WHAT DOES AN IT HELP DESK TECHNICIAN DO?

Published: Oct 24, 2025 - The Information Technology (IT) Help Desk Technician provides first-level technical support by diagnosing, troubleshooting, and resolving hardware, software, and network issues through phone, remote, and on-site assistance. This role ensures timely communication with users, accurate documentation of incidents, and effective coordination with internal support teams for escalated cases. The technician also maintains system knowledge, follows established procedures, and continuously develops troubleshooting skills to deliver efficient and professional support.

A Review of Professional Skills and Functions for IT Help Desk Technician

1. IT Help Desk Technician Duties

  • Technical Support: Perform 1st and 2nd level technical support for computer hardware, Microsoft operating systems, network connectivity, Office applications, peripherals, printing, and email
  • Employee Onboarding: Responsible for onboarding new employees, including account creation, workstation setup, and IT documentation maintenance
  • Inventory Management: Maintains current inventory of all deployed and stored PCs, laptops, and related equipment
  • Image Maintenance: Maintains IT-approved department images for deploying newly provisioned workstations
  • Help Desk Monitoring: Monitor Help Desk at all times and address reported issues promptly, escalating when necessary
  • Issue Documentation: Create detailed documentation on problems and resolutions in the ticketing system
  • Vendor Coordination: Work with employees, IT staff, and vendors to identify, coordinate, and resolve technical support issues
  • Platform Support: Support macOS and iOS, applying troubleshooting techniques for both platforms
  • Customer Service: Go above and beyond in seeking solutions to users’ issues

2. IT Help Desk Technician Details

  • Remote Support: Provide Tier I remote IT support to all employees in an SMB Medical Office regional practice that includes sites in AZ, CA, and NV, and regional support offices
  • Issue Troubleshooting: Troubleshoot issues via remote access tools, provide solutions and confirm there are no outages or system alerts, and if so, initiate escalation protocols and contact appropriate IT staff
  • On-site Support: Provide on-site IT support for Newport Beach, CA, support office and occasional on-site support of other locations in the Greater Phoenix Metro area
  • Ticket Management: Log issues in JIRA Help Desk software and update cases or escalate to senior IT members promptly
  • Account Management: User Account Management for all computer systems and enterprise applications such as Office 365 and Teams, NextGen EHR, EPM, ICS, System Administrator, WiSE, MedInformatix, Phreesia
  • Active Directory: Active Directory Account Management including New Hire/Terminations, Password resets, Modify permissions, and access control
  • Hardware Maintenance: Responsible for imaging laptop and desktop PCs with Windows 10 and managing inventory at Newport Beach, CA Z support office
  • Equipment Support: Responsible for maintaining, troubleshooting, repairing, and replacing all laptops and PCs, desktops, and label printers, Ambir card scanners, Cisco IP Phones, analog phones, and all monitor displays
  • Network Maintenance: Perform Ethernet cable and phone troubleshooting, punch downs, and patch panel maintenance
  • Telephony Support: Basic setup and troubleshooting of telephony systems and equipment including VoIP and PBX systems
  • Documentation: Document, update and maintain the IT knowledge base
  • Compliance Training: Complete HCSI Compliance training in Employee HIPAA Privacy and Security Training

3. IT Help Desk Technician Responsibilities

  • Hardware Maintenance: Imaging, maintaining, and repairing hardware such as laptops, tablets, workstations, and printers
  • Software Support: Installs, configures, maintains, and troubleshoots a wide range of software and hardware
  • Software Distribution: Distributes software to PCs manually and uses automated techniques
  • Technical Support: Provides level 1 and some level 2 support
  • PC Relocation: Work with other agencies to coordinate physical PC moves related to setups, office relocations, and personnel reassignments
  • Active Directory: Create, Modify, and Delete Active Directory accounts
  • Network Configuration: Configure and manage network IP addressing
  • Issue Resolution: Troubleshoot and resolve issues
  • User Management: Manage end-user onboarding, offboarding, and account provisioning
  • Equipment Deployment: Manage deployment of IT equipment (computers, monitors, and accessories)
  • Application Support: Support SaaS applications (e.g., Google Workspace, Okta, Slack, Jira, Confluence, etc.)
  • Documentation: Document systems, procedures, and knowledge base articles
  • Help Desk: Handle help desk requests and technical support

