you want Progent's TRC to triage all support requests. In this case, Progent may be tasked with working directly with all the Level 1 desktop issues your clients report. Progent can forward the remaining support requests to your in-house support team. Your in-house network support team would take on the Level 2 problems they have the knowledge and availability to resolve and escalate any residual requests to Progent's Level 3 Experts Team.
This particular deployment of Progent's Co-managed Help Desk Service has a 4-phase ticket lifecycle:
- Your employees enter requests for support via the browser-based service portal, a dedicated phone number, or simply by sending a message to a designated mailbox. This automatically launches an open request in the trouble ticket system.
- Progent's Technical Response Center receives the trouble ticket request and decides whether it will be handles or forwarded to your internal Service Desk.
- Your Service Desk gets the promoted trouble ticket request and decides the appropriate way to resolve the problem. If necessary, your Service Desk can in turn forward the trouble ticket request back to Progent for assignment to Progent's Experts Team.
- Progent receives the revised ticket request, identifies the best suited SME from the Experts Team, and assigns the chosen SME to work with your IT group until the issue is fixed or closed.
Highlights of Progent's Service Desk
Top aspects of Progent's Co-managed Help Desk offerings are:
- Pooled desktop support from Progent's Technical Response Center team
- Desktop remote support available 5 days a week, 5am-7pm PST, One-hour SLA
- Special per-hour rate with one-minute granularity for Tier 1 desktop support for clients
- Typical price of Level 1 support is around $18 per user monthly
- Level 2 and Level 3 help from Progent subject matter expert available on request at Progent's standard consulting fees
- De-escalation permits issues that at first require Level 2 or Level 3 support to drop to a lower, less expensive Tier after solutions are documented
- StreamlineIT provides a full implementation of ConnectWise Manage PSA software with multi-tenant security
Progent's Shared Service Desk support program is designed to offer a flexible, co-operative call desk system for mid-size organizations. Specifics of this service offering, with Progent responsible for Level 1 support, include:
- Available only in the United States and US territories
- Initial startup charge based on complexity of the solution
- Starting the first day, you are assigned by Progent a Technical Resource Center (TRC) Coordinator and a TRC Service Lead to resource, appoint and communicate with your service group and your clients. Progent's TRC Service Lead will work closely with you to create a What Goes Where document to help transparently escalate to your team or de-escalate back to Progent's support engineers.
- Live Answer of incoming support calls to Progent Technical Response Center (TRC) with a target of 90% Live Answer of all requests
- After determining if server or networking assistance is required, some service calls will be passed to Level 2 or Level 3 support
- All assistance requiring Level 2 or Level 3 service will be handled by a Progent SME pending your authorization
- 1 hour SLA for Level 1 desktop support in most cases
- Level 1 Service is for users and covers Windows-based computers and Apple devices
- Progent Level 2 or 3 support will be charged at regular hourly consulting prices
- Progent will provide resources - Technical Response Center desktop engineers during standard hours, Level 2 and Level 3 as required
- Progent will dedicate a phone number and email mailbox for incoming support requests
- Free Remote Control app with screen sharing for efficient IT support
- Free ProSight IT Asset Management solution for professional network documentation management
- All Level 1 remote support is charged at a special hourly rate with per-minute granularity
- All Level 1 support will be done remotely, no on-premises support included
- All on-premises support is invoiced at standard consulting rates
- All on-premises work will have an added fixed fee as well as any documented travel expenses
- All travel expense projections will be provided and require customer agreement before support services or travel will be undertaken
- Contracted projects and separate Statements of Work will have their own estimates and fees defined and will be undertaken only following authorization by client
Progent's phased onboarding process allows your organization to move smoothly to a co-managed Help Desk and a modern ticketing and reporting system. Major steps in the deployment procedure for Progent's Co-managed Help Desk Service include:
Initial Phase
- Create your personalized Help Desk experience, setting up your in-house team, locations, and client data
- Progent's consultants will work with your service group to analyze current inbound support calls
- Configure your incoming support request system to incorporate a mailbox, software agents, and a dedicated telephone number
- Progent provides trouble ticket management training for your company's support team
- Work together to define core workflow and ticket escalation procedures
- Add all your teams and assets that will provide support
- Create the introduction description and selling of the new Call Desk solution
- Designate a defined location or small groups to onboard first
- Integrate more users into the system at a workable pace
- Study reports and system setup for efficient data and processes
- Create additional reports or fields needed to improve the detection or tracking of frequently seen issues
- Surface key information that might allow a better success percentage for Level 1 support calls
- All clients have been introduced to the support system and can connect to it
- All relevant user and equipment data is entered into the service system
- You can transfer and administer tickets transparently between your in-house team and Progent
- You can monitor support performance and trends
Progent's Co-managed Service Desk offers a range of benefits that allow businesses to give users fast and successful IT support services while simultaneously cutting costs and relieving management burden. Benefits of Progent's Shared Help Desk services include:
- Retain complete control over your IT service requests: you choose what tickets are forwarded to Progent's service desk or taken care of by your in-house service staff.
