How Do You Manage (To) and Lead Your Help Desk?

A Panel Discussion

Chris King, NC State UniversityFred Melchor, Elon UniversityCindy Saylor, UNC PembrokeTami Violette, UNC Wilmington

How Do You Manage (To)and Lead Your Help Desk?

Institution:

Name: NC State University

Public/Private: Public

Number of Students: 31,000+ (~25,000

undergraduates)

Number of Faculty and Staff: ~8,000

Number of Institution Owned Computers: No good

current info

Number of Student Owned Computers: No good

current info

How Do You Manage (To)and Lead Your Help Desk?

Department:

Name: Technology Support Services (in the Office of Information Technology)

Units: Help Desk Services (my group), Learning Space Support (Labs, classrooms, ReNet), Client Solutions (administrative support, distributed support)

HDS Staff: 1 asst. director (me), Help Desk Manager, Remedy administrator, 7 Tech Support professionals (see also http://oit.ncsu.edu/n/oit-org-chart)

Hours: Mon-Fri 7am-6pm plus on-call duties after hours

How Do You Manage (To)and Lead Your Help Desk?

Departmental Statistics: (average calendar year)

Productivity Tools: Remedy (call tracking)

Angel.com (hosted phone service)

Drupal (internal documentation, chosen over wiki-type site)

Top challenges?

Keeping staff informed on current technologies and plans for new ones Getting non-support folks to communicate with Help Desk staff on projects and issues Managing expectations of Help Desk responsibilities/duties to external folks Staffing (doing more with less, students vs. admin privileges) Budget (as usual) for retention, training, travel

How Do You Manage (To)and Lead Your Help Desk?

Why do you do it?

Someone has to guard the borders between

technology and its users. It might as well be

someone who enjoys it. ;-)

How Do You Manage (To)and Lead Your Help Desk?

Institution:

Name: Elon University

Public/Private: Private

Number of Students: 5,032 undergraduate, 677 graduate

Number of Faculty and Staff: 1,298

Number of Institution Owned Computers: 3,750 (3,053 PC, 697 Mac)

Number of Student Owned Computers: Unknown

How Do You Manage (To)and Lead Your Help Desk?

Department: Name:

Campus Technology Support: A division of Instructional and Campus Technologies (Led by a Department Director reporting to the CIO)

Units:

1st Tier Support:

Technology Help Desk: 1 Coordinator, 4 Help Desk Associates, 14 Students

2nd Tier Support:

Computer Support: 1 Assistant Director, 3 Computer Technicians, 3

Microsoft Engineers, 2 Apple Engineers, 2 Students

Classroom Support: 1 Assistant Director, 3 Audio/Visual Specialists

2 Students

Elon Student Computer Services: 1 Store Manager, 4 Students

Hours: Mon-Thu: 7am to 10pm, Fri: 7am to 6pm,

Sat: 9am to 6pm, Sun: 1pm to 10pm

How Do You Manage (To)and Lead Your Help Desk?

Departmental Statistics: (average calendar year) Calls to help desk: 36,000

Emails to help desk: 3,000

Instant messenger hits: 800

Walk-in support: Unknown (it seems like billions)

Escalations to 2nd level: 8,000 (approximately 20%)

Productivity Tools: Numara Footprints: Work order tracking

Cisco Reports: Call tracking (custom written by Elon to harvest reports from Cisco call data)

E-mail: Outlook/Exchange reports

Instant Messenger: “Provide Support” plug-in

How Do You Manage (To)and Lead Your Help Desk?

Top challenges? Training professional and student staff. (staying current)

Sharing the correct information quickly. (crisis communication)

Remembering information for future use. (WIKI)

Internal conflict. (Between 2nd level and 1st level support)

External conflict. (Between user support units and infrastructure support units)

Managing expectations of users.

Managing expectations of senior staff. (CIO, VP's, Pres, Provost etc.)

Motivating people to fight the same fight year after year after year after year.

Planning for the future.

How Do You Manage (To)and Lead Your Help Desk?

Why do you do it?

I do it because I know that technology is simply a tool used to make people's lives easier and their more productive. The faculty, staff and students of Elon are the people that make this collection of buildings special. As their Support Director, it is my duty to ensure that our technology serves them in their individual missions. In short, I believe in what we are trying to accomplish as a university. Therefore, I am dedicated to fulfilling my small part of that greater effort.

How Do You Manage (To)and Lead Your Help Desk?

Institution:

Name: The University of North Carolina at Pembroke

Public/Private: Public

Number of Students: 5,700 undergraduate, 735 graduate

Number of Faculty and Staff: ~1,000

Number of Institution Owned Computers: ~3,200

Number of Student Owned Computers: Unknown

Student laptop programs (3): Honor’s College (77), Teaching Fellows (45), Leadership Program (35) = 157

How Do You Manage (To)and Lead Your Help Desk?

