Help desk user adoption improves when employees know where to find support, trust the process, and can resolve common needs without waiting for an agent.

That experience depends on more than launching a service desk portal. Employees need convenient access, useful knowledge, clear communication, and an easy path to human support when self-service cannot solve the problem.

The goal is to make the fastest support path the easiest one to use.

At a Glance: How to Increase Help Desk User Adoption

Organizations can improve help desk and service desk adoption by:

• Giving employees access through tools they already use
• Using plain language in forms, categories, and knowledge articles
• Showing relevant knowledge before a ticket is created
• Collecting enough information to route requests correctly
• Keeping employees informed throughout the ticket lifecycle
• Using AI to connect questions with knowledge and forms
• Making escalation to an agent simple

Improving self-service based on searches, tickets, and employee feedback.

How Do End Users Work With a Service Desk?

The end-user service desk journey starts when an employee encounters a problem or needs something from an internal team. Unfortunately, many users don’t make it that far. A survey conducted amongst 1,000 employees by PeopleReign found that 53% of employees avoid using the help desk due to frustrations such as wait time and poor-quality service from chatbots.

So, even though they may need access to software, help connecting to a printer, a replacement device, an account change, or information about a company’s process, they’d rather go around the process or just ignore the issue entirely.  Next, they may not know whether their need is an incident, service request, access request, or another formal ticket type.

A typical journey looks like this:

1. The employee looks for help.
2. The help desk presents relevant knowledge or a guided request.
3. The employee finds an answer or submits a ticket.
4. The service desk confirms the request and assigns ownership.
5. An agent asks for more information when needed.
6. The employee receives progress updates.
7. The issue is resolved or the request is fulfilled.
8. The employee confirms the outcome or reopens the ticket.

Each step shapes whether employees use the official help desk again. A polished intake form cannot make up for poor search results, unclear ticket ownership, or days of silence after submission. Adoption grows when the full service desk experience feels dependable.

Why Do Employees Avoid the Help Desk?

Employees often bypass the help desk when another route feels easier.

They may send a direct message to a familiar IT employee, forward an old email thread, or ask a colleague for help. These habits can create hidden work, incomplete requests, inconsistent service, and limited reporting.

Common barriers include:

• The service desk is hard to find.
• The portal requires another login or an unfamiliar interface.
• Categories use technical language.
• Forms ask questions employees cannot answer.
• Knowledge articles are outdated or difficult to search.
• Employees cannot tell whether anyone received the request.
• The ticket status does not explain what is happening.
• Self-service takes longer than messaging a person.
• Past requests were delayed or routed incorrectly.

These behaviors reveal where the support experience needs work. When employees repeatedly bypass a process, the process may be asking too much of them. A useful help desk makes structured support feel more convenient than informal support.

What Makes a Help Desk Easy to Adopt?

A help desk should give employees a clear place to begin and guide them toward the right outcome.

Use language employees recognize

Request categories should describe the employee’s goal.

“Request access to an application” is clearer than an internal category based on identity management. “New employee setup” is easier to understand than a list of separate infrastructure tasks.

The same principle applies to knowledge articles. Titles should reflect the questions employees ask, including the terms they use in Microsoft Teams, email, and search.

Keep intake focused

Forms should collect information that helps the service desk route, prioritize, and resolve the request.

A software-access form may need the application name, business reason, manager, and required access level. It probably does not need the employee to select a technical assignment group.

Structured intake reduces follow-up questions when the fields are relevant and understandable.

Confirm what happens next

After submission, employees should know:

• That the request was received
• Which team owns it
• Whether more information is required
• When they should expect an update
• How they can add details
• Where they can check the status

This confirmation builds trust in the process.

Preserve access to human support

Self-service should help employees move faster. It should not create a wall between them and the service desk. When knowledge does not answer the question, employees need a simple way to continue into a ticket with the context they already provided.

How Do Integrations Improve Service Desk Adoption?

Integrations make the help desk easier to use by connecting support with existing work habits.

Employees may already spend much of their day in apps like Microsoft Teams, Slack, Outlook, and other Microsoft 365 applications. For example, Atlassian has reported that 65% of Fortune 500 companies use Slack and 91% use Microsoft Teams. With users already locked into these applications on a daily basis, requiring them to leave those tools, locate a separate portal, and repeat information adds friction before support begins.

A connected service desk can use existing tools to:

• Accept requests through Microsoft Teams or email
• Identify the employee through the organization’s directory
• Provide ticket confirmations and updates
• Collect approvals
• Trigger connected workflows
• Share knowledge at the point of need
• Reduce duplicate data entry
• Support reporting across services and departments

The service desk still needs structured tickets, ownership, prioritization, and reporting. Integrations improve the employee-facing entry point while preserving those processes behind the scenes.

How Can Microsoft Teams Become the Help Desk Front Door?

Microsoft Teams can give employees a familiar place to ask for help, find knowledge, submit a request, and receive updates.

This is especially useful for organizations where Teams already serves as a central workspace. Employees do not need to remember another destination before requesting support.

An experience accessed through a Microsoft Teams help desk can support several actions:

• Ask a support question
• Search knowledge
• Open a guided form
• Submit a service desk ticket
• Add information to an existing request
• Receive agent questions
• Check ticket status
• Confirm that an issue is resolved

Tikit provides a Teams-native help desk and service desk experience for Microsoft 365 organizations. Employees can seek support through Microsoft Teams, email, or web experiences, while service teams receive structured requests they can categorize, route, and manage. The familiar entry point helps organizations replace scattered messages with a process employees are more likely to follow.

What Role Does a Knowledge Base Play in Self-Service?

