Tag Archives: OSU-Cascades

Service Desk Digest 4/5/2017

Students: Check your WhenToWork preferences

We have had several people miss shifts already this week due to scheduling conflicts. Please check your WhenToWork preferences carefully to ensure you are not set as available to work during a scheduled class.

Remember: it is your responsibility to ensure your WhenToWork settings are correct.

Citrix XenApp update next week

The Citrix XenApp environment will be upgraded and cut-over next week from College of Engineering’s infrastructure to IS’ infrastructure. With this change, we will gain access to some very useful troubleshooting tools. Information will be added to the Citrix InfoSheet shortly.

OSU-Cascades IT phone number

Telecom let me know that the phone menu for the old OSU-Cascades IT number (22051) had been wiped somehow. Customers calling that number heard dead air and were not able to get through to the call center.
This number used to be on a sticker on all OSU-Cascades computers, but no longer is. We started phasing it out about a year ago in favor of the main number (78787).
Fortunately, I still had a copy of the script, so Telecom re-recorded it for us. I have asked that they reprogram it to redirect directly to 78787 and that may be happening next week.

Sierra and ScreenConnect

Call center techs are seeing frequent but intermittent issues with ScreenConnect misbehaving on Sierra machines, making remote control almost impossible in many cases.

We may be able to resolve this with a change to ScreenConnect, or with a different tool. Will keep you all posted.

Floor in front of Milne 201

We had a bit of a surprise this week with the floor being torn up in front of Milne 201 without any notice. Angela is in conversation with Facilities about when the reinstall will happen, and trying to negotiate it for a time the walkup is not open. If the install ends up producing a lot of fumes, we can close the walkup door temporarily. My apologies for the unintended excitement.

 

Service Desk Digest 11/8/2016

TeamDynamix Reminder

Reminder that on the evening of Tuesday, 11/15, we will be migrating all open tickets in the following Coho queues to TeamDynamix. Starting Wednesday morning (11/16), all new tickets and ticket updates will happen in TeamDynamix.

Coho queues being cut-over to TD for 11/16:

  • CN Accounts
  • CN Base
  • CN Recommendations
  • CN Build Bench
  • CN Remote
  • Campus Labs Support
  • OCH Walk Up
  • Server Support

Know Thy Customer

Chris Sinnett put together a diagram of all Community Network customer departments by organizational chart. A copy of this can be found on the poster outside my cube. Please send additions or corrections to Chris as we will be printing a couple more of these.


Skype for Business for Mac Client

CJ has added a package for the new Skype Mac client on Casper Self-Service. It will replace the existing Lync client.

Please send any feedback to Kirsten and CJ.


OSU Cascades IT Manager Position Open

IS Client Services is recruiting a new IT manager position for the team out at OSU Cascades in Bend, Oregon. The position closes in early December.

https://jobs.oregonstate.edu/postings/34696


Veterans’ Day is This Friday

Don’t come to work (or class) this Friday, November 11 – it’s a holiday and the university is closed.


Service Desk Help Form Changes

There is a form on the IS Service Desk site that allows customers to create a ticket in our queue. Previously the subject line was a generic “Helpform submission” type of text.

I have modified the form to include a required Title field, which will be the subject line on the ticket.

FYI, unlike Coho, TeamDynamix will allow us to change a ticket title after it has been created. Still, I thought this change would be beneficial in providing more descriptive ticket titles to facilitate queue triage.

I also changed the email target on the form from osucomputerhelpdesk@oregonstate.edu to service.desk@oregonstate.edu.


Enhanced Classrooms

The list of classrooms supported by Classroom Technology Services can be found here: http://is.oregonstate.edu/service/classroom-technology

Each enhanced classroom has a phone in it that dials the Presentation Support team.

If we receive a call from one of these classrooms, it is okay to do a warm transfer to Presentation Support. They can be reached at 73806.

