HDI Member Discussion Room / HDI Discussion Rooms / Higher Education Help Desk Issues

Help Desk Policy

pmcdavid — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 15:25:22 GMT

To what degree does your Help Desk provide support for hardware or software problems on their own home wireless or desktop computers?

What liability is assumed by the helpdesk when making suggestions on possible solutions to solving a problem. Do you have a written policy in place with disclaimers regarding suggestions made by the helpdesk in problem solving?

It has been suggested that we take the level of support further, but we are concerned about all the machine variables, time, and practicality of offering that level of support with individual student machines.

Thank you,

Illinois Central Help Desk Manager

Resource for Higher Education IT

pmcdavid — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 15:25:22 GMT

Take a look at www.edcause.edu

It is a non-profit association whose mission is to advance higher education by promoting the intelligent use of IT. It has some interesting resources to look at.

Multi-Campus Help Desk

pmcdavid — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 15:25:22 GMT

Greetings everyone!

For those of you who know me... you may (or may not) be interested in knowing that Cathy and I are moving from Las Vegas to Missouri, where I will manage a multi-campus Help Desk for the University of Missouri system of campuses.

I am starting small by integrating just two of the campuses at this time. If that goes well, we may expand the initiative to include the other campuses.

My question... do any of you have an enterprise level Help Desk spanning multiple campuses? If so, I'd love to bounce some ideas/questions off you.

Thanks!

Nathan Eatherton

573.884.1888

Staffing

pmcdavid — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 15:25:22 GMT

We are evaluating how we staff our service desk at the university. Right now we have 3 full time employees and about 50 or so student employees. Our call volume is about 100,000 calls per year. What are the rest of you staff with? All full time? A mix of full time and students?

Full Time Staffing

pmcdavid — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 15:25:22 GMT

How are you all staffing your service desks? Do you use Full Time employees, student employees, a mix? Also what is your call volume?

We have 3 full time (supervising) and 50 part time students for about 100,000 calls per year. We are trying to get a feel for what other institutions are doing and to see if we are too heavy on student employees.

Thanks for your input,

Mark Fitzgerald

Brigham Young University

Can Spam Act

pmcdavid — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 15:25:22 GMT

CAN-SPAM Implementation.

------------------------

A question to members...how are you responding to this requirement from the FTC?

"The FTC's rules implementing CAN-SPAM's primary purpose requirement will go into effect on March 28th. The rules are necessary to determine whether a message with mixed commercial and non-commercial content is deemed commercial and thus subject to the CAN-SPAM requirements.

Specific information on those rules and the relevant criteria to determine a message's primary purpose can be found at

http://www.ftc.gov/os/2005/01/050112canspamfrn.pdf

I'd like to hear about how your organizations are assuring you're in compliance.

shammond@niu.edu

ACD solution

pmcdavid — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 15:25:22 GMT

We are currently on an aging Pinnacle ACD system here at my University help desk. We have begun the process of looking into a replacement ACD solution and were wondering what is most commonly in use at other universities. We get approximately 150 calls per day at our central call center, and may want to extend any new ACD technology out to other smaller call centers around campus. Please write and tell me what you use for ACD and why you chose it. Thanks!

ITIL in higher education

pmcdavid — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 15:25:22 GMT

Hi, folks, In an effort to revitalize this part of the forums, I thought I would submit a post-conference query. Having just gotten back from the Las Vegas conference, I am very excited about the idea of implementing some ITIL into my support structure. But, NC State is probably like a lot of universities -- fragmented support across dozens of departments and colleges, and no solid reporting structure. So, I am curious if other academic support units have tried to implement ITIL, and how successful (or unsuccessful) they were. War stories are welcome here! Thanks! --chk--PS: If any ITIL-reliant managers are interested, NC State is a year or so away from hiring a CIO. If you'd like to bring ITIL to the hungry masses, check out our progress at: http://www.ncsu.edu/pace/itscoping/

HDI College and University Proposal

pmcdavid — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 15:25:22 GMT

****o All,

It was great meeting you at the conference. I ran the HDI proposal by the folks in our manager's meeting and there is some interest. I just reviewed the latest proposal with our VP and he liked it also, especially the $4000 figure. (I told him $6000 when we originally talked, so $4000 sounds like a bargain.)

Have any of you gotten feedback yet?

Michael, our Membership Director, Richard Hand will get back to you Monday (5/23/05) or Tuesday (5/24/05).

Thanks for your patience.

Bob Last

Content Manager, HDI

Email accounts for Students

pmcdavid — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 15:25:22 GMT

We are a non-profit Higher Education Facility (Graduate Students only). We are using an exchange server, and will be offering emails soon to our students. I would like contact with someone that uses Exchange server, and how they go about managing emails and keeping students from spamming etc.

Thanks,

Pam Strange HDA

Fielding Graduate Institute