What to Look For When Outsourcing Application Support

You’ve built a fantastic, bespoke software application but now you need to support it. Application support to suit your business may be a more difficult requirement than you can take care of in-house. Outsourcing application support can give you a wider scope to work with your business requirements. However, custom application development requires ongoing support and maintenance. It is therefore important to choose a provider that is able to deliver a full service to your business

Flexibility is a major requirement from any outsourced application support provider. To get the best fit to meet your needs, businesses require customizable applications which can expand and grow over time. The three main functions to look for in application support are a responsive Help Desk, proactive database monitoring, and a test environment architecture. This enables your partner to make changes safely without disrupting your line application.

For users to get the most out of your application, they must be able to use it effectively. When they encounter problems or have questions, your support provider should be available to answer them and provide help. Often businesses simply don’t have the resources in-house, so outsourcing a Help Desk is a great way to get the support you need. It is important to choose a provider which is able to give highly available, even 24-hour support to your team.

You should be provided with constant monitoring to ensure best performance, as well as being able to generate reports easily. You should be able to make changes to your application if necessary to increase your productivity, whilst your provider should also set up and maintain proactive monitoring of both the database and the application. This keeps everything up to date and working efficiently.

For a comprehensive approach to application support, companies should ensure that providers can offer the ability to maintain the application, and resolve issues quickly. They should be able to diagnose problems and document them, whilst using diagnostics to monitor the overall application performance.

Choose a provider who is willing to ensure that you have less downtime by resolving issues whenever they occur. Additionally they should provide virtual support, and technical support available permanently for your business.