Today's Help Desk: Providing "Hands-On" Support Remotely

In this article, find out how Remote Services Management (R.S.M.) can link your users to remote support professionals, giving them ready access to help when they need it. The article describes R.S.M.'s features and shows how it can help your company save valuable time and money.

By Philippe-Charles Krug-Basse

'Remote Services Management (R.S.M.) links your users to remote support professionals to give them ready access to help when they need it. This article describes R.S.M.'s features and shows how it can help your company save valuable time and money.' 

In a perfect world, each user would have a full-time support expert in the office next door, ready at a moment's notice to come over and help solve a problem, explain how to use a new software package, or install the latest upgrade. No office would be too remote for on-the-spot assistance.

But the world isn't perfect, and in spite of our best efforts to provide online tutorials, help text, CD-ROM training courses, and books for "dummies," some people and some situations require immediate, hands-on support. If it isn't available, work stops until someone can help.

International Software Solutions specializes in end-user support--particularly in ways to provide it more quickly and cost-effectively. Our "expert next door" approach uses network and communication lines to link users with their help desks in a way that makes expert support close at hand. Our OS/2-based software solution, achieved after years of experience with hundreds of thousands of users, not only delivers hands-on support, but also enables everyday tasks such as automatic software distribution, data collection, and other administrative and maintenance functions.

This innovative approach is now available to OS/2 Warp 4 users.

Our product has been known by various names. Called PolyPM/2 in the early days of OS/2, it later became Remote Services Management (R.S.M.). In the OS/2 Warp 4 release, it is named Remote Support for OS/2 (RS/2). But our approach has always remained the same: Allow a remote expert to give a user direct, online assistance by linking their computers. The help desk, or manager workstation, can reproduce the user (or client) screen, capture its keyboard, send and receive files, and communicate using on-screen drawings, chat sessions, and even voice messages.

An Example
Here's how it works. Let's say your company's help desk gets a call from a user in trouble. Since all authorized users are registered in R.S.M.'s client database, remote access can begin immediately. As the user reproduces the actions that caused the failure, a support person watches the session from an R.S.M. manager workstation. The support person suggests alternate sequences and circles selections on the user's menu screen to guide the process.

The support person then looks at the client workstation's directory and determines that the user's software package is a down-level version.

A listing of the configuration file (CONFIG.SYS) shows that it is also incorrect. Using the client's clipboard, the support person modifies the CONFIG.SYS file and saves it to the user's hard disk. A replacement .INI file from the software package is also transferred to the client to replace a corrupted copy. The user's workstation is remotely rebooted, and the CONFIG.SYS file change takes effect.

After verifying that the problem has been fixed, the help desk schedules an automatic overnight update of the full software package and documents the session in the client's journal.

Mission accomplished!

Multiple Platforms and Versions
While R.S.M.'s manager workstation runs on OS/2 Warp, the client workstations can run on any of several popular platforms: OS/2 1.X, OS/2 2.X, OS/2 Warp, OS/2 Warp 4, DOS, Windows 3.1, Windows 95, and Windows NT. Three editions of R.S.M. are available to meet all needs and budgets: R.S.M. Lite, Advanced, and Professional.

Lite provides basic manager and client functions. Advanced includes the gateway support, and Professional includes the Programming Script Language for unattended sessions.

The OS/2 Warp 4 version, included with the BonusPak CD-ROM bundled with OS/2 Warp 4, provides Client support for every OS/2 user, allowing an IBM support person to access a workstation for troubleshooting and software updates.

Performance
You're probably wondering what kind of performance to expect from a remote session. A demo of R.S.M. will surprise you. A networked manager client session is only a little slower than a dedicated machine. Over a telephone line the screen transfer rate depends on the modem speed, but is still faster than downloading a typical Internet Web page on the same system.

We've done several things to maximize R.S.M.'s performance. The client desktop and other graphical objects are saved to cache memory and to R.S.M.'s own swapper file to enable a manager to "learn" a client's screens and eliminate unnecessary client-to-manager screen transfers. To further increase a session's speed, you can reduce the number of colors on the client's remote screen or set them to monochrome.

To reduce transfer time, R.S.M. compresses files. Good display performance and compressed files mean not only shorter help desk sessions, but also lower long-distance connect charges.

Automatic Operation
Through its Programming Script Language, R.S.M. performs a variety of offline batch operations such as scheduled backups, database updates, software installations, and file transfers. In addition, automatic data collection can be done periodically. For example, one of our customers, the Total Oil Company, uses R.S.M. to poll its 450 convenience store/service stations each night for the day's transactions. And once a week an updated database of products and prices is uploaded overnight to each station.

Connectivity
R.S.M. currently serves more than 300,000 licensed users worldwide in companies of all sizes--from the largest corporations to the smallest businesses, including home users. To support such a diverse customer set, we've implemented all of the common communication protocols, including serial cables (null modem), asynchronous modems, NetBIOS, TCP/IP, IPX/SPX, Native X.25 and ISDN, CAPI, and APPC/APPN. Our gateway support, another cost-saver, enables multiple clients to be supported through a single network workstation.

We haven't limited our support to attended, end-user clients, either. Nor have we restricted our features solely to the help desk environment. Many IS managers and network administrators use R.S.M. to remotely manage client workstations. For example, an unattended Lotus Notes Server loaded with the R.S.M. client software can be remotely tuned.

R.S.M. can be used to support remote access in other ways. While at home or on the road, R.S.M. gives an end user full, remote access to business software, data, networks, and communication services on an office workstation. This setup means lower-cost laptop configurations, since an office workstation's hardware and software doesn't have to be duplicated on a laptop (or home) PC for the user to have the same full range of applications available at the office.

Security and Client Management
R.S.M.'s security features prevent unauthorized access of a client or manager workstation. Security-conscious customers have installed R.S.M. on thousands of workstations. A full set of controls such as mandatory call-backs, multiple ID levels, protected data files, programs, directories and disks, data encryption, and audit trails are available to protect and document every event.

The hierarchical client database simplifies supporting user workstations in a large corporation. Clients can be listed in a logical arrangement, such as by department within division within company.

OS/2 Warp 4
IBM selected R.S.M. for Warp 4 after an exhaustive review of competing products. ISS custom designed the R.S.M. client for OS/2 Warp 4 to link users with IBM's help desk services. Even if an OS/2 Warp 4 client workstation gets corrupted so that the operating system won't start, the user can insert the RS/2 diskette, load the client program directly, and connect to the IBM help desk.

When your end users have Remote Support for OS/2, the "expert next door" is only a phone call away. For more information about Remote Services Management, contact International Software Solution's North American sales office by phone (888) ISS-2YOU, fax (407) 820-0804.