Helpdesk Handbook #1 – Initial Troubleshooting

Hey everyone! Baba here with my first guide/tutorial for the IT world. Today, I thought I’d start with some fundamentals for those new to the field. This is what I consider to be the 7 ESSENTIAL troubleshooting steps for a helpdesk environment. These steps are not set in stone, and every situation will be different. However, I would advise anyone to start with these basic guidelines to help your customers. These can also be good things to keep in mind if you are interviewing for pretty much any IT job in the helpdesk space. You are likely to have technical interviews where they want to see your mental process, and how you approach the situation. Knowing how to properly troubleshoot is useful in nearly all IT jobs.

Without further ado, let’s dive in!

• “Can you describe to me what is happening?”

  • I advise always making a point to get details from your customer in regards to what is happening. “My email isn’t working” vs “inbound emails from my Gmail are being blocked” can give you near instant understanding of what might be wrong. Your customers will not always know what details are important, so it’s key to try and get that information from them.

• “When did this START happening?”

  • This one is a bit more obvious but easy to pass over in a rush. Your customers may not be able to call as soon as the problem happens. Maybe this started 45 minutes ago, when something related was down for maintenance and they are just now calling in. You could very well be working on something that is already resolved and they just haven’t checked since the initial instance.

• “When was the last time it was working properly?”

  • This is another time-frame that is vital to troubleshooting. It could be Monday morning when they are calling and reporting the issue, but it started Friday afternoon just before leaving, and they decided to wait until Monday to report it. You may need to refer to what happened on Friday to find your solution.

• “Are you the only one experiencing this issue, or are there others?”

  • This can very quickly give you an idea of where to place your focus. Just this user? Maybe an issue related to just their account or their computer. The entire site, but not all employees at all sites? Could be network equipment on that site, or any number of site-specific issues. This will also help any escalation points pinpoint their focus as well, should you need to escalate the issue.

• “Does this same issue happen for you on a different computer?”

  • This is more geared for individual users having a problem, but also helps you narrow down the potential cause. If it DOES happen on a different computer, the issue seems more likely to be account-specific. If it DOESN’T, the issue could lie on just that machine. Again, this just helps you find where to focus. The quicker you can find the source of the problem, the quicker you can help fix it.

• “Have you tried ____ already?”

  • This is where you can begin initial fixes. As cliche as it sounds, restarts and “unplugging/plugging back in” works rather frequently. Computers, especially in a corporate environment, are meant to work in a certain state/configuration. If something gets caught up process-wise, or gets stuck, it can interrupt and mess up the natural flow. Every time you reboot, the system goes into a configured state. It can feel like a broken record, but ALWAYS try the “obvious” stuff. The last thing you want is to spend 45 minutes working on something that could have been fixed with a simple reboot.

• “Are you able to work/function while I investigate this?”

  • You ALWAYS want to determine urgency, and how many hands need to be on deck for this issue. This will vary between users/departments/positions in the company. Just because it’s your CEO doesn’t always mean it requires a “red alert” all hands situation, if the issue is something minor and not “mission critical”. But if you have front-line users that cannot do their core duties because of this issue, you want to get on this as soon as possible. This also benefits you in the long run as well. You don’t want to be sweating over a minor issue, when there could be other things at hand that are more important. Helpdesk can be a juggling act, and you always want the most volatile and critical issues to be looked at first.

And that will wrap it up for my list of key troubleshooting steps for any IT job, especially if you are on or interviewing for the helpdesk. The order I put these in is not critical, but is how I approach any situation to best find a solution. If you find it easier to start at a different point, feel free to adapt and adjust these to suit your needs. The mindset that these questions put you in is the important part, not necessarily what order.

If you liked this guide, please feel free to share it with your friends and colleagues. I will be adding more to this series as time goes on, let me know in the comments what kinds of things you’d like to see in the series.

Stay curious! Baba out!