Round 4
Dec 2000
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
Office of the Provost
Compact Plan
Part Two: Initiatives
A. Initiatives Supporting University Goals
University Goal: Advancing Academic Mission-Commodity IT Services
7. Create and Implement New Support/Helpdesk Services Model
What will be achieved, how, and why it is important to the university
The Information Technology Division provides computing support to NC State's 35,000 students, faculty and staff, with particular focus on users of academic computing systems and software. The demand for ITD user support services has increased rapidly in recent years as a necessary outcome of the ubiquity of information technologies at NC State. One measure of the growth in demand for user support and the need for strategic planning is the Computing Services Helpdesk problem tracking/help database system, which received its 200,000th call in May 2000. The first 50,000 helpdesk calls were received over more than two years; the last 50,000 were received in only nine months. With increased demand, the need for improved models for user support and training has become critical. Simple staffing ratios (technical staff/technology user) is a clear problem. However, the purpose of Next Level Training, Consulting and Helpdesk Support Initiative is not only to increase the number of support staff, but also to improve the responsiveness, quality, and efficiency and cost effectiveness of support services.
As part of this Initiative, ITD invited Dr. Kenneth C. Green, noted expert on national trends in computing in higher education, to evaluate and make suggestions for strategic improvements in the NC State computing support environment. Dr. Green visited the campus in May, gathered statistics and met with students, college representatives, campus IT groups and key administrators. His report will be made public when completed in July 2000. During his meetings with ITD staff, Green suggested several key ideas for strategic thinking about user support: 1) Invest in proactive/preemptive measures, such as informing and educating new students and faculty about campus computing systems and enabling them to learn how to solve many of their own problems; involve college technical staff, through training and communication, in problem solving strategies. 2) Leverage and develop technologies (such as our Remedy problem tracking/ help database) that will facilitate problem solving and customer-focused services. Additional suggestions Green makes in his formal report are also likely to influence the evolution of this Initiative.
This Initiative addresses the university goal of adopting new business models that provide an enhanced infrastructure for customer efficiency, support accountability, increased enrollment and growth in time enhanced learning. To significantly improve ITD technology user support, additional staff is needed to 1)enhance direct client support service; 2) improve/support existing processes; 3) add new, supplemental support services. If fully funded, "next level" user support services will enhance responsiveness to student, faculty, and campus technical staff needs by 1) restructuring helpdesk and consulting services; 2)expanding education/training opportunities for campus technical staff and general users; 3) coordinating student computing efforts; 4) leveraging the Remedy call tracking/help database.
Restructuring helpdesk and consulting services: The Computing Services Helpdesk needs more professional computing consultant staff, expanded hours, and a better customer service model if it is to serve the expansion of technology-enhanced learning and meet the growing needs and expectations for technology user support at NC State.
The current structure of the Helpdesk has emerged as a result of insufficient funding for professional helpdesk staff and in response to urgent needs for computing consultant expertise elsewhere within the campus computing environment. In recent years the Computing Services Helpdesk has been staffed with only part-time student consultants and one full-time staff member with 8a.m.-5 p.m., Monday-Friday, hours of operation. Computing consultants on Computing Services staff have been consulted for the more sophisticated problems (tier two and tier three) of general users or technical staff on campus, but consultants have not been systematically assigned to Helpdesk duties. This model provided excellent tier one (routine problem) support considering resources allocated. Computing Services consultants have also provided technical leadership and fostered campus-wide collaborative efforts in critical areas of technology problem solving and system/server development, such as the integration of NT and Macintosh desktops into the Unity computing system. However, the proactive/communications role of ITD computing consultants within the campus technical staff community has not been formally defined or structured.
If this Initiative is fully funded, the restructured Computing Services Helpdesk will
· Increase the number of computing consultants on staff
· On rotating basis assign at least one computing consultant to be on Helpdesk with student and part-time tier one staff. This will improve tier two and tier three level response-time (problems requiring higher levels of technical knowledge)
· Develop more effective tier two and tier three level support for college technical support personnel
· Clarify and define proactive/preemptive roles for computing consultants, for improved education, communication and coordination among technical staff on campus
· Extend hours of access to consulting resources
· Expand locations for direct computing assistance by opening auxiliary helpdesk facilities and staffing consulting stations in ITD-supported student computing facilities (Unity labs)
· Bring on-site support to students in Unity's labs, thus providing an additional venue for information delivery and support.
Expanding education/training opportunities for campus technical staff and general users: Staffing levels both in Computing Services' Education/Training Program and in the numbers of computing consultants have limited ITD's ability to facilitate campus-wide demonstrations and discussions of new technologies, or, as suggested by Dr. Green, involve college technical staff in problem-solving strategies through training and communication. There is also a clear need to assist technical staff and others on campus who are interested in obtaining certification in new technologies. We have licensed computer based training (CBT) titles licensed for technical training, but have not coordinated an educational program for our staff so they can pursue certification (MSCE, CNE, Cisco, database) nor implemented a testing mechanism for professional advancement.
