Day 6.0 - 📘 Streamlining Help Desk Categories: Migrating from SysAid’s 3-Tier to iTop’s ITIL-Aligned 2-Tier Structure
As organizations mature their IT operations, shifting from traditional ticketing systems to ITIL-aligned platforms becomes critical for better service management, visibility, and scalability. One of the common challenges during such a transition is restructuring legacy help desk categories.
Recently, I transitioned our help desk from SysAid, which uses a 3-tier category system, to iTop, a platform built around ITIL best practices using a 2-tier structure. Here’s how we streamlined our categorization without losing clarity, context, or control.
🔍 Understanding the Difference
SysAid’s Structure:
- Category > Subcategory > Specific Issue
- Example:
Workstation > Monitor > Not Working
This structure works but tends to grow bloated over time, especially with overlapping or redundant entries.
iTop’s ITIL-Aligned Structure:
- Category > Subcategory (or Type)
- iTop encourages classifying tickets based on service type (Incident, Request, Change) and tying them to Configuration Items (CIs) or Service Contracts.
🎯 The Goal: Consolidate Without Compromising
Our objective was to:
- Simplify the end-user experience
- Align with ITIL processes
- Support easier reporting and automation
- Preserve legacy data references
🧩 The Strategy: 3 Steps to Streamlining
Step 1: Group by ITIL Function
We reviewed each top-level SysAid category and grouped it under an ITIL domain:
| ITIL Process | Example Groupings |
|---|---|
| Incident Management | Email Issues, Workstation |
| Service Request | New User Access, Equipment |
| Change Management | Software/Configuration Change |
| Problem Management | Recurring Issues |
| Security Management | Phishing, Intrusion, ACLs |
Step 2: Collapse Redundant Subcategories
Rather than retain every unique “issue type,” we rolled them into meaningful but broad subcategories. Examples:
| From SysAid | To iTop |
|---|---|
| Workstation > Monitor > Not Working | Workstation Issues > Monitor |
| Email > Alias > Add New | Email Issues > Alias Request |
| UserLogin > Login/Password Problem | Access Issues > Login Problem |
| Security Incident > Intrusion Detection | Security > Intrusion |
Step 3: Align with Service Catalog (Optional but Powerful)
If you’re using iTop’s service catalog, mapping categories to defined services (e.g., Email, Telephony, Backup) makes automation and SLA tracking easier. For example:
| Service | Category | Subcategory |
|---|---|---|
| Email Service | Email Issues | Distribution Group |
| File Storage | Backup Failure | Restore Request |
| Telecom | Phone Issues | No Dial Tone |
⚙️ Benefits Realized
- 🚀 Faster ticket logging (fewer clicks)
- 📊 Improved reporting (clear incident/request trends)
- 🤖 Better automation (thanks to standard labels)
- 🔐 Easier SLA assignment and escalation
🧠 Lessons Learned
- Avoid 1:1 migration. Instead, consolidate where possible.
- Keep your users in mind—what will they search for?
- Use custom fields in iTop to preserve details if needed.
- Don't skip the opportunity to clean up legacy data during migration.
✅ Final Thoughts
Migrating to iTop is not just a platform switch—it’s a chance to mature your service management practices. Restructuring your category tree into a simpler, ITIL-aligned format makes it easier to manage tickets, deliver services, and demonstrate IT value.
Embrace the cleanup—it’s worth it.