A knowledge base helps employees resolve common needs without waiting for an available service desk agent.

Useful knowledge is built around real demand. Ticket history, employee questions, repeated agent responses, and unsuccessful searches can all reveal opportunities for new or improved content.

Strong help desk knowledge articles are:

• Focused on one question or task
• Written in plain language
• Easy to scan
• Specific enough to follow
• Available in the employee’s normal support channel
• Connected to the appropriate form or escalation path
• Reviewed on a regular schedule

For example, an employee searching for “new phone setup” may need a short sequence of steps, device requirements, and a link to request help. A long policy document is less likely to solve the immediate problem.

Knowledge also needs ownership. An article can become harmful when outdated instructions send employees through a process that no longer works. The knowledge and self-service features in Tikit help organizations surface answers and guided forms within the same service experience employees use to request support.

How Does AI Support Help Desk Self-Service?

AI can help employees find the right answer or request path when they do not know what to search for.

Traditional knowledge search often depends on matching the exact words used in an article title or category. Employees may describe the same issue in many different ways. AI can help interpret the question and connect it with relevant knowledge or forms.

Practical AI use cases include:

• Matching employee questions with knowledge
• Recommending the correct request form
• Recognizing organization-specific terminology
• Guiding users toward the appropriate service
• Providing a consistent experience across chat, email, and web
• Reducing repetitive ticket creation

Tikit’s AI capabilities can use the organization’s terminology to direct employees toward relevant knowledge and forms. The same engine can support chat, email, and portal experiences, helping employees receive consistent guidance across channels.

Organizations may also choose to use OpenAI within their own Azure tenant. AI quality depends on the information and processes behind it. Accurate knowledge, clear forms, and defined ownership give the system useful destinations for employee questions.

What Are Ticket Deflection and Ticket Avoidance?

Ticket deflection occurs when an employee begins seeking help and receives a useful answer or guided resolution before creating a ticket.

Ticket avoidance occurs when an improvement prevents the support need from arising or removes the need to contact the help desk.

Examples include:

• An employee finds working password-reset instructions.
• A Teams interaction recommends the correct knowledge article.
• A guided software request captures the required approval information.
• A repeated application issue is fixed at its source.
• Onboarding instructions reach an employee before they need to ask.
• A common request is completed through an automated workflow.

Both outcomes can reduce repetitive service desk work, but ticket reduction should not be the only measure of success.

A deflected ticket has value when the employee receives an accurate answer and completes the task. Sending employees away without resolving the need may lower ticket counts while damaging trust. Successful self-service should improve both efficiency and the employee experience.

How Do You Move Users From Ticketing to Self-Service?

Self-service adoption grows in stages. Employees need useful experiences before they will change established support habits.

1. Create a recognizable starting point

Give employees a clear place to begin, even when the help desk accepts requests through more than one channel.

A Microsoft Teams entry point can provide that consistency for Microsoft-first organizations. Email and web access can remain available for situations where those channels are more appropriate.

2. Standardize common requests

Identify frequent and repeatable service desk needs.

Create guided forms for requests such as:

• Software access
• Equipment
• New employee setup
• Distribution list changes
• Shared mailbox access
• Facilities support
• Purchase approvals

Structured forms help employees provide the information the fulfillment team needs.

3. Build knowledge from ticket demand

Start with questions that consume the most agent time or generate the most repeat tickets.

Review how employees phrase those questions. Use their wording in titles, summaries, and keywords.

4. Surface knowledge before ticket creation

Knowledge should appear while the employee is describing the need.

A useful recommendation at that moment is more effective than asking employees to visit a separate library and search from scratch.

5. Make escalation easy

When self-service does not solve the issue, preserve the employee’s question and move it into a ticket.

Employees should not have to repeat the same explanation after trying knowledge or a guided interaction.

6. Improve based on behavior

Review:

• Failed searches
• Knowledge articles followed by ticket creation
• Abandoned forms
• Repeat incidents
• Frequently reassigned tickets
• Requests submitted through informal channels
• Employee feedback

These patterns show where knowledge, forms, routing, or communication needs improvement.

How Should a Service Desk Communicate With End Users?

Communication helps employees understand what is happening after a ticket enters the queue.

A useful service desk update should explain the next step. “In progress” alone may not tell the employee whether an agent is investigating, waiting for approval, or expecting more information.

Helpful communication includes:

• Request confirmation
• Assigned owner or team
• Priority or expected response
• Questions that require employee action
• Approval status
• Significant progress updates
• Resolution details
• Instructions for reopening the ticket

Updates should reach employees through channels they already monitor. Teams and email notifications can keep users informed without requiring frequent portal checks. Clear communication also reduces duplicate tickets and direct follow-up messages. Employees are less likely to chase an update when the service desk provides one first.

How Can Other Departments Use the Same Self-Service Model?

HR, Facilities, Finance, Marketing, Legal, and other internal departments manage many of the same service patterns as IT.

Employees ask questions, submit requests, wait for approvals, provide documents, and need status updates.

Common use cases include:

• Employee onboarding
• Benefits questions
• Building access
• Maintenance requests
• Purchasing
• Document review
• Marketing support
• Policy questions

A shared approach gives employees a familiar way to request internal services. Each department can still maintain its own workflows, permissions, ownership, and private request handling. Tikit supports a multi-department service desk within Microsoft Teams, allowing organizations to extend structured support beyond IT without creating a separate employee experience for every team.

How Do You Measure Help Desk and Self-Service Adoption?

Measure help desk user adoption by tracking whether employees use approved support channels and whether those channels help them complete their work.

