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President's Report - FY10 Q4

  • SD Accomplishments 
    • Dell Study:  *Began work with Dell Professional Services to conduct a detailed study of the IS&T Help Desk over the course of June.  The study has included 14 in-person interviews with a cross with IS&T staff and representative customers, collection of detailed work surveys completed by Help Desk staff, as well as financial details.  This data will be compiled and compared with peer institutions in higher education and industry and comparisons as well as key findings and recommendations will be shared in reports to stakeholders and Senior Management in early July.
    • CertAid: Worked with colleagues across IS&T to rollout an improved CertAid tool as well as an improved Certificates acquisition page.  This included conducting a usability review which highlighted the complexity for end users, and assisted in designing a new interface and some improved functionality.
    • Matlab: Reviewed data related to our existing Matlab distribution and cost sharing model and used that data to design new model that enables us to move to the new Total Academic Headcount (TAH) offering from MathWorks.
    • Exchange:  Continued to offer on-site migration assistance as part of Tiger team.  Developed Exchange Support Matrix to assist Help Desk consultants in handling Exchange related questions.  Helped coordinate a series of meetings with Microsoft Technical Support representatives to assist us in understanding how to make the most effective use of our Exchange environment.
    • IT Partners:  Participated on planning team for IT Partners Conference.  Presented sessions on Mobile Devices, Hermes, Providing Remote IT Support, and TSM Backup.
    • G4 Symposium: Led the coordination of a Sprint 4G Symposium on MIT Campus.
    • TNSC Settlements: Worked with Finance and Operations and Infrastructure to explore existing TNSC settlements as well as current support provided related to Telephone and Network Services.
    • Leveraging MIT Innovation:  Met with representatives in CSAIL who are working on a project to use artificial intelligence to automate repetitive and/or time-consuming technical support work.  Held Help Desk meeting to discuss possible options for initial pilot uses.
  • SD Issues and Trends
    • Back to School - there is always a lot of preparation work as well as many late days, and weekend hours put in before and during the back to school rush.
    • Re-focusing on new Customer Support staff, functions and organization of work.  There will be challenges inherent in figuring out how to re-focus the work of Customer Support
    • Responding to recommendations of Dell Help Desk Study.  Depending on the nature of the findings and recommendations there is likely to be some challenging work to be done to improve our services.
    • Establishing stronger, sustainable collaborations with other help desks on campus starting with Sloan.  Preliminary conversations are already underway.
    • Establishing ways to sustain engagement with support functions now in other parts of IS&T.  With DS/DITR and ITSS in Operations and Infrastructure, and Training and Docs in Systems Engineering, we need to establish new communication and collaboration mechanisms to ensure a single IS&T approach to Customer Support.
    • Student Laptop distribution at start of fall.  Start of fall semester sees the highest demand for the student laptops.  We will need to spend some time in the latter part of the summer making sure all the laptops are cleaned, maintained and ready to go.
    • RT Upgrade.  Assuming development continues on schedule and testing is successful, we will need to communicate broadly and plan for an upgrade to 3.8 in early fall.  Currently the project lead position is open with Irina's departure.
    • Hiring/Staffing – filling open positions created with shifts of staff during reorganization and/or staff departures.

FY10 Q3

FY10 Q2

Barbara Goguen’s email to Patricia Sheppard for the Service Desk contribution (dated 1/7/2010)

Hi, Elaine and Pat. Here is a first pass at accomplishments and goals for the Service Desk. In agreement with Steve, and with our Managers’ Meeting discussion, it would be great if we can figure out how to take all the separate team reports and consolidate them into a CSS report that eliminates the team specifics. Also, in case it does not show up on any individual team’s report, might we want to include anything about the work that went into the CSS Project reviews, FY11 budget exercise, and the new contractor approval process?

Accomplishments
Service Desk Tool Enhancements

  • worked with OIS to configure and implement eOn acd for Telephone Help group to make customer experience more consistent with Computing Help and to streamline help process; this included adding software to Telephony staff machines, testing configuration, training, adding a report view of telephone help calls to console for viewing in both the N42 Call Center and E19
  • updated to latest version of Bomgar remote troubleshooting software which allows for use with Windows 7; began experimenting with remote troubleshooting capabilities bundled with WebEx.
  • automated more of the daily trend reporting process while at the same time saving the report data for reuse
  • collaborated with AUX Publications staff to publish the student-created Hermes certificates wizard to the IS&T site.

Integrated new services into SD

  • successfully coordinated a semester of student loaner laptops, under the new definition of the program; streamlined both the setting up and recovery/reissue of the laptops, allowing us to successfully absorb the program without the people resources previously dedicated. Responses to the new program implementation have been universally positive, from both faculty and students.

Software and Services LifeCycle

  • began collaborating with OIS and ISDA colleagues to release first new Oracle client software in 5 years
  • participated on release efforts for Windows 7, MacOS X 10.6, new TSM clients for both
  • began testing 64-bit VPN client
  • began work between SD, CSS Headquarters, ISDA and OIS colleagues to scope the work needed to define a sustainable software lifecycle strategy and process
  • began work with OIS and AUX to lay the groundwork to distribute updated Citrix ICA clients for Mac and Windows from IS&T software download site
  • began distributing new VMWare client software
  • successful supported Benefits Open Enrollment period, despite an unprecedented level of complexity for certificate issues.

Exchange

  • tested @exchange vs. @mit.edu transition; documented behavior, shared with OIS, prepared to support users
  • with move from IMAP to Exchange saw 21% year to year increase in email related tickets (Oct-Nov. 2008 compared to Oct-Nov. 2009). Also moved from supporting 3 email clients and 1 calendar client to supporting 8 email clients and 7 calendar clients.

Network

  • established OIS liaison role that had SD staff member spend time weekly in W92 sharing timely information with OIS colleagues
  • worked with OIS Business Manager to capture all the different types of SD/OIS escalations.
  • worked with dorm network managers around changes in support procedures due to wireless network upgrades

Looking forward to next 3 months

  • relocate Telephony staff from E19 to N42
  • use matlab as example to step through entire process of licensing/acquisition, distribution and support with an eye toward streamlining and simplifying
  • participate in response to IT Task Force recommendations related to centralized purchasing of computer hardware, centralized purchasing of computer software, streamlining/outsourcing help desk support
  • establish small group training to improve knowledge transfer within the Service Desk, and in some cases with other IS&T colleagues
  • continue on effort to consolidate more of the student hiring, training and supervision across branches of the Service Desk
  • work with OIS and AUX to distribute updated Citrix ICA clients for Mac and Windows from IS&T software download site
  • work with DITR to pilot distribution of a VMware image for business help applications.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

FY10 Q1

From: Barbara J Goguen <goguen@MIT.EDU>
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 2009 15:25:47 -0400
To: Patricia Sheppard <pshepp@mit.edu>
Subject: Quarterly Report narrative

Hi, Pat. For a more refined collection of SD Quarterly Report notes, please start with the info on the Service Desk wiki at:

https://wikis.mit.edu/confluence/display/servicedesk/Q1FY10+Snapshot

Thanks!
Barbara

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