- Quick availability of supplemental IT support professionals when and if you require them: Progent's professional services PSA software automatically routes in-house tickets or permits you manually forward to Progent's TRC.
- Productivity: Progent's consultants will review your current incoming service requests and identify additional data that would allow a higher resolution rate for common Level 1 issues. Progent's IT support experts can also assist you with tag management to speed up solutions.
- Transparency: Progent's Co-managed Service Desk works as a virtual extension of your in-house Help Desk with centralized ticketing and documentation so no ticket falls between the seams.
- Contented employees: Users are able to follow the status of their IT service calls quickly and conveniently.
- Management analytics: You have the measurements, accountability, and performance monitoring of an advanced PSA platform to help you to build a custom Help Desk environment that delivers top business value.
- Focus on your core business initiatives, not IT support calls and disgruntled workers: Your network management personnel escape being saddled with trying to manage common support calls.
Though supporting your own fully-staffed in-house IT services group can be expensive from the cost perspective, many businesses opt for that strategy since it provides greater control over their network management. Yet did you know that your organization can continue to leverage the advantages of a managed services firm using the co-managed network support model. Adopting the shared services model allows you to stay in command over your network infrastructure while reinforcing your internal network support group easily and economically.
For more information, read our white paper: Is co-managed IT a good idea? (PDF - 632 KB).
Download Progent's Co-managed Service Desk Datasheet
To download a one-page datasheet in PDF format describing Progent's Co-managed Service Desk, see:
Progent's Co-managed Service Desk Datasheet. (PDF - 108 KB)
Progent's ProSight Line of Managed Services
Progent has developed the ProSight suite of remote monitoring and management (RMM) services to streamline critical processes related to IT administration, cybersecurity and maintenance. These services can be integrated with Progent's Shared Call Desk service by deploying agent software on computers to be tracked and managed. Notifications generated by these agents can be routed automatically to Progent's Technical Response Center, processed via the ticketing and monitoring platform, and categorized for Level 1, 2 or 3 support.
Examples of ProSight Remote Monitoring and Management services include:
- ProSight LAN Watch: Network, Server, and Endpoint Remote Monitoring
ProSight LAN Watch is Progent's network, server, and endpoint monitoring managed service that uses advanced remote monitoring and management technology to keep your IT system operating at peak levels by tracking the health of vital assets that drive your information system. When ProSight LAN Watch detects an issue, an alert is sent automatically to your specified IT management personnel and your Progent consultant so any looming problems can be addressed before they have a chance to disrupt your network. ProSight LAN Watch is National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) compliant. Find out more details about ProSight LAN Watch network, server, and endpoint remote monitoring consulting.