Useful adoption metrics include:

• Requests submitted through approved channels
• Microsoft Teams, email, and web usage
• Active self-service users
• Form completion rates
• Informal requests converted into tickets

Self-service metrics may include:

• Knowledge searches
• Successful and failed search terms
• Knowledge views
• Ticket-deflection rate
• Tickets created after viewing knowledge
• Repeat requests for documented issues
• Forms started and abandoned

Service experience metrics include:

• First response time
• Resolution time
• Reassignment rate
• Reopened tickets
• Requests missing required information
• Employee satisfaction
• Time between meaningful updates

Review these metrics together. High knowledge traffic means little when employees still create tickets because the content does not answer their questions. The most useful reporting connects employee behavior with service outcomes.

Common Help Desk Adoption Mistakes

Help desk and service desk adoption can stall when organizations:

• Require employees to understand technical categories
• Launch self-service without maintaining the knowledge base
• Force every interaction through a separate portal
• Automate unclear or inconsistent processes
• Hide agent support behind unsuccessful self-service
• Add AI before creating reliable knowledge and forms
• Support several disconnected intake channels
• Provide little communication after ticket submission
• Measure ticket reduction without measuring resolution quality

A service desk should reduce effort for employees and service teams. Every new step, channel, or technology should support that goal.

How Tikit Supports the Move From Ticketing to Self-Service

Tikit brings help desk access into the Microsoft tools employees already use.

Employees can ask for help through Microsoft Teams, email, or web experiences. Tikit can then connect their questions with knowledge and forms, create structured tickets when agent support is needed, and keep employees informed as work progresses.

For service teams, that means:

• More consistent request intake
• Better information at ticket creation
• Fewer requests hidden in direct messages
• Knowledge delivered closer to the moment of need
• AI-assisted ticket deflection
• Microsoft 365 and Power Automate integration
• Support for multiple internal departments
• Reporting through familiar Microsoft tools

This approach gives employees a convenient front door while helping service teams build a more organized support process behind it.

Build a Help Desk Employees Will Use

Help desk adoption grows when employees can find support quickly, understand the process, and trust that their request will move forward.

Familiar tools reduce the effort required to begin. Useful knowledge and AI-assisted guidance help employees resolve common needs. Structured forms and clear updates make ticket-based support more efficient when an agent is required.

Together, these elements help organizations move from reactive ticket handling toward a service desk experience built around self-service, ticket avoidance, and better employee support.

Ready to make your help desk easier for employees to use? See how Tikit brings ticketing, self-service, knowledge, and AI into Microsoft Teams. Book a demo, schedule a free setup session, or start a free 14-day trial.

HR, Facilities, Marketing, Finance, DevOps, Operations, and other teams all manage requests, approvals, and workflows every day. The challenge is creating a consistent experience without introducing more disconnected tools or processes.

Watch now to learn how to:

• Expand Tikit beyond IT to support additional departments
• Standardize request intake and workflows across teams
• Automate onboarding, approvals, and cross-functional processes
• Improve collaboration while maintaining department autonomy
• Deliver a more consistent employee experience organization-wide

Whether you’re already using Tikit today or looking to scale its impact further across your business, this session will provide practical ideas you can start applying immediately.

Tikit is a Microsoft 365 IT Service Management (ITSM) platform built to mature alongside your M365 adoption and bring service delivery directly into Teams. Want to learn more about Tikit and how it simplifies Teams-based ticketing and IT support? Check out our demo video and try Tikit in a 14-day free trial. We are so confident in Tikit’s capabilities that we’ll even set it up for free to ensure you get the most out of your Microsoft Teams ticketing experience. Schedule your complimentary setup call today.

Many organizations approach compliance and audit readiness reactively.

An audit is scheduled.

Teams scramble to gather documentation.

Approvals are reconstructed from emails.

Spreadsheets are updated.

Missing process history becomes a problem.

Then, once the audit is over, organizations often return to the same disconnected operational workflows that created the stress in the first place.

But strong governance does not begin during audit preparation.

It begins much earlier.

It begins with workflow design.

The Real Source of Audit Stress

Organizations rarely struggle during audits because they lack policies.

Most organizations already have documented policies for:

• Access approvals
• Change management
• Employee onboarding
• Incident response
• Procurement processes
• Security reviews

The challenge is proving those processes were followed consistently.

That is where operational workflows become critical.

If workflows are inconsistent, undocumented, or heavily manual, audit preparation becomes difficult.

Examples include:

• Approval steps skipped during busy periods
• Changes implemented without formal tracking
• Onboarding tasks completed differently across departments
• Missing evidence for access reviews
• Service requests handled outside the ITSM platform

Over time, these inconsistencies create governance gaps.

Why Workflow Design Impacts Governance

Workflow design determines how consistently operational processes are executed.

Well-designed workflows help organizations:

• Standardize approvals
• Capture required information
• Enforce routing rules
• Preserve audit history
• Improve accountability
• Reduce manual errors
• Increase reporting accuracy

Poorly designed workflows create the opposite outcome.

They rely heavily on memory, manual intervention, and inconsistent human behavior.

That creates operational risk.

Governance Improves When Processes Become Repeatable

One of the most important goals in modern ITSM is repeatability.

Organizations should not depend on individual employees remembering every policy requirement manually.

Instead, governance should be embedded directly into workflows.

For example:

Employee Onboarding

A well-designed onboarding workflow may automatically:

• Route approvals to managers
• Notify security teams
• Trigger equipment provisioning
• Create documentation records
• Track completion status

Access Requests

A structured access request workflow may:

• Require business justification
• Route approvals automatically
• Preserve approval history
• Escalate overdue tasks
• Generate reporting data.

