Company Overview
ISTA Solutions is a dynamic, multi-departmental organization with a workforce of approximately 1,500 employees. ISTA has a sophisticated approach to internal operations, with dedicated departments including IT, HR, Payroll, and a structured management hierarchy. ISTA places a strong emphasis on operational efficiency, technological innovation, and streamlined communication across different organizational units.
Before Quickbase | With Quickbase |
| Disconnected ticket tracking across departments | Tailored departmental dashboards with relevant views (IT, HR, Payroll, Management) |
| Manual and inconsistent ticket categorization | AI-powered automatic classification and severity assessment |
| Lack of visibility into ticket statuses and accountability | Weekly executive summaries for high-level transparency and ownership |
| Inefficient ticket approval processes | Streamlined two-tier approval workflow through Quickbase |
| Reactive, basic ticket system | Intelligent, scalable, and strategic workflow platform with AI integration |
Challenge
ISTA Solutions faced a complex challenge of managing tickets across multiple departments with varying needs and complexity. With over 1,500 employees, the organization required a flexible, scalable ticketing system that could:
- Provide department-specific visibility into ticket statuses
- Enable efficient communication between support teams and users
- Create accountability at management levels
- Streamline ticket classification and prioritization
"Each department has its own need of how extensive they get with different statuses of the ticket system,” said Sam Lange, ISTA’s Director of Innovation.
Solution
To combat these issues, ISTA Solutions leveraged Quickbase to develop a comprehensive, customized ticket management system with several key innovations:
Tailored Departmental Dashboards
The team created unique dashboards for each department, including:
- IT: A detailed view with asset tracking, ticket status, and messaging capabilities
- HR: Simplified open/closed ticket tracking
- Payroll: Customized ticket views with CSV export functionality
- Management: Holistic system-wide visibility
[With Quickbase, teams] have very clear visual of what tickets are past due, how many are open, and who tickets are assigned to.
Sophisticated Approval Workflows
To ensure proper oversight, ISTA implemented a two-tier approval process in Quickbase:
- Client-level approvals: Tickets routed through client managers
- Internal approvals: Tickets reviewed by department heads
AI-Powered Ticket Intelligence
The most innovative aspect of their solution was integrating OpenAI with Quickbase to:
- Automatically categorize IT tickets
- Assess ticket severity
Recently, Quickbase rolled out an OpenAI channel. I used that channel to automatically categorize the IT tickets that are coming in.
Impact and Results
Enhanced Accountability
ISTA’s VP of Operations now receives a weekly overview of outstanding tickets, creating a culture of transparency. "She sends out an e-mail every Friday saying, 'Here are the past due tickets,'" Lange said. "It creates visibility and accountability at a high level."
Improved Ticket Accuracy
By leveraging AI for ticket classification, ISTA saw significant improvements:
- More accurate ticket categorization
- Better prioritization of high-severity issues
- Reduced manual sorting and classification efforts
What I found is that [AI] is more accurate than the user.
Future-Ready Solution
With Quickbase's native AI capabilities on the horizon, ISTA Solutions is positioned at the forefront of intelligent ticket management.
"We won't even have to connect to OpenAI separately," Lange said. "You'll be able to do this natively, which is very exciting."
By combining Quickbase's flexibility with cutting-edge AI technology, ISTA Solutions transformed its ticket management from a basic tracking system to a strategic, intelligent workflow platform.