In most time loop films – think Groundhog Day or Palm Springs – when things get quite dark as the characters depression at having to face the same day over and over again becomes too much.
The prospect endlessly repeating the same experiences is a disturbing one – yet something that end user computing (EUC) teams face almost every day. Nearly half (45%) of EUC time is taken up fixing recurring problems, such as employee on-boarding or resetting devices to their proper state.
Moreover, as IT management has become more complex, troubleshooting requires increased amounts of human intervention and decision-making at every step, slowing down the Mean Time to Remediation (MTTR) and creating a frustrating situation for all parties.
Employees have to wait longer to have their problems resolved, EUC teams are stuck doing repetitive, unfulfilling tasks instead of taking on more strategically important projects, and businesses waste substantial amounts of resources merely trying to maintain the status quo.
Chief Product Officer at Nexthink.
It's déjà vu all over again
To break the cycle of repetitive tasks, businesses need to be able to optimize and automate as many of these workflows as possible. Indeed, for the average enterprise, a single automated workflow can save nearly 3,800 hours per year across 100,000 devices.
For instance, when users neglect to install important updates on their devices, it can lead to major compliance and performance issues. However, getting users to restart their devices is a perennial problem for EUC teams.
In this case, having an automated workflow that can identify devices needing a restart and Windows update, issue multiple reminders to the user in a 24-hour period and, if necessary, a forced reboot and update verification would remove this as an issue entirely. Not only does this solve for the immediate problem, but it also reduces the risk of additional performance and compliance issues in the future.
Stretched to breaking point
The reason that these automations haven’t been introduced is simple – EUC teams are spread far too thin to take on the task. Just meeting the immediate business needs of ensuring that employees have working devices and access to applications is a huge ask without tackling major structural issues.
And, even if the burden on EUC teams could be alleviated, coding comprehensive scripts for IT problems is a lengthy process that requires a high level of PowerShell expertise that isn’t always available, especially for more complex tasks. Given that EUC teams are already overstretched, it’s simply not feasible to add more resources. It doesn’t scale.
Taking the low code road
The way to break the cycle is clear – automation has to become far simpler. Rather than doing extensive writing, testing, reviewing, signing, and updating of PowerShell code, EUC teams need a low code way to build and communicate workflows to the rest of the organization.
Having a low code, drag-and-drop approach to workflow automation not only democratizes the process so that people with little to no PowerShell knowledge can build a workflow, but it also makes it far easier to test and iterate so that missing steps can be added in. In addition, businesses need access to a library of fixes for the most common industry issues that can be adapted as needed.
Being able to quickly and easily construct automated workflows for a whole swathe of repetitive tasks not only allows EUC teams to reclaim vast amounts of time, but also allows issues to be escalated and resolved more quickly. For example, when a troubleshooting issue comes in that was unable to be resolved by the automated workflow, the support engineer doesn’t have worry about all of the common causes because those steps have already been attempted.
And, because the results of each workflow are automatically recorded, the ROI of bringing in the necessary solutions can be quickly and easily demonstrated to leadership.
Automatic for the people
Ultimately, the Groundhog Day-esque situation that EUC teams is simply not tenable. IT environments are only becoming broader and more complex, to the point where addressing each repetitive issue manually is like trying to drain a lake with a leaky bucket.
Any opportunity to reclaim time by reducing the workload must be taken. Practically speaking, the only way to do this is through the automation of the most low-value processes. Therefore, businesses need to invest in solutions that are going to allow EUC teams to build, test, and adapt these automations as swiftly as possible.
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