7 Steps to Get Your Service Desk Up and Running

Your IT requests live in three Slack threads, two email chains, and zero trackable systems. Last week, a laptop request sat unassigned for four days because nobody knew who owned it. Sound familiar?

If you're searching for how to set up a service desk, you're likely the one-person IT team drowning in Slack requests while also fielding HR questions about PTO policies. You need a central system that handles cross-departmental coordination without requiring enterprise complexity or a six-month implementation timeline.

This guide covers the essential components, a week-by-week setup process, starter workflows for onboarding and software access, and the four metrics that prove value to executives.

1. Map Your Current Processes and Pain Points

Document where requests currently live and where they break down. This becomes your roadmap for what to fix first and which workflows to automate.

Right now, requests disappear into DMs, nobody knows who owns what, and handoffs between IT, HR, and Finance break down constantly. You can't fix what you haven't mapped.

Audit your last 30 days of requests across Slack, email, and whatever else you're using. Once you connect Siit, the Analytics dashboard shows you patterns automatically. Track request type, current owner, and resolution time to build your baseline for improvement.

2. Connect Your Systems (Weeks 1-2)

Integrate your tools so Siit can execute workflows end-to-end. This eliminates manual data entry and lets you take action directly from ticket threads.

You're manually updating the same information in five different systems. Context from HR isn't available when resolving IT requests. Provisioning access means logging into multiple admin consoles.

Siit's third party actions let you provision Okta access, manage devices through Jamf, and update BambooHR records without switching tools.

Connect your identity provider for user provisioning and MFA resets. Add device management to lock devices and retrieve recovery keys. Pull employee data from your HRIS so every request includes role, department, and manager automatically.

3. Set Up Core Ticketing (Weeks 3-4)

Get your ticketing system live in Slack or Teams. This creates accountability: every request gets a number, an owner, and a timestamp.

Requests exist in multiple places with no tracking, employees DM whoever responds fastest, and duplicates pile up because nobody sees what's in progress. A modern service desk centralizes everything so nothing falls through the cracks.

Connect your Slack or Teams workspace using Siit's native integration, which syncs your user directory automatically. Set up a dedicated request channel, configure your service catalog (your list of request types employees choose from when they submit a ticket, like "Password Reset," "New Laptop," "Software Access," "PTO Question.") with your top 10-20 request types, and you're live.

Siit's 360° Employee Profile pulls department, manager, and equipment history automatically, so you skip the follow-up questions. Start simple with IT, HR, and general queues. Launching fast matters more than launching perfectly.

4. Deploy Self-Service and Basic Automation (Weeks 4-5)

Deflect requests that don't need human intervention. Every ticket resolved through self-service is time you get back for strategic work.

The same 10 questions consume half your weekly capacity. Employees wait hours for answers they could find in 30 seconds if documentation existed. Knowledge lives in people's heads rather than in searchable systems.

Build your self-service portal with articles for your top 10 repeat questions. Connect your existing Confluence or Notion using Siit's native integrations so employees can search internal wikis directly from Slack.

Enable Siit’s AI article suggestion so Siit's assistant recommends relevant articles before employees submit tickets. Configure AI Triage to route requests automatically, then set up basic automation rules: auto-acknowledge, auto-assign by category, and auto-escalate if no response within 24 hours.

5. Design for Cross-Departmental Coordination (Weeks 5-6) 

Build workflows that span IT, HR, Finance, and Operations so you're not manually chasing handoffs. This eliminates the coordination overhead that's burning out your team.

Requests bounce between departments with no visibility into where they're stuck. Approvals stall because nobody knows it's their turn. Handoff delays turn 5-minute tasks into 3-day odysseys.

When departments use disconnected systems, you become the human API. Siit's Cross-Departmental Process Orchestration builds workflows that span teams automatically.

Connect your HRIS (BambooHR, Rippling, Workday, HiBob) and identity provider (Okta, JumpCloud, Google Workspace) so context flows automatically. Configure Rapid Approvals to route to the right people, and set up parallel routing so tasks happen simultaneously.

6. Prioritize Adoption Over Complexity (Weeks 6-7)

Make submitting a request easier than finding someone's name in the org chart. High adoption means employees actually use the system instead of bypassing it with DMs.

Why? Employees routinely bypass the ticket system because it's too complicated. Every portal login is a friction point that drives people back to Slack.

Siit's Slack-native design eliminates the biggest barrier: nobody needs to learn a new tool. The AI agent routes requests automatically and suggests articles before employees even submit tickets.

Keep the service catalog simple. Ten clear categories beat fifty granular options. Run a pilot with 20-50 users, use satisfaction surveys to gather feedback, and set SLAs you can actually hit.

7. Optimize and Expand (Ongoing)

Measure what matters so you can prove ROI and identify what to automate next. The best service desks are refined continuously based on what the data reveals.

Leadership asks for ROI numbers, and you have nothing to show. Automation investments go to the wrong areas because you're guessing at priorities. Team capacity planning relies on gut feel rather than evidence.

Use Siit's Analytics & Reporting to track cost per ticket, first contact resolution, CSAT, and deflection rate. Review weekly for spikes and missed SLAs. Share monthly trend lines with leadership that connect metrics to business outcomes.

Identify automation candidates by looking at high-volume, low-complexity requests. If password resets consume 5 hours weekly, that's your target. Expand to additional departments only after current workflows are stable.