Ministry of Labor - How we helped the IT team become superheroes

IT service as a team of superheroes

4,200 users in 153 legal entities in more than 250 locations - the IT team successfully supports them all using the custom built Help Desk solutions which we created based on the requirements and needs of the Ministry of Labour, Pension System, Family and Social Policy.

When problems are solved quickly, promptly and efficiently, the IT team become superheroes in the eyes of users 😊

From TV series to reality

"Have you tried turning it off and on again?" - so goes the legendary quote from the British comedy series "IT Crowd". The heroes of the series are "IT people" who provide technical support to colleagues from the company. This is how they answer their support phone before even hearing the user's question.

In the real world, outside of TV series, the smooth operation of the IT system is necessary for every organization, whether it's a private company or a public sector organization. Computers and digital solutions have long been a part of our everyday work and we are used to them working well and properly.

Work stoppages, whether caused by problems with a personal computer, printer, network or any other reason, cause stress and frustration among end users, who rely on the IT support team for solutions. That's why it's really important that the IT team has a system for managing and resolving technical issues that works flawlessly. When problems are solved quickly, promptly and efficiently, the IT team become superheroes in the eyes of users 😊

Good IT support is necessary in every organization
Complex user organization

The Croatian Ministry of Labour, Pension System, Family and Social Policy, along with the institutions and organizations founded by the Ministry, is a complex network of 153 legal entities, in more than 250 locations with a total of about 4,200 users of the system. If a major or minor problem occurs in the operation of the system, if an application fails, if the computer "freezes", if the printer fails - users will contact the IT support team. They can reach out in different ways - phone, email or through the Help Desk application itself.

Every request and call for support must, of course, be resolved as soon as possible. However, they are not all of the same importance, urgency and complexity. The IT team needs to record and categorize them, assigning a certain level of urgency and, of course, resolve them. In order to better respond to user requests, the team uses the IT Help Desk solution that we developed based on the requests and needs of the client.

The first phase of the project, as always, was a series of workshops where our consultants, together with key user representatives, defined the technical requirements and shaped them into a Functional Specification - the basic technical document that our development team relies on in the development of the solution. This was not the first time that the user received an application for this purpose. In the previous phase, a system based on Microsoft SharePoint was used, but it turned out that a better solution required a custom approach, that is, software fully adapted to user requirements without using a "standardized" platform such as SharePoint.

Application in test work
Results and business benefits

The result is, ultimately, very simple - better, faster and more efficient work of the IT support team, and therefore all 4,200 end users in the system. It sounds simple, but you know how it is with infrastructure - you only realize how important it is when something gets stuck. Just think of home installations, plumbing, air conditioning or electricity.

The Ministry of Labour, Pension System, Family and Social Policy now has a superior solution on which its IT department can safely rely. This does not mean, however, that they should not sometimes ask their users in the real world: "Have you tried turning it off and on again?"