Enterprise software helps the enterprise

A while back I worked at a large enterprise. They had a number of enterprise-class systems, but one system was, in my mind, less than enterprise class.

The system in question supported their internal help desk. This was the team that supported everyone else in the company. They installed PCs and administered the network and its shared resources (file servers and printers, mainly).

To manage requests for assistance, the support team used a trouble-ticket system. Individuals could visit an internal web site to submit requests for assistance.

Their trouble-ticket system was probably sold as an enterprise solution. I also suspect that it had a large price tag (a requirement for enterprise-class software) and a complex contract (also a requirement for enterprise-class software).

The ticket system was designed for the support team. New requests could be evaluated, prioritized, and assigned to team members. The system allowed for time estimates for each request and balanced the workload among team members. It had lots of query and reporting options.

But this trouble-ticket system was not an enterprise-class system -- at least not in my opinion. Let me explain.

The trouble-ticket system was not merely designed for the support team, it was optimized for it. But it was poorly designed for the people who submitted requests.

A person could submit a request. The request was a semi-complicated form which needed a login, then the submitter (name, department, phone number, and mail stop), and finally a description of the problem (problem type, text description, and priority). Once a request was submitted, the system provided a ticket number, a ten-digit code.

Here's where the system lost its enterprise status.

The ten-digit code was the only way to check on the status of a request. There was no way to log in to the system and say "show me all of my open requests". To check on a request, you had to have the ticket number. To check on multiple requests, you had to have the ticket numbers for each request.

The effect was to push work onto other people in the organization. People had to record their ticket numbers. (The system did not even send an e-mail; it only displayed the ticket number on a web page.) recording ticket numbers was a small amount of work, but not zero.

It's not hard to design systems to allow users to log in and see the status of their requests. But this was apparently too much work for the designers of this trouble-ticket system.

True enterprise-class systems work for the entire enterprise. They reduce work all around, or if they must push work from one group to another, it is minimal and necessary.

Systems that push work from one group to another for no good reason are not enterprise-class systems. They may be sold as enterprise-class solutions, they may have expensive price tags, and they may have complicated contracts, but those attributes do not make for enterprise-class software.

Enterprise-class software helps not individual teams or groups but the enterprise become efficient and effective.