Department:

Name: Client Services (of the Division of Information Technology)

Units:

• 1st Tier Support: Help Desk Services

• 2nd Tier Support: Academic Computing, Lab and Classroom, and Student

Computing Support (ResNet, Library Lab, Laptop Programs)

Staff: 12 Full Time Staff + 20 Student Assistants

• 2 Help Desk Technicians (also provide 2nd tier academic computing support)

• 2 Academic Computing Technicians (also provide 1st tier Help Desk Support)

• 1 Help Desk Technician (on contract) for evening in-house Blackboard and

1st tier Help Desk support

• 3 Academic Computing Technicians; 3 Lab/Classroom Technicians; 1 Trainer

• 20 Student Assistants (30 @ 300 hrs/week)

• 1 Director (who is also the Assistant CIO)

Hours: Monday – Thursday: 8am to midnight; Friday: 8am to 5pm; Saturday:

9am to 6pm (student assistants); Sunday: 3pm to midnight

How Do You Manage (To)and Lead Your Help Desk?

Departmental Statistics: (Oct 2009-Sept 2010)

Calls to Help Desk: 2,231

Emails to Help Desk: 913

Walk-in Support: 919

Labs: 331

Not Specified: 819

Escalations to 2nd tier: not known with current ticket order system; revamping system to separate 1st and 2nd tiers

Productivity Tools:

Incident Management System (in-house customized open source): work order tracking and management

How Do You Manage (To)and Lead Your Help Desk?

Top challenges:

Utilizing the talents of the Help Desk staff effectively as all have

a wide variety of skills and depth of knowledge.

Scheduling so as to minimize burnout of staff.

Funding for continuing education and training of staff.

Sharing correct information quickly and effectively.

Documenting the IMS with accurate information (misspellings)

Documenting information as a knowledge base (wiki).

Training clients to contact the Help Desk, not “who you know”.

Managing expectations of users (“I need it now, although I did

not plan appropriately” syndrome).

Planning for the future (aka, slowing down to speed up).

How Do You Manage (To)and Lead Your Help Desk?

Why do you do it?

I do it because I am a problem-solver and I enjoy

finding solutions. I believe in the mission of the

University, and I believe in life-long learning. I get

a sense of accomplishment in helping the faculty,

staff and students find solutions to problems, find

easier ways of accomplishing a task, and

knowing that maybe I made a positive difference

in someone’s life at the end of the day.

How Do You Manage (To)and Lead Your Help Desk?

Institution:

Name: The University of North Carolina Wilmington

Public/Private: Public

Number of Students: • 11,743 undergraduate

• 1,328 graduate

Number of Faculty and Staff: ~2,097

Number of Institution Owned Computers:• 7,569 PC

• 277 Macs

• 13,543 Faculty/Staff devices registered

Number of Student Owned Computers: unsure but 14,085 devices are registered to student on our network

How Do You Manage (To)and Lead Your Help Desk?

Department:

Name: Client Technology Services (of the Information Technology Systems

Division)

Units and Staff

• 1 Director

• Technology Assistance Center (TAC) – 1 manager, 5 staff, 40 students

• Computer Consultants – 1 manager, 10 consultants/tech

• AV Media Services – 1 manager, 2 staff, 2 students

• Computer Operations – 1 staff, 2 students

• Tech Store – 1 ¾ staff, 4 students

TAC Hours:

• Monday – Thursday: 7:30 am to 12:30am

• Friday: 7:30 to 6pm

• Saturday: 12:30pm to 6pm (student assistants)

• Sunday: 12:30 pm to 12:30am

How Do You Manage (To)and Lead Your Help Desk?

Departmental Statistics: (1/1/2010 – 10/15/2010)

Total contacts with TAC: 35,566• Calls: 9,788

• E-mails: 13,856

• Walk-in Support: 5,628

• Other: 6,294

49% of tickets have been resolved in TAC

Productivity Tools:

Remedy: Ticket tracking system

ACD: Call management and reporting

IM: Internal Communication tool for 4 service points

LogMeIn Rescue: Remote Assistance Tool

SharePoint: For document management, training material, wiki, etc.

Boot Camp: Week long training program for all student workers

How Do You Manage (To)and Lead Your Help Desk?

Top challenges:

Budget cuts (staff retention, motivation, and training)

Process coordination and information flow for

new/modified applications

Managing expectations (internal and external)

Time management to be proactive

Managing multiple service points to ensure consistent

support

Spyware/Malware – students get it but want us to

clean off their machines constantly

How Do You Manage (To)and Lead Your Help Desk?

Why do you do it?

We care about people. We want to make the job

of each student, faculty and staff as easy as we

can so they can focus on their job – whether it’s

learning, teaching or supporting the university.

So, How Do You Manage (To)and Lead Your Help Desk?

Let the discussion

commence and the

ideas flow!!

How Do You Manage (To)and Lead Your Help Desk?

oContact us:

Chris King – chris_king@ncsu.edu

Fred Melchor - melchor@elon.edu

Cindy Saylor – saylor@uncp.edu

Tami Violette - violettet@uncw.edu

Thank you!