[504] in resnet
Re: What's Supported?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Caroline Couture)
Tue Dec 4 12:05:22 2001
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Message-ID: <4.3.2.7.0.20011204111321.029dbb20@pobox.upenn.edu>
Date: Tue, 4 Dec 2001 12:01:32 -0500
Reply-To: Resnet Forum <RESNET-L@listserv.nd.edu>
From: Caroline Couture <caroline@POBOX.UPENN.EDU>
To: RESNET-L@listserv.nd.edu
In-Reply-To: <200112041604.LAA27660@listserv.nd.edu>
At 09:55 AM 12/4/2001 -0600, you wrote:
>Our ResNet/Central Student HelpDesk, called Team 55, is currently
>revisiting the type of support we offer to our student body. Currently we
>will help with anything short of opening a case, on almost any OS. That
>will include system reloads, software installs, virus clean-up,
>connectivity setup, ect.
>
>What lines are other support organizations drawing in the sand and why?
We do all of the above and more. We do open cases to install hard drives,
memory, and cards. We don't support Linux but we do support all of the
windows variants except win 3.1. On the mac we support everything from 7.55
and up. We promise "best effort."
>It seems that our Customer Service is taking a hit because we spend too
>long on student machines that may need "too much" support to be functional
>on our network.
I think that this is a really common problem. After all most of us did not
get into this to tell folks "no" and "it won't work." Our job is to fix
things. Also no one wants to be the bearer of bad news; better to try and
keep working than to give up and tell someone you are giving up.
There is also the fear that if we do give up that we will find out that we
shouldn't have.
At Penn we have a "standards" document which gives operational minimums for
hardware and os. This is a our fall back document if we have a piece of
hardware that just won't cut it on the network.
http://www.upenn.edu/computing/arch/standards/desktop-01-02.html
We also have an informal rule that machines get cut off after we've done
about 8 to 10 hours of work on them. When we do this we try and give the
student an idea of what the problem is and why we can't resolve it. In our
situation the full time staff member usually informs the student that we
are closing out the case. Students seem to understand this because they
have seen us working and trying different things and referring cases from
the student workers to the student managers and finally to the full time
staff. They know that we have done all that we can do.
For example we have a limited stock of "spare parts" so we can swap out
items to test but if there is a part we don't have we can't swap it out.
I do feel your pain because there are machines that haven't made the spec
that I haven't wanted to give up on because I know that computer is best
that the student can do. I may get the computer working but I warn the
student of the limitations and the fact that the machine may not keep
working for long.
What you may want to do is develop a standards doc, ours is a University
wide effort. A time limit on how long you will work on any particular
computer. Make sure that all of the steps are documented. And finally have
a protocol for how a machine can be closed out.
Make sure that your staff knows these steps so they feel comfortable in
closing out cases.
Finally make sure that the students know. You can set expectations for
machines that are on the edge.
Good luck!
Caroline
*****
Caroline Couture
College House Computing * ITSS Senior -- DuBois and Harrison
caroline@pobox.upenn.edu * 215-573-3887
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