Change Management

Modern change workflows can standardize:

• Risk classification
• Approval routing
• Documentation requirements
• Implementation tracking
• Post-change review steps

These processes improve governance because they reduce inconsistency.nts.

Audit Readiness Should Be a Byproduct of Good Operations

Organizations often treat audit readiness as a separate initiative.

But the strongest governance environments usually approach audits differently.

Instead of scrambling to prepare evidence manually, they focus on building operational workflows that naturally generate consistent documentation.

When workflows are structured correctly:

• Approval history already exists
• Documentation is centralized
• Reporting becomes easier
• Change history is searchable
• Service records remain consistent

Audit preparation becomes significantly less stressful because operational governance is already embedded into daily processes.

Modern ITSM Platforms Support Workflow Governance

Modern ITSM platforms increasingly focus on workflow orchestration rather than simple ticket tracking.

That includes capabilities such as:

• Workflow automation
• Conditional forms
• Structured intake
• Automated approvals
• SLA tracking
• Teams-integrated requests
• Reporting and dashboards

These capabilities help organizations improve both operational maturity and governance consistency.

Importantly, modern workflow design also improves user experience.

Employees are more likely to follow processes when workflows are:

• Easy to access
• Embedded in existing tools
• Clearly structured
• Simple to complete

Governance improves when processes are practical.

Modernization Is Also a Workflow Conversation

Organizations evaluating legacy ITSM environments often focus initially on interface modernization.

But workflow modernization is equally important.

Modern organizations increasingly require:

• Collaboration-centric workflows
• Cross-platform visibility
• Automated governance
• Flexible approvals
• Improved reporting
• Better operational accountability

As IT operations become more distributed and collaborative, workflow design becomes a critical part of operational governance strategy.

Final Thoughts

Strong governance does not begin with audit preparation checklists.

It begins with operational workflow design.

Organizations that standardize approvals, automate governance processes, centralize documentation, and improve operational visibility are far better positioned to support compliance initiatives long-term. Modern ITSM is increasingly about creating workflows that are not only efficient, but accountable, repeatable, and governance-ready by design.

Looking Ahead

Strong governance is built long before an audit begins. Whether your organization is improving existing ITSM processes, modernizing legacy workflows, or looking for better ways to manage approvals, documentation, and service requests, the most effective approach is to design workflows that are repeatable, accountable, and easy for teams to follow.

When operational processes consistently capture the right information, route the right approvals, and preserve the right history, audit readiness becomes less of a scramble and more of a natural outcome of better day-to-day service management.

For many organizations running IT service management (ITSM) platforms on-premises, security is one of the biggest factors influencing long-term technology decisions. And understandably so.

Service desks often contain sensitive operational data, employee information, configuration details, incident histories, approval notes, and integrations with critical business systems. Moving any part of that ecosystem to the cloud deserves careful evaluation. At the same time, organizations are increasingly balancing those concerns against the realities of maintaining aging infrastructure, supporting hybrid work, managing technical debt, and aligning with broader Microsoft 365 strategies.

So how should IT leaders evaluate cloud security in modern ITSM platforms? The answer is more nuanced than simply asking whether cloud or on-premises is “more secure.” The better question is: Which approach best aligns with your organization’s operational, compliance, and risk management requirements today — and over the next several years?

Security Is About More Than Location

One of the most common misconceptions in ITSM discussions is that “on-premises equals secure” while “cloud equals risky.”

In reality, security depends far more on:

• Governance
• Identity management
• Configuration
• Monitoring
• Patch management
• Access controls
• Vendor practices
• Internal operational maturity

An unpatched on-premises environment can introduce significant risk. Likewise, a poorly governed cloud deployment can create unnecessary exposure.

The strongest security posture comes from a combination of:

• Clear operational ownership
• Modern identity and access controls
• Consistent security practices
• Visibility into systems and data
• Ongoing maintenance and governance

Why ITSM Security Conversations Are Changing

Over the last several years, many organizations have shifted substantial portions of their IT environment into cloud and hybrid infrastructure.

That shift has changed expectations around:

• Remote access
• Collaboration
• Automation
• Identity management
• Business continuity
• Vendor integrations
• User experience

At the same time, security teams are increasingly standardizing around platforms like:

• Microsoft 365
• Microsoft Entra ID
• Conditional Access
• Multi-factor authentication
• Centralized compliance tooling
• Cloud security monitoring

For many organizations, the conversation is no longer:

“Cloud or on-prem?”

It is:

“Which workloads make sense where?”

Key Security Considerations for Cloud-Based ITSM

Every organization has unique requirements, but there are several important areas IT leaders should evaluate when considering cloud-based ITSM platforms.

1. Identity & Access Management

Strong identity controls are foundational to modern security.

Questions to ask:

• Does the platform integrate with your identity provider?
• Can you enforce MFA and Conditional Access policies?
• Are permissions role-based and auditable?
• Can access be governed centrally?

Organizations already invested in Microsoft 365 often prioritize platforms that align with existing identity and governance strategies.

2. Data Residency & Compliance

Regulated industries may have strict requirements around:

• Data residency
• Retention
• Encryption
• Audit logging
• Access tracking

Before evaluating any ITSM platform, organizations should understand:

• Where data is stored
• How it is encrypted
• What compliance certifications exist
• What customer controls are available

This is especially important for government, healthcare, education, and financial services environments.

3. Operational Security & Maintenance

On-premises environments provide direct infrastructure control, but they also place responsibility for:

• Server maintenance
• Patch management
• Backup strategies
• Disaster recovery
• Availability planning
• Capacity management

Cloud platforms shift portions of that operational burden to the vendor. For some organizations, that reduction in infrastructure management can improve overall operational resilience and reduce security exposure caused by delayed maintenance or inconsistent patching.