4. IT Help Desk Technician Job Summary

  • User Support: Provide first-level contact and convey resolutions to user issues - in person, over the phone, or via remote-access
  • Issue Diagnosis: Diagnose issues with computer software, peripherals, and hardware
  • Problem Routing: Track, route and redirect problems to correct resources
  • Issue Resolution: Follow up with users, provide feedback and see problems through to resolution
  • User Training: Provide basic computer training
  • Customer Service: Utilize excellent customer service skills and exceed users’ expectations
  • Equipment Installation: Install and configure new IT equipment
  • Documentation: Ensure proper recording, documentation, and closure
  • Process Improvement: Recommend procedure modifications or improvements
  • Network Assistance: Assist the Network Manager with networking including site visits
  • Account Support: Assist users with accounts and profiles and deal with password issues
  • Education Support: Assist educators and pupils with the use of Microsoft OneNote and Teams
  • Business Support: Assist business departments with their use of technologies to enhance the business workflow
  • Knowledge Development: Preserve and grow knowledge of help desk procedures, products and services

5. IT Help Desk Technician Accountabilities

  • User Support: Provide daily support for 100+ end-users with problems ranging from password resets to advanced hardware and software troubleshooting
  • System Updates: Assist with software and hardware updates/changes company-wide
  • Ticket Management: Track and escalate trouble tickets and annotate progress through the ticket tracking system (Solar Winds)
  • Documentation: Document user calls, issue resolution, and related processes and procedures
  • Technical Writing: Develop and assist in maintaining the required technical documentation and inventory
  • Policy Compliance: Adhere to all company policies and procedures outlined in official documents
  • Tier 1 Support: Provide Tier 1 technical support for end users at the client’s site in a courteous manner
  • Desk Assistance: Perform desk-side/in-person user assistance including troubleshooting, upgrades, installation, and configuration
  • Procedure Adherence: Follow Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) to resolve tickets and carry out system administration tasks
  • Knowledge Management: Update SOPs and add knowledgebase entries
  • Issue Escalation: Escalate and communicate reported issues to System Administrators and Engineers
  • Staff Orientation: Provide a brief IT orientation to new staff at the site
  • Account Management: Manage user accounts in Microsoft Active Directory/Azure AD
  • Mailbox Management: Manage user mailboxes in Microsoft Exchange Online

6. IT Help Desk Technician Functions

  • Call Handling: Answers calls or work orders from users requiring technology assistance, courteously ascertains the reason for the call and determines whether the issue can be immediately resolved or elevated to other staff
  • Problem Evaluation: Evaluates each call to determine the nature of the problem and whether related to hardware, software, applications, client/server systems, desktops, or peripheral devices
  • On-site Coordination: Determines if on-site assistance by Information Technology Desktop Support staff is appropriate and ensures that Desktop Support is notified
  • Remote Support: Uses remote desktop software to resolve issues, perform installations, or demonstrate solutions to clients or help clients identify issues
  • Issue Resolution: Resolves as many user-reported problems as expertise permits using available tools, and follows procedures and policies for the handling of cases
  • Customer Communication: Works with customers over the phone to provide detailed instructions on resolving problems, including program modifications and upgrades
  • Team Liaison: Acts as a liaison between customers and internal support staff to ensure accurate problem interpretation
  • Ongoing Communication: Maintains communications with customers during the problem resolution process
  • Troubleshooting Development: Develops troubleshooting skills by using effective investigative methods and available troubleshooting tools
  • Help Desk Training: Completes required Help Desk training to enhance and improve support
  • Data Accuracy: Ensures all necessary information is accurately entered and tracked