Service InfoSheet in ITKnows is in progress: http://itknows.oregonstate.edu/?p=9570

Service Desk Digest – 8/16/2016

Customer Service Training

On Tuesday 8/9, all full-time staff in Client Services attended a customer service training provided by Kristen Magis from HR. The goal of the session was to work through the training modules and customize them to our needs. Kristen will also be helping us turn this into a Canvas module so that student workers can do the training ad-hoc.


Box Training

Box is slated to be made available to all students and employees in a soft launch on September 7. The Service Desk is the tier 1 point-of-contact for Box support.

All Client Services staff and student workers (everyone who is here this summer) should be able to login to oregonstate.box.com now. If you had trouble accessing the training before, please try again via this method:

  1. Login to oregonstate.box.com.
  2. Click on “Get Training” on the right.
  3. If this is the first time you have gone to the Training site, wait 1 day before doing the next step.
  4. Search for “Helpdesk Essentials”, click on it, and choose “Launch”.
  5. If that doesn’t work, click on your profile at the top-right, then choose “Transcript” – the training should be listed under “Active”.

Walk-up Moving to Milne

There is a project underway to move the repair and tier 1 services of the walk-up desk from the Library to Milne before school starts in September. The checkout and production services will stay in the library. If this move happens, it will be during early to mid September.

The project team is: Andrew, Kirsten, Max, Samuel, Jeff, Richard, Ed. Ping one of us if you have questions or concerns.

I am currently working on the communications plan and CAB request for this change.

Walk-up folks please note: Community Network customers will also be able to bring their OSU-owned computers to the walk-up for assistance, but we will not be promoting this service until later in Fall. For now, if a CN customer comes to the walkup, please DO NOT TURN THEM AWAY. Ask for their ticket number, or look them up in RefTool to find their ticket, and call the 78787 number if you are not sure what to do.


New IS Website

The Information Services website is being redone, and the new one should be going into production either late August or early September.

You can view the dev version of the new IS site here. I am still working with Sher Fenn to update much of our content.


Apps.oregonstate.edu

Citrix XenApp (apps.oregonstate.edu) has replaced RemoteApps. The Service Desk is the tier 1 point-of-contact for all Citrix requests. Escalate issues to the Campus Labs queue in Coho as needed.

The InfoSheet for Citrix is in ITKnows.

The name of this service may change, but for now we seem to be calling it “Citrix” or “Apps”.


OSU-Cascades New Building

The grand opening for Tykeson Hall is September 13. Greg Chilcote and Shannon Osborne were busy last week getting things ready.

With things being very busy in Bend and with OSU-Cascades expanding to more locations, we are encouraging CN customers at OSU-Cascades to call the call center for support rather than arm-grabbing Greg and Shannon for everything. Always make note of where a customer is located when talking to them on the phone. We can send Greg and Shannon to field appointments in Bend just as we do with field techs here in Corvallis. Max C. is working on getting travel time information to assist us with scheduling.


New Email Address for Service Desk

Beginning with promotional events this Fall and with changes to the IS website, I will be promoting a new email address for contacting the Service Desk.

The official contact information for the Service Desk is as follows:

IS Service Desk

Phone: 541-737-8787 (Corvallis/Statewide),  541-322-2051 (OSU-Cascades)

Email: Service.Desk@oregonstate.edu

Walk-up: Valley Library, main floor lobby area (until this changes)


Fall Service Desk Hours

With the move of the walk-up to Milne, we will be syncing up the call center hours with the walk-up. Our fall hours for walk-up and call center will be:

IS Service Desk Hours

Monday-Friday: 8am-7PM

Saturday/Sunday: 3PM-7PM


Team Dynamix Update

We are getting ready to reboot the project to roll Client Services to Team Dynamix, our new ticketing system.

Lucas Friedrichsen will be heading up this effort, with Paul Bunn as the project manager.

I can’t give an exact time frame yet, but if all goes well, we will be migrating the Service Desk from Coho to Team Dynamix in mid-to-late Fall term.