4. Availability & Resilience Matter Too

Security conversations often focus heavily on protecting data confidentiality and integrity — ensuring sensitive information remains secure and accurate.

But there is a third foundational component that is equally important:

Availability.

In information security, this is commonly referred to as the CIA triad:

• Confidentiality
• Integrity
• Availability

Because even perfectly secure and accurate data becomes operationally useless if users cannot access it when needed.

For ITSM platforms specifically, availability is critical. Service desks frequently support:

• Incident response
• User access requests
• Business continuity workflows
• Operational escalations
• Critical internal communications

Downtime can quickly impact both IT operations and broader business functions. This is one area where cloud infrastructure conversations have evolved significantly over the last decade.

Large cloud providers invest heavily in:

• Geographic redundancy
• Automated failover
• Disaster recovery architecture
• High-availability infrastructure
• Global uptime monitoring

For many organizations, building and maintaining equivalent levels of redundancy entirely on-premises can be extremely difficult and costly. That does not mean cloud platforms are immune to outages or operational risks. Every architecture model carries tradeoffs. But availability and operational resilience should be part of the ITSM security conversation alongside confidentiality and compliance — especially as organizations evaluate long-term infrastructure strategy.

5. Visibility & Governance

A secure ITSM platform should support:

• Auditability
• Reporting
• Activity tracking
• Workflow visibility
• Integration governance

Security teams increasingly want centralized insight into:

• Who accessed what
• What actions were taken
• What automations executed
• How data moves between systems

Modern ITSM platforms should support that level of visibility without requiring excessive customization or manual oversight.

6. Vendor Security Practices

Security is also about evaluating the vendor behind the platform.

Organizations should understand:

• How security updates are managed
• How vulnerabilities are addressed
• What support processes exist
• How customer environments are protected
• What long-term product investment looks like

A strong vendor relationship can be just as important as technical architecture.

Cloud Security and Microsoft-Centric Organizations

Organizations heavily invested in the Microsoft ecosystem are increasingly evaluating how their ITSM tools align with:

• Microsoft 365
• Teams
• Power Platform
• Entra ID
• Microsoft security controls
• Automation strategies

This does not mean every organization should immediately move away from on-premises ITSM. For many teams, especially highly customized or heavily regulated environments, maintaining on-premises systems may still make sense today.

But it does mean organizations should begin evaluating:

• Long-term infrastructure costs
• Operational overhead
• Future modernization needs
• Security governance alignment
• Workforce collaboration expectations

Planning for the Future of ITSM

Security decisions should support both current operational requirements and future business goals. For some organizations, that may mean continuing to optimize and secure existing on-premises ITSM investments. For others, it may mean gradually evaluating cloud-native approaches that align more closely with broader Microsoft 365 strategies and modern collaboration models. The important thing is not rushing the decision. It is understanding the tradeoffs, evaluating risk thoughtfully, and building a roadmap that fits your organization’s unique environment.

Final Thoughts

There is no universal answer to the cloud security question in ITSM.

Every organization has different:

• Compliance requirements
• Operational maturity
• Infrastructure investments
• Security priorities
• Risk tolerances

What matters most is choosing a path that balances:

• Security and compliance
• Availability and resilience
• Operational efficiency
• Governance
• User experience
• Long-term sustainability

As IT environments continue evolving, organizations that proactively evaluate their ITSM strategy — rather than waiting for a forcing event — will be better positioned to adapt securely and effectively.

Looking Ahead

Whether your organization is optimizing an existing on-premises ITSM environment or exploring modern cloud-based approaches, taking time now to evaluate security, governance, and operational readiness can help create a smoother path forward in the years ahead.

Zero. Nada. A perfect audit result.

This achievement reinforces our continued investment in security, privacy, operational excellence, and compliance for organizations relying on Tikit to manage service delivery and operations within Microsoft 365.

What Is SOC 2 Type II?

SOC 2 Type II is an independent audit framework developed by The American Institute of CPAs® and The Chartered Institute of Management Accountants® (AICPA & CIMA). It evaluates how organizations manage customer data based on key trust principles, including:

• Security
• Availability
• Processing Integrity
• Confidentiality
• Privacy

Unlike a point-in-time assessment, SOC 2 Type II measures whether security controls are not only properly designed, but also operating effectively over an extended review period.

Successfully completing a SOC 2 Type II audit with zero exceptions means the independent auditors identified no gaps, no failures, and no deviations in the effectiveness and appropriateness  of Cireson’s controls during the audit period.

Why This Matters for Tikit Customers

Organizations today face growing pressure to secure sensitive data, meet regulatory requirements, and ensure operational resilience in increasingly complex cloud environments.

For Tikit customers, this achievement provides additional assurance that Cireson continues to maintain rigorous security and compliance standards across our platform and internal operations.

Whether organizations are supporting IT service management, enterprise service delivery, HR workflows, facilities requests, or operational processes inside Microsoft Teams and Microsoft 365, security and trust remain foundational.

This milestone demonstrates that Cireson’s controls are not simply documented policies — they are actively maintained, monitored, and consistently followed.

Compliance Is a Continuous Commitment

Security and compliance are never “finished.” They require constant attention, continuous improvement, and organization-wide accountability.

Over the past year, Cireson has continued strengthening its internal security posture through ongoing monitoring, employee training, policy reviews, risk management processes, and compliance initiatives aligned with frameworks including SOC 2, HIPAA, and GDPR.

