1 TechTrain 2004 Adelaide University Help Desk : Looking from the Inside Out – The Help Desk Perspective. Greg Powell Greg

2 Some brief personal history :  Began work at University of Adelaide – March, 1975  Worked in Departments of Zoology, Physiology & ITS  Training in chemistry, electronics, information technology, OH&S, SCUBA diving and in workshop fabrication and practices.

3 History  In 2001 ITS undertook the process of centralisation of IT services.  Previously, Departments utilised a general staff member as IT support or specifically employed an IT professional as part of their budgetary outlay.  Multiple standards for operating systems and hardware.  Security issues with system patches, OS setup and anti-virus installation/update.

4 Advantages to centralisation :  Standard pool of hardware and operating systems such that common issues can be uniformly addressed (often with the help of a ZEN pushout e.g. Microsoft Windows vulnerability patches).  A pool of dedicated IT personnel who can combine their diverse knowledge and systematically resolve issues.  Economies of scale across the University with Help Desk tools and knowledge.

5 Desktop Systems  University Standard Desktop (USD) for IBM PC & Mac –HP Desktop (selected models) –Minimum specs (PIII 600MHz, 256MB RAM, 8GB HDD) –Windows 2000 (NT being phased out ASAP), Mac OS 9 & 10.2 –Office 2000, Netscape 4.78 ( ), WinZip, IE, SecureCRT, WS_FTP LE

6 Who do we support ?  Faculty of Sciences, Humanities and Social Sciences, Health Sciences (nominated departments), School of Commerce, School of Law, School of Petroleum Engineering and Management, Barr Smith Library and all Administrative Divisions.  External – USC, Bradford College & University Union.  Campuses at North Terrace, Roseworthy and WAITE, RAH, QEH, Lyell McEwin Health Service, ReproMed (Fullarton), National Wine Centre.  Student IT suites & facilities

7 Desktop Tools :  Peregrine System ServiceCentre V5.1 call management system.  Novell/Novell ZENworks : – Pushouts – Remote control (IBM PCs) & Macs – NWadmin – ConsoleOne  Nagios: system and network monitoring application  LDAP and Netscape Server Manager  Host database

8 Desktop Management Services : Organisation  Divided into five teams : – Red Onsite : Sciences and Health Sciences – Green Onsite : Humanities, Commerce, Law & Library – Blue Onsite : Administration, Union, SPEM, USC, Wine Centre, Unisure & Bradford College – WAITE Onsite – Roseworthy Onsite  Assignee Owners for each team.

9 Approximate team assignment

10 What we do :  Hotdesk (phone calls) – offer solutions to queries, use remote control and fix issues where possible, log an Incident for the appropriate on-site group (Red, Green or Blue).  Receive and act on FAXes and Help Desk s.  On Site – visit customer on-site and fix problem (incidents issued via Hotdesk logging).  Hardware – organise with, or direct customer to, external service provider (Commander).

11 Escalation Process : On Site 1.On site Technician 2.Assignee Owner 3.Technical escalations 4.Coordinator  Contact appropriate team (OS&S, TS, Networks)

12 Escalation Process : Hotdesk (phones) 1.Hotdesker 2.Technical escalations 3.Coordinator  Contact appropriate team (OS&S, TS, Networks)

13 Problem Management  Proactive  Verification rather than solution  Comes from Technical Escalations  ed to DMS Suggestions list  Creation of a Project

14 Most common problems :  Non-standard hardware or software setup such that Remote Control cannot be utilised therefore requiring an on-site visit.  No installed Novell client (or use of MS NW client) or installed Novell client is not up to minimum specification allowing automatic update/s.  Area funding

Statistics  Support – 12,000 Students – 4,500 staff – 4,500 staff  Calls – 65,812  Incidents – 19,343

16 Weekly team meetings

17 Level 10