With additional staff and resources and by re-prioritizing goals, Computing Services will
· Initiate an Advanced Technologies Monthly Lecture/Seminar Series and brown bag lunch series
· Coordinate/facilitate multimedia discussion group
· Equip the Avent Ferry lab facility with high-end AV equipment for vendor and campus technology lectures and demonstrations
· Create a Certification Testing facility for measuring and advancing information technologies (Hardware Services to administer) and identify potential support resources in the university for certification testing
· Develop programs to let student, faculty and staff earn MSCE, CNE, etc. certification via CBT training modules
· Improve coordination of campus software site-licenses for benefit of campus-wide systems, colleges, and individual faculty, staff and students.
· Create a technical advancement program where staff and all incoming students receive CBT CDs containing selected computer training course titles (in progress, see Initiative 8).
Coordinating student computing efforts: Although many of ITD's systems and service are related to the support of student computing or technology-enhanced learning, there is no single person or group dedicated to coordinating the efforts or assuring they are centered on actual student experiences and needs. If funded, the Student Computing Coordinator will
· Work with students and student-centered groups to identify, prioritize and assess academic campus support needs critical to students' academic success
· Work with ITD units and technical staff within colleges to improve coherence and quality of computing resources.
Leveraging Remedy call tracking/Help Database: During his meeting with ITD staff, Dr. Green recommended using technology strategically to meet the growing demands for technology support. He spoke briefly about the potential of Remedy, the call tracking/help database system Computing Services has in place. The system was originally implemented in 1995 as a version of CustomerQ call tracking software to expedite the routing of computing questions and problems to the appropriate technical staff technical staff. In additon to this important functionality, the system has been extensively customized by Computing Services database programmers. As technical staff answered user questions and solved problems, they kept a record of solutions; Computing Services staff created a natural language searchable database of solutions, the Help Database, so that users could help themselves find answers to frequently asked questions (see http://help.ncsu.edu). In response to Y2K issues and to improve functionality of the call tracking/solutions database system, it was successfully migrated to Remedy software in 1999. In June of 2000, there were 97 workgroups, 445 full-time and part-time technical support staff across the campus were registered users, and there were 1570 searchable solutions in the Help Database.
The Remedy infrastructure is robust and scalable, and it is an excellent tool for technical staff across campus and for quick responses to calls from campus technology users, ITD's customers. However as the use of our Remedy Helpdesk system by other technical campus units expanded, the solutions database has grown and the search efficiencies have diminished. To use the technology to empower users to solve their own problems, the database needs a person to assigned to realize its potential as an effective virtual helpdesk-with an effective interface, streamlined/rationalized keywords, and current, relevant, readable solutions. This will take the skills of a good writer who also understands knowledge/database technologies.
Fully leveraging the Remedy technology will
· Self-empower our customers with a "user friendly" interface into our FAQ solution database in our call-tracking system, improve the content and consistency of these solutions, and integrate solution quality assurance into the customer feedback page
· Continue to evolve and integrate our university-wide tracking system for problem and request management, thus providing a mechanism for all members of the university community to report problems and make requests.
In support of this Initiative, Computing Services has already
· Migrated the campus helpdesk infrastructure from CustomerQ to the Remedy Tracking System and upgraded the server/database infrastructure
· Redesigned the solution key-word search utility to increase problem resolution success rate. ITD will continue with this initiative.
Impact or outcomes of Initiative for students, faculty, staff, external clients or others
General users of NC State's information technologies resources will benefit from this initiative as will technical staff across campus. The whole campus technology environment will benefit from improved opportunities for communication, collaboration and staff training for colleges' technical staff. More specifically, Initiative will benefit the campus in several observable ways:
· Adding tier 2 and 3 technical consulting staff will provide a resource for more complex problem resolution and "next level" support for helpdesk and college technical support staff.
· Providing timely information by extending consulting hours offers a valuable support resource to our customers, addresses their work schedule requirements, and saves students and faculty valuable time.
· Addressing campus technical literacy issues with expanded education/training faculty will enable us to better utilize our infrastructure resources; new technologies will be more quickly assimilated into the college disciplines; professional development and certification will increase the skill and retention of our support staff, and thus their value to the campus.
· Improving the functionality of the Help Database to realize its potential to serve our e-customers will be using information technology to meet the user support needs generated by the ubiquity of information technology.
Resources needed
· For improved direct client services: Help services manager; 4 additional computer consultants for consultant pool
· For improved process support services: quality assurance specialist; solutions/help database manager
· For new or supplemental support services: student computing coordinator; software site-license manager; training coordinator
Deliverables
· Increase the full-time Helpdesk staffing by 150%, from 1 FTE to 2.5 FTE (May 2000)
· Open an auxiliary helpdesk facility at Avent Ferry and staffed the Unity lab in Laundry Building with consultants. (May 2000)
· Extend Helpdesk/consulting support hours by 110 percent (from 50 hours/week coverage to 105 hours/week). (May 2000)
· Apply new funds to hire new computing consultants in areas of most urgent need (e.g. software site license management, solutions database maintenance/management, quality assurance)