“Our third consecutive SOC 2 Type II audit with zero exceptions reflects the commitment our entire organization has made to protecting customer data and maintaining operational excellence,” said Paul Sutton, co-founder of Cireson. “As organizations continue adopting Microsoft 365 for critical business operations, customers need confidence that their service management platform is secure, reliable, and built with compliance in mind. We take that responsibility seriously.”

“Achieving zero exceptions for the third year in a row is not something that happens by accident,” said Marcus Bauer, Senior Director of InfoSec and GRC at Cireson. “It requires continuous evaluation, employee engagement, strong processes, and a culture that prioritizes security in everything we do.”

Built for the Microsoft Cloud

Tikit by Cireson is designed specifically for organizations operating within the Microsoft ecosystem, leveraging the power of Microsoft Teams, Microsoft 365, and the Power Platform to modernize service management and enterprise workflows.

As more organizations consolidate operations into the Microsoft cloud, compliance and security expectations continue to rise. Cireson remains committed to helping customers meet those expectations with solutions built around modern Microsoft technologies and industry best practices.

Looking Ahead

Achieving SOC 2 Type II compliance for the third consecutive year is an important milestone, but it is also part of a broader commitment to continuous improvement.

Cireson will continue investing in the people, processes, and technologies necessary to maintain the highest standards of security, compliance, and customer trust.

Organizations interested in learning more about Cireson’s security and compliance practices, including SOC 2 documentation, are encouraged to contact the Cireson team at SecAdmin@cireson.com.

Short answer: you can’t—at least not in the way you actually need.

And that limitation has real consequences:

• Overly long, one-size-fits-all forms
• Poor data quality
• Frustrated users submitting incomplete (or just plain wrong) tickets

With Tikit’s Multi-Turn Cards feature, that changes completely.

This isn’t a workaround. It’s a fundamentally better way to build guided, intelligent forms inside Microsoft Teams.

The Problem: Adaptive Cards Are Static

Microsoft Teams uses Adaptive Cards to power forms and interactions—but they come with a major limitation:

No true branching or dependent inputs

That means:

• You can’t show different questions based on previous answers
• You can’t guide users down different paths
• You can’t dynamically adapt the form experience

Microsoft has introduced Sequential Workflows for Adaptive Cards, but these are not the same thing.

They allow you to chain steps together—but:

• They don’t support intelligent branching
• They don’t adapt based on user input
• They don’t create a guided, decision-based experience

So, what happens instead?

The Workaround (And Why It Fails)

Without branching, most teams fall into one of two traps:

1. The “Mega Form”

A single form with 20–30+ fields to cover every scenario.

Problems:

• Users skip fields
• Required fields can’t be enforced properly
• Forms become overwhelming (“form fatigue”)

2. Power Automate Workarounds

Using flows to interpret responses after submission.

Problems:

• Logic happens after the form—not during
• Users still submit incomplete or irrelevant data
• Maintenance becomes complex and brittle

The Result: Garbage Tickets In, Garbage Out

When forms can’t adapt:

• Users guess what to fill in
• Important data gets missed
• Tickets require back-and-forth clarification

Which slows everything down.

The Solution: Multi-Turn Cards in Tikit

Multi-Turn Cards introduce something Adaptive Cards have been missing:

Guided, conditional form experiences—without writing code

Instead of one static form, you create a dynamic, step-by-step conversation where:

• Each answer influences what comes next
• Users only see relevant questions
• The experience adapts in real time

What Is a Multi-Turn Card?

Think of it like a “choose your own adventure” form:

1. User starts with an initial form
2. Their answers determine the next step
3. They continue down a guided path
4. Only relevant fields are shown—and required

Example: Employee Onboarding

Scenario A:

• New hire → Chicago
• → Submit ticket immediately

Scenario B:

• New hire → London
• → Additional relocation form appears
• → Visa details required
• → Then submit

Same process. Different paths. Fully guided.

Why This Is Different from Native Adaptive Cards

Let’s be clear—this is not something you can replicate natively

Build Smarter Forms Without Code

Multi-Turn Cards are powered by two key capabilities:

1. Custom Properties

Create structured data fields like:

• Location
• Device type
• Root cause
• Any business-specific input

Use them across:

• Forms
• Templates
• Automations
• SLAs
• Reporting

2. Transitions (Branching Logic)

Define what happens next based on answers:

• If location = London → show relocation form
• If location ≠ London → submit ticket

No scripting. No external tools.

Better UX = Better Data

This isn’t just about flexibility—it’s about outcomes.

Before:

• Long forms
• Irrelevant questions
• Missing data

After:

• Short, focused steps
• Only relevant inputs
• Required fields that actually make sense

Result: Cleaner tickets, faster resolution, better reporting

Real-World Use Cases

Employee Onboarding

• Only show relocation steps when needed
• Add device requests conditionally

Hardware Requests

• Ask follow-up questions based on device type
• Capture exact requirements upfront

Incident Triage

• Route based on issue category
• Collect the right diagnostic data immediately

Location-Based Routing

• Dynamically assign teams or workflows
• Trigger automations based on location input

Built for the Real World

Multi-Turn Cards don’t just work in one place—they extend across the entire Tikit experience:

• Microsoft Teams (Virtual Agent)
• Requester Portal
• Agent Portal

Agents can even:

• Send forms back for updates
• Reuse forms across processes
• Trigger forms via automation

Beyond Forms: Data That Actually Works for You

Because everything is structured:

• Use custom properties in SLAs and automations
• Include them in notifications
• Report on them in Power BI

No more disconnected data. No more guesswork.

Adaptive Cards Needed This. Tikit Delivered It.

For years, teams have tried to solve branching in Adaptive Cards. The demand is clear. The use cases are everywhere. But until now, the solution wasn’t.

