Friday, November 20, 2009

Truth or Myth? Password Resets are #1

In a discussion at lunch today I suggested the #1 call to a help desk is about passwords. Notes ID, Windows logins, FTP sites, Web usage for Sametime as an example, VPN login, Mobile devices, Voice Mail etc..

If you manage an infrastructure or are an admin in an organization or a help desk member or a manager who has dashboards for Remedy or Paradigm or whatever help desk solution, can you please comment?

So have an opinion? Is it #2? And if you have the metrics, how long does it take to make the change for the person? Keep in mind:

Time to call
Get user ID/info
Discuss problem
Login to the system or find the user
Find the ID(or start the process)
Complete the process
Have user test it(when applicable)
Hang up
Enter the details in the Help Desk system

I put it at about 5 minutes per call.

What do you think?

2 comments:

  1. I beleive that this is a Truth, particularly when Adminsitrators have configured AD to force a change of password every 3 months and end users tick the box to remember their password.

    Then when the users are prompted to change their password in 3 months, they can't remember or find what their old password is and therefore call the helpdesk to reset the password for them.

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  2. How much of a burden you have with password reset depends closely on how tight your password reset policy is.

    My biggest source of calls is "e-mail not being received". Causes are things like Blackberry out of data coverage, Notes set to wrong location, hotel/public network blocking Notes ports, no valid Internet connection.

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