- ProSight LAN Watch with NinjaOne RMM: Centralized RMM for Networks, Servers, and Desktops
ProSight LAN Watch with NinjaOne RMM software delivers a unified, cloud-driven solution for managing your network, server, and desktop devices by offering tools for streamlining common tedious tasks. These include health checking, patch management, automated repairs, endpoint setup, backup and recovery, anti-virus protection, remote access, built-in and custom scripts, asset inventory, endpoint profile reports, and debugging assistance. When ProSight LAN Watch with NinjaOne RMM uncovers a serious problem, it transmits an alarm to your designated IT management staff and your Progent technical consultant so that potential problems can be fixed before they impact productivity. Find out more details about ProSight LAN Watch with NinjaOne RMM server and desktop remote monitoring services.
- ProSight WAN Watch: Network Infrastructure Management
Progent's ProSight WAN Watch is an infrastructure monitoring and management service that makes it easy and affordable for small and mid-sized businesses to map out, monitor, enhance and troubleshoot their networking appliances such as routers and switches, firewalls, and wireless controllers plus servers, client computers and other devices. Using cutting-edge Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) technology, ProSight WAN Watch ensures that infrastructure topology maps are kept current, captures and displays the configuration information of almost all devices on your network, tracks performance, and generates notices when potential issues are detected. By automating tedious management activities, ProSight WAN Watch can knock hours off common tasks such as making network diagrams, expanding your network, finding appliances that require important software patches, or isolating performance bottlenecks. Find out more about ProSight WAN Watch network infrastructure management services.
- ProSight Reporting: Real-time Reporting for Ticketing and Network Monitoring Platforms
ProSight Reporting is a growing family of real-time reporting plug-ins created to integrate with the leading ticketing and remote network monitoring platforms including ConnectWise Manage, ConnectWise Automate, Customer Thermometer, Auvik, and SentinelOne. ProSight Reporting incorporates Microsoft Graph and features color coding to surface and contextualize key issues such as spotty support follow-through or endpoints with missing patches. By identifying ticketing or network health concerns concisely and in near-real time, ProSight Reporting enhances productivity, lowers management hassle, and saves money. For details, see ProSight Reporting for ticketing and network monitoring platforms.
- ProSight Data Protection Services: Managed Backup and Disaster Recovery
Progent has partnered with leading backup product vendors to create ProSight Data Protection Services (DPS), a family of management offerings that provide backup-as-a-service. ProSight DPS services manage and track your data backup processes and allow transparent backup and fast recovery of important files, applications, system images, plus VMs. ProSight DPS helps your business protect against data loss resulting from equipment breakdown, natural disasters, fire, malware like ransomware, user mistakes, malicious insiders, or application bugs. Managed services in the ProSight DPS portfolio include ProSight DPS Altaro VM Backup, ProSight 365 Total Backup (formerly Altaro Office 365 Backup, ProSight ECHO Backup using Barracuda purpose-built storage, and ProSight DPS MSP360 Hybrid Backup. Your Progent expert can assist you to identify which of these managed services are best suited for your network.
- ProSight Email Guard: Inbound and Outbound Spam Filtering and Data Leakage Protection
ProSight Email Guard is Progent's spam and virus filtering and email encryption service that uses the infrastructure of top information security companies to deliver web-based management and comprehensive protection for your inbound and outbound email. The hybrid structure of Progent's Email Guard combines cloud-based filtering with an on-premises gateway appliance to provide advanced protection against spam, viruses, Dos Attacks, Directory Harvest Attacks (DHAs), and other email-borne threats. The cloud filter serves as a preliminary barricade and blocks most threats from making it to your network firewall. This decreases your exposure to external attacks and conserves network bandwidth and storage space. Email Guard's on-premises security gateway appliance adds a deeper level of analysis for inbound email. For outbound email, the onsite gateway offers anti-virus and anti-spam filtering, policy-based Data Loss Prevention, and email encryption. The onsite gateway can also assist Exchange Server to monitor and protect internal email traffic that originates and ends within your corporate firewall. For more details, see ProSight Email Guard spam filtering and data leakage protection.