Multi-Turn Cards bring true guided experiences to Teams—without complexity.

See It in Action

Want to see how it works in a real scenario? Watch the full webinar demo now or start building smarter, more intuitive forms in Tikit today.

In this webinar, we’ll show how Tikit’s new Multi-Turn Cards and Custom Properties help you guide users through smarter, more adaptive request flows—so you get the right information from the start.

Instead of static forms that overwhelm users or miss critical details, you can create dynamic experiences that respond in real time.

Watch now to learn how to:

• Build forms that adapt based on user responses
• Show only the fields that matter—when they matter
• Capture better, more structured data across every ticket
• Reduce back-and-forth and accelerate resolution times

We’ll walk through real examples of how these features work in practice—and how you can start using them immediately. If you’re ready to improve ticket quality and streamline your support process, this session is for you.

Looking for More on Multi-Turn Cards in Tikit?

Check out the release post for even more details on this exciting new feature!

Tikit is a Microsoft 365 IT Service Management (ITSM) platform built to mature alongside your M365 adoption and bring service delivery directly into Teams. Want to learn more about Tikit and how it simplifies Teams-based ticketing and IT support? Check out our demo video and try Tikit in a 14-day free trial. We are so confident in Tikit’s capabilities that we’ll even set it up for free to ensure you get the most out of your Microsoft Teams ticketing experience. Schedule your complimentary setup call today.

This isn’t just another feature—it’s a fundamental shift in how you can run IT inside Microsoft Teams.

For many IT teams, asset data lives in one system, tickets in another, and financial details somewhere else entirely. That fragmentation slows everything down—agents lack context, reporting is incomplete, and tracking the true cost of IT becomes a challenge.

With Asset Management in Tikit, everything comes together. You can now manage assets, track financials, and relate everything directly to tickets—all in one place. Combined with our new Custom Navigation, Tikit becomes a more powerful, flexible, and fully connected ticketing system with asset management built for the way modern teams work.

Custom Navigation in Tikit

We’re also introducing Custom Navigation, giving you full control over how agents interact with Tikit.

Inside the Agent Portal—and even within the ticket editing experience—you can now add your own navigation items to bring the tools your team relies on into a single workspace.

In the example above, we’ve added:

• Assets – launches Asset Management
• Power BI – opens the Tikit reporting dashboard
• Assets Dashboard – opens the Asset Management dashboard

But this goes beyond simple links.

You can also introduce custom tabs directly within the ticket experience. In our example, we’ve added an Assets tab that allows agents to instantly view and relate assets to the ticket they’re working on.

This solves a common challenge for service desks: agents no longer need to switch systems or chase down information. Everything they need—ticket data, requester details, and asset context—is available in one place.

We’re also exposing session variables like:

• ticketId (e.g. 5738)
• requesterEntra (e.g. Entra ID)

This means you can build fully customized, context-aware experiences—whether you’re integrating with Power Apps, Power BI, or your own internal tools.

The result: a faster, more efficient service desk with less friction and fewer clicks.

Check out the this KB article for details on how to create, edit, and remove navigation.

Asset Management for Tikit

Asset Management is our first managed Power App for Tikit, designed to bring visibility and control to your entire asset lifecycle—without adding complexity.

Once deployed, you can:

Create and manage assets with ease

Keep a centralized, up-to-date inventory of your IT assets without relying on disconnected spreadsheets or legacy tools.

Automatically sync assets from Microsoft Intune

Configure secure integration (via Azure App Registration) to keep your asset data current with a 24-hour sync—eliminating manual updates and reducing errors.

Track financial data in context

Manage purchase orders, invoices, warranties, and other key financial details alongside each asset, giving you a clearer picture of total cost of ownership.

Relate assets directly to tickets

Instantly understand what device or asset is impacted by an issue, improving troubleshooting speed, resolution times, and overall service quality.

This is where Tikit truly evolves from a ticketing tool into a complete IT service management experience. By connecting tickets and assets, you gain the context needed to make better decisions, identify trends, and deliver better support.

Asset Management Reporting Template

To help you get even more value from your data, we’re also releasing a new Asset Management Power BI dashboard template.

As with all Tikit reporting templates, you’re free to:

• Download and use it out of the box
• Customize it to your needs
• Or build entirely new reports from scratch

With asset and ticket data now connected, your reporting becomes far more powerful—helping you uncover insights around asset performance, cost, and service impact.

Get Started with Asset Management

Visit our KB article for detailed information on how to install Asset Management for Tikit.

• Want to alter the core ticketing experience with your own optional/required fields?
• Looking for a custom list for Requesters to choose from when submitting a ticket?
• Wishing you could create conditionally dependent forms when creating a ticket?
• Needing to resend a Form to the Requester, Assignee, a Collaborator, or Affected User?

Now you can! Let’s dive in to how Custom Properties andMulti-Turn Cardsin Tikit work separately and together to bring you an even better Tikit experience.

Custom Properties: Creating and Modifying

Access the new Customer Properties navigation mode in Settings. It’s here you can create, edit, archive/unarchive, delete, and re-order how your properties appear across the Agent portal and Teams cards. Creating a new property is easy, just click on New Custom Property or click an existing property to edit it.

In this example, we’ve created a Custom Property called “Location”. The name is a simple text field (string). You can change the Name (friendly), Description, whether or not the property is required, the error message to display if it is a required field, and finally if the custom property is hidden from users.

Why would I create a hidden custom property?

With hidden properties you can create a field that exists on every ticket, but can’t be changed by anyone. So why bother? Because with Tikit’s Automation engine or custom API calls, you can set these fields behind the scenes, opening the door to creating fields for external integrations such as syncing monitoring alerts, security event IDs, CRM records, and more.

