Common Solutions Group Workshop: Help Desk Survey Results

2 CSG Help Desk Survey Results Susan Alexander, CMU Karen Van Dusen, CMU Susan Grajek, Yale

3 Respondents Brown Carnegie Mellon Cornell Duke Georgetown Harvard Indiana MIT NYU Princeton Stanford UC Berkeley University of Chicago University of Colorado - Boulder University of Delaware University of Michigan University of Minnesota University of Virginia University of Washington University of Wisconsin - Madison Virginia Tech Yale 22 Schools

4 Topics covered Breadth of support Relationships with other support groups Service Management (Tools and best practices) (Metrics) What can we learn about the Help Desk of the future?

5 Demographics

6 Supported Groups

7 Number of ‘Core’ People Supported Median total ‘core’ supported = 29,800, ranging from 7,105 to 101,000

8 Total Number of People Supported Median total supported = 35,024, ranging from 10,400 to 233,316

9 Hours Weekdays Open 14 hours/day on average 4 are open 24 hours a day* 32% staff primarily with students, who average 64% of the workforce Weekends Open 7 hours/day on average 50% are closed 45% staff primarily with students, who constitute 100% of the workforce

10 Tools and best practices used by the Help Desk

11 Ticketing Software Used

12 Breadth of Support

13 What is Supported? 21 topics 7 levels of support –No support –Referral to vendor –Installation coaching –Simple trouble-shooting at the front line –Just-in-time one-on-one tutoring at the front line –Advanced trouble-shooting at the front line –Escalation to back line

14 What is supported? 1.Accounts 2.Collaborative tools (e.g., Wikis, blogs, Sharepoint, file-sharing, etc) 3.Commercial applications (Office, Adobe products, etc.) 4.Course management and other educational applications 5. 6.Hardware troubleshooting 7.High performance computing 8.Information security – preventive measures 9.Information security – recovery from incidents 10.Library applications and databases 11.Media (e.g., A/V, video, photography, graphics) 12.Mobile computing (PDAs, mobile phones, iPods, etc) 13.Network and connectivity 14.Networked printers 15.Operating system troubleshooting 16.Personal Printers 17.Software licensing 18.Statistical and scientific applications 19.Telecom (voice services) 20.Web browsers 21.Web publishing

15 Support by Area Note: Scale is weighted: 0 for unsupported, 1 for escalations and referrals, 2 for simple troubleshooting and installation support and 3 for advanced troubleshooting and tutoring. Scores of all 21 respondents were thus weighted and then the results were normalized on a 100 point scale. Level of Support

16 Unsupported Areas

17 Advanced Front-line Support Average school does advanced support for 10 topics % of schools

18 Advanced Support: Functional Support Schools providing functional support do so in an average of 3 areas % of schools * Campus portal (2), online admissions decisions (1)

19 Advanced Front-line Support at Help Desks by Topic Average school does advanced support for 10 topics

20 Relationships with other Support Groups Handoffs Other Help Desks Supporting other IT support providers

21 Handoffs 100%Information security staff 95%Application and Web developers 95%Systems staff 91% Other IT support providers (e.g., desktop technicians) within our IT organization 91%Telecom 91%Functional owners (e.g., finance, HR, facilities, admissions) 82%Higher-level staff within our Help Desk 82%Other help desks at our institution 68% Other IT support providers (e.g., desktop technicians) outside our IT organization

22 Other Help Desks Other IT Help Desks 77% cover all of University, but… Other Help Desks in all schools –Department-specific –Application-specific Non-IT Help Desks 41% pass tickets to non- IT Help Desks (HR, Procurement, Library, Health System, Classroom support) None share staff or space

23 Supporting other IT Support Providers 64% provide access to tools (knowledgebase, ticketing, systems status) 64% offer direct contact to backline technologists 59% give higher priority status 18% treat other IT support providers just like end-users

24 Service Management Service Level Agreements Continuous improvement Outsourcing

25 Service Level Agreements 55% have different SLAs for different customer groups 9% have a single SLA 5% have different SLAs for different service requests/issues 32% have no written SLAs

26 Continuous Improvement “Process for reviewing service requests for root causes to provide a feedback loop for systems, training & documentation” 82% do this in an ad hoc way 9% have a formal process 9% don’t do this

27 Evaluated Outsourcing?

28 Pain points Relationship with the ‘back-end’ of IT Increasing complexity of support Upgrading tools Staffing issues –Responsiveness –Inclusiveness –Knowing who to call –Changes in technology –Lack of standards –Increases in scope –Accuracy, QA –Ticketing systems (upgrades, single system, Web-based) –Adding chat & IM –Training & development –Morale –Retention –Salary –Pressures to expand hours –Managing students

29 Help Desk futures?

30 Help Desk functional support

31 Help Desk staff required for functional support

32 Metrics used by the Help Desk

33 Questions?