- ProSight Multi-Factor Authentication with Cisco Duo: ID Confirmation, Endpoint Remediation, and Secure Single Sign-on
Progent's Duo MFA service plans incorporate Cisco's Duo cloud technology to defend against password theft by using two-factor authentication (2FA). Duo supports single-tap identity confirmation on iOS, Google Android, and other personal devices. Using 2FA, when you sign into a protected application and give your password you are asked to confirm your identity on a unit that only you have and that uses a separate network channel. A wide range of out-of-band devices can be utilized as this second means of authentication such as an iPhone or Android or wearable, a hardware token, a landline phone, etc. You can register several validation devices. To find out more about Duo two-factor identity validation services, go to Cisco Duo MFA two-factor authentication services.
- ProSight Co-Managed Help Desk: Outsourced and Shared Help Desk Services
Progent's Co-managed Service Desk offers a transparent extension of your internal IT support group. User access to the Help Desk, provision of technical assistance, issue escalation, ticket generation and updates, performance measurement, and maintenance of the service database are consistent whether incidents are taken care of by your internal network support group, by Progent's team, or a mix of the two. Your business has unrestricted versatility to extend or reduce your share of support activity as required. Progent provides initial installation and provisioning of the professional services PSA software plus documentation, validation and education. To find out more about ProSight Co-Managed Help Desk, see ProSight Shared Help Desk.
- ProSight Active Security Monitoring (ASM): AI-based Threat Scanning and Ransomware Protection:
ProSight Active Security Monitoring (ASM) is an endpoint protection (EPP) solution that utilizes next generation behavior analysis tools from SentinelOne to defend physical and virtual endpoints against modern malware attacks like ransomware and file-less exploits, which easily evade traditional signature-based anti-virus tools. ProSight Active Security Monitoring safeguards on-premises and cloud-based resources and offers a single platform to address the entire threat lifecycle including blocking, detection, containment, cleanup, and post-attack forensics. Top capabilities include single-click rollback using Windows Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) and real-time system-wide immunization against newly discovered attacks. Progent is a SentinelOne Partner, reseller, and integrator. Read more about Progent's ProSight Active Security Monitoring (ASM) next-generation endpoint protection and ransomware recovery with SentinelOne technology.
- Patch Management: Software/Firmware Update Management Services:
Progent's managed services for patch management offer organizations of any size a versatile and affordable solution for evaluating, validating, scheduling, implementing, and documenting software and firmware updates to your ever-evolving information system. Besides optimizing the security and reliability of your computer network, Progent's patch management services permit your in-house IT staff to concentrate on line-of-business projects and activities that deliver the highest business value from your information network. Read more about Progent's patch management support services.
As a Microsoft AI Cloud Partner, Progent offers your users fast and convenient access to a proven Service Desk group ready to deliver IT support. Progent has decades of experience providing remote support for networks built on Microsoft products. Progent's emphasis is on giving the Help Desk a positive image as a valuable factor in your company's success. Progent tries to fix rather than merely monitor problems, and Progent's target for long-term customers is to fix 80% or more of Call Desk issues on the first call. First-call resolution is an important factor in lowering Service Desk expenses, enhancing the image of the IT staff in general and the Service Desk in particular, and raising end-user efficiency.
How to Get Started with Progent's Co-managed Network Helpdesk Services
To learn additional information about Progent's Shared IT Help Desk Services, phone
An index of content::
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Exchange 2003 Server Upgrade Consultants
Exchange 2003 Server Upgrade Computer Consultants
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Network Consultant Meraki
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Advantages of IT Outsourcing White Papers
IT Outsourcing Best Practices White Paper
Progent's IT outsourcing packages provide economical network support for mid-size companies. Whether it includes designing network infrastructure, setting up an in-house Help Desk or using an outside one, rolling out an updated e-mail system, monitoring your network, or creating a web-based eCommerce application, outsourcing your IT engineering services can smooth out expenses and minimize risks, allowing IT support expenses to increase in a more moderate and manageable fashion than is feasible by amassing a bulky, knowledgeable internal IT staff. Progent's Outsourcing White Paper and datasheets explain how Progent can enable you to create a secure and robust network foundation for your critical Windows-based business software including Windows 2008, Exchange Server 2007, and SQL Server.
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