7. IT Help Desk Technician Job Description

  • IT Support: Providing IT support to Hogs daily
  • Equipment Maintenance: Taking care of the office and IT equipment
  • System Modernization: Modernizing the current IT equipment
  • Stock Management: Handling the stocktaking process and keeping track of stock
  • Process Optimization: Maintaining a flawless process of letting Hogs work flawlessly
  • Department Development: Helping to evolve the IT department
  • KPI Management: Meeting KPI’s ensuring that customer incidents and requests are resolved within the agreed SLA’s
  • Time Management: Managing own workload through good time management and prioritization skills and assigning new incidents
  • Process Compliance: Following predefined Incident and Service Request Management and Change Management processes
  • Problem Escalation: Escalating Problems and Trends to the 3rd Line Team and Management
  • Asset Management: Maintain Software and Hardware Asset Management
  • Service Transition: Assisting in Service Acceptance and Transition
  • Customer Service: Display a high level of customer service to all colleagues, customers and suppliers, both remotely and face to face
  • Policy Adherence: Adherence to all corporate and legal policies

8. IT Help Desk Technician Overview

  • User Assistance: Telephone support and remote user assistance
  • Application Support: Help users with the most commonly used applications (i.e., Microsoft Office)
  • Device Maintenance: Prepare, install and maintain end-user devices (PCs, thin clients, VoIP phones, etc.)
  • Printer Maintenance: Maintain MFPs (toner, paper, paper jam, etc.)
  • Mobile Configuration: Configure and deploy mobile devices (BlackBerry UEM)
  • Meeting Preparation: Prepare conference rooms for meetings and video calls
  • Documentation Management: Create and maintain user documentation
  • Database Development: Participate in helpdesk database development
  • System Monitoring: Monitor the infrastructure and manage warnings and alerting
  • Project Assistance: Assist the operations team in various tasks (preparation or assistance on projects, test new versions and features of hardware/software, etc.)

9. IT Help Desk Technician Details and Accountabilities

  • User Support: Being the key point of contact for the local users in the warehouses
  • Hardware Installation: Install and configure computer hardware, operating systems, applications, phone and video conferences for the logistics teams
  • Remote Assistance: Address issues both face-to-face and remotely
  • System Troubleshooting: Troubleshoot system and network problems and diagnose and solve hardware issues (Windows and Mac)
  • Hardware Replacement: Resolve and/or replace faulty hardware
  • Warranty Processing: Process RMA or warranty replacement of hardware
  • Application Deployment: Support the deployment of new applications
  • Ticket Management: Respond and close tickets within the approved SLA
  • Task Completion: Work continuously on tasks until completion

10. IT Help Desk Technician Tasks

  • Service Compliance: Compliance with the Company’s Service Delivery Guidelines, Policies and KPIs
  • Ticket Resolution: Resolve service tickets in line with existing service level agreements with clients
  • Client Communication: Contact the client to request further clarification or additional information
  • Expectation Management: Setting expectations during the ticket life cycle
  • Technical Resolution: Resolve 1st-level technical issues in accordance with best practices and guidelines of service delivery
  • First Call: Provide a ‘fix on first call’ to customers
  • Ticket Management: Manage the lifecycle of service tickets in line with the established service level agreement with clients
  • Information Relay: Relay vital technical information to clients by phone, email, or ConnectWise
  • Issue Troubleshooting: Utilize internal resources in troubleshooting issues
  • System Support: Support Azure, VMware, and Windows Server environments remotely within a team environment
  • Remote Configuration: Assist clients in the configuration/support of their move to Microsoft Teams/Remote work
  • Server Troubleshooting: Troubleshooting VMware and Windows Server (Active Directory and Group Policy) and implementing solutions
  • System Deployment: Recommendation, testing, set up, deployment, and maintenance of hardware and software for clients
Relevant Information
What Does A Help Desk Do?