You can create any number of properties of any different types, such as:

• string (text)
• numbers
• yes/no (checkbox)
• list
• date
• time

While a free text field is helpful, it also opens the door for bad data since anything can be typed into the field. Which is why we’ve also introduced support for…

Custom Properties: Lists

With custom lists, you can now create any kinds of lists you need for your ticketing processes.

With a custom list, we can change a few things:

• Allow multiple: Much like Tags, you can decide if multiple items in this list can be chosen
• Teams Presentation: As with Forms, you can decide how in Teams this list is experienced. Is it a dropdown with all of the choices? Or is it a lookup/search of all of your available options?
• Individually Archive items: Apart from creating/deleting items in your list, you can also archive/unarchive items within the list as well.

And you can re-arrange those items at any point in time.

With your one or many properties saved, you will be returned to your list of all Custom Properties. Here you can re-arrange them. It’s worth noting that changes are saved and instantly replicated across Tikit. This order impacts how you’ll see Custom Properties when Creating a ticket, Editing a ticket, getting Teams notifications on the ticket, and more.

Where are Custom Properties Experienced?

Custom Properties can be used across many places in Tikit.

Build Automations and/or SLAs with them

Use them in Notification Center automations

Form Designer

Create/Edit a ticket in the Agent portal

Power BI/Excel

Across all Templates

Speaking of Templates, take a closer look at the image above and you might notice our next huge release: Multi-Turn Cards.

What Are Multi-Turn Cards?

A longstanding request we’ve heard has been the ability to present multiple forms to a user to fill out, and conditionally present those forms based on how the previous form was completed. This would have several benefits:

• Large forms served via Tikit Virtual Agent, Requester Portal, or the Agent Portal could be condensed and/or split out into several smaller forms
• Large forms (30+ inputs) in some cases might become very small forms (less than 10 inputs) depending on how they are answered
• The Default Template: Requester Create Ticket Template could be modified to let users define their own Priority of a ticket and only if they choose High Priority, then a subsequent question appears asking for their contact information
• When building a New Hire/Onboarding Template, you could conditionally present New Hardware and New Software Forms depending on their Department or any other number of fields

So what do the new multi-turn cards mean for Templates and Forms?

Templates and Forms Have Been Split Out

The biggest visual change you’ll see as a Tikit Admin, is that Templates and Forms have been separated. As a result:

• You can create Templates with no forms, 1 form, or many forms
• If you’ve created Templates with no forms previously, you had to re-create the template – no more! You can now add/remove forms from a Template as you see fit
• You can create multiple Templates that leverage the same form

As part of this upgrade, your Templates and Forms have been separated, named the same, but their relationships remains, giving you freedom to modify existing Templates with a wholly new experience for…

Managing Forms on Templates

Also available within Templates is the new Forms area. Here you can add one or many forms, define the Transition to move between them as someone fills them out, and decide what happens when those conditions are met.

Multiple Transitions

Transitions with Logic Builder define the condition using any Input from the form

The Action associated with a Transition defines what happens when the condition is met

In the above example, we have two forms for our Onboarding Employee Template. But the second form of New Hardware will only be served if, on the first form, Hardware Is Required is checked. Here you can also configure additional options:

• Show the Summary Card: Before the requester can submit, they are presented with a card that shows their answers
• Show Form Name: The names you’ve given your forms can optionally be shown to the user who is filling them out
• Summary Card Header Text: Optionally override the name of the Summary card

These three options can be set on a Template-by-Template basis. Here’s how all of this is experienced in Teams with Tikit Virtual Agent.

This applies whether a user requests forms via chat, starts them from the Help Card, or starts them on the Requester Portal. The first form (on the left) shows a checkbox that drives whether or not the New Laptop form is shown to the user.

• When it’s unchecked, the user will go straight to the Summary Card.
• When it’s checked, the user gets a second form, and then the Summary card.

You might also notice that subsequent forms present options for the user:

• Cancel: Abandons the submit experience
• Back: Goes back to the previous card that was filled out and maintains all current answers
• Start Over: Goes back to the very first card and erases all of the answers filled out
• Submit: Creates the ticket

Dedicated Forms Navigation

Forms can now be created, edited, archived, unarchived, or deleted in their own dedicated navigation.

Form Designer offers you the ability to work within the Microsoft Adaptive Cards framework and add Tikit specific fields, and now to add any Custom Properties you’ve created. It also introduces the Name field along the top to give your forms context when you view them in the list or when users see them on the Summary Card.

Sending Forms (Edit Ticket/Automation)

Also arriving with the split of Forms from Templates is some new functionality specific to how you can work with Forms.

Need to resend a Form even though the Template has been applied?

Edit Ticket menu

Send Form window

You can now send/re-send a Form to any member associated to the ticket. In addition, you can also choose to Send the existing Answers to the Form back out to the same person who filled it out or someone else on the ticket.

Need to send a Form via Automations?

You might already be familiar with the fact you can Apply a Template within an Automation.

But with our latest update, you gain another Automation action: Send Form.

New Sorting and New Fields

This release also includes the capability to sort all administrative concepts such as Teams, Groups, Tags, Templates, Forms, Lifecycles, SLAs, and Automation. But beyond just sorting, we’re also adding more fields to the Templates viewto help you navigate them more easily at a glance.

See the associated Team, Group, Assignee, if a Form is related, and the associated Lifecycle.

Want to See It in Action?

Check out our webinar—Stop Letting Users Submit Garbage Tickets, Start Using Multi-Turn Cards—where the Cireson team walks you through how to help guide users through smarter, more adaptive request flows—so you get the right information from the start.