We will address other groups who use Coho after the Service Desk operations have moved.

Call Center Digest – 6/8/2016

Some quick updates pertinent to the call center.


OSU Cascades

Did you know that OSU has a branch campus in Bend, Oregon called “OSU Cascades”?

The most common criticism from OSU Cascades customers is that when they call, we don’t seem to know who or where they are. All employees and students at OSU Cascades are our customers, and we have staff on-site in Bend to assist with desk-side visits. (They are Greg Chilcote and Shannon Osborne.)

 

Please see the OSU Cascades site to learn more. There will be a quiz later.


County Extension Offices and Ag Experiment Stations

Did you know that we have different processes in place for supporting the County Extension Offices and Ag Experiment Stations (AES)? We do not generally have the option to do desk-side visits for these remote customers, so most support is via phone and ScreenConnect sessions.

Lisa Gillis does purchasing for Extension and AES, and customers should be advised to work with her directly on all drop-off and pick-up arrangements. Lisa also does recommendations and e-quotes for Extension and AES.

Wayne Jardine does network troubleshooting for these remote sites. We can also report network outages directly to NERO at noc@nero.net.  Known NERO outages are posted on their website.

More documentation on Extension support workflows coming to ITKnows soon.


Box

The Box pilot went live June 1, and testers are being instructed to contact the Service Desk for tier 1 support. Issues we cannot resolve should be escalated to Steve Fowler; set him responsible, inform him on the ticket and leave the ticket in the OSU Computer Helpdesk queue.

There are 71 test users in the Box pilot at this time. Most questions have been about basic usage and policy. The Box implementation team is not adding new testers at this time.

Infosheet for Box in ITKnows


MediaSpace/Kaltura

Usage of MediaSpace/Kaltura has increased dramatically since its integration with Canvas. Tier 1 requests will come to the Service Desk, but as this is a complex application, we will only be able to answer basic questions. Escalations go to streaming@lists.oregonstate.edu. Please use the “Media Space” template in template hub.

Infosheet for MediaSpace/Kaltura


Important fact of the day:

This Saturday, OSU will graduate a record-breaking number of students: 6,406 people.  Roughly 10% of those students are distance students. OSU is still one of the few large universities to hand an individual diploma to each graduate as they cross the stage. That’s really, really cool.

 

 

Call Center Digest – 10/23/2015

Folks, this is a busy place.

I took a look at the number of tickets across all of the Client Services queues yesterday. It was over 800. Two weeks ago, it was over 1,000, so we are catching up.

Then I looked at the number of tickets we touched (added a note, changed a field, set responsible, etc.) in a 24 hour period.  It was 500. And that was not even a very busy day.

So, if you feel busy, you are not imagining things. I am working on some ways to analyze our workload, understand it better, and tell our story. As always, your insights and suggestions into that process are appreciated.


New Items and Reminders

OSU Cascades tickets –  Tickets that are escalated to Greg or Shannon at OSU Cascades for on-site follow-up are now staying in the CN Base queue. If you see a ticket with “responsible” set to Greg or Shannon, please let them follow up with the customer.

OSU Alert Issues – Some people did not get the earthquake announcements last week. This was because the message was sent out via the “Outreach” mechanism rather than “Emergency”, and OSU was not set up properly to use that. I have shared that feedback with the proper folks so that should not happen again.

Also: the vendor has confirmed that OSU Alert password reset emails can take up to 10 minutes to send. (Ugh.)

Blackboard Demise – Blackboard is slated to be retired at the end of fall term 2015. Instructors are advised to export their gradebooks and course content. Courses will be archived for some period. More information here: Canvas Transition Web site

Schedule Planner – OSU has a new service to help students schedule classes. We will hopefully have some training on this soon (it’s waiting on me). More information here: Schedule Planner


 

Fun fact: about 7 million tons of chocolate are produced each year. It’s not enough.

Or as Katherine Hepburn put it: “What you see before you, my friend, is the result of a lifetime of chocolate.”