Please read for a few important updates.

Service Desk Walk-in Relaunch

Starting Monday, July 19, we will be accepting walk-ins in Milne 201 again. I will be updating our webpage and email templates to reflect this change.

Customers who have a Milne appointment scheduled can come into 201 to meet us. They no longer need to ring the bell.

If you are helping a customer on the phone and decide they need help in person – or they ask for help in person – you can provide the following options:

1. Offer to make an appointment for them to meet a technician in Milne. Use Bookings to make the appointment.
2. For CN customers, we can schedule a technician to meet the customer in their office.
3. Customers can drop in to the Milne walk-up any time Monday-Friday 8am-5pm during the Summer.

Please reach out to me, Max, Jeff or Andre if you have any questions about this.

CN Build Email Templates

I’ve made several changes to the email response templates related to computer builds:

• There is a new category called “SD – Builds”
• The template that was called “Computer pickup” is now called “Computer is ready” and has correct options for pick-up, placement or shipping. Please use this one when notifying a customer that their computer build is done.
• The templates for Windows and Mac interviews have been moved to the SD – Builds category.
• The “Computer Shipped” template has been moved to the SD – Builds category.
• I removed several defunct templates, including: Schedule PC Placement, Schedule PC Placement (Extension), Stop tag authorization, Schedule PC Interview, and Schedule PC Interview (Extension).
• I still need to update several places in the KB.

Cosine Transition Update

We now have access to the Cosine ONID organizational units, so we can move Cosine user accounts with ONIDMover if needed.

If we have a Cosine computer that needs a rebuild, go ahead and build the computer with the CN image. Computer objects for Cosine should be placed in tss.oregonstate.edu/CN/Cosine.

We now have limited access with our admin accounts in the science.oregonstate.edu domain. We can manage computer objects and have admin access to Cosine lab computers. For security group changes, contact a full-timer and we will escalate the request.

Guest Access in Teams

It is now possible to request guest access be enabled for a team. A request form has been added to TDx.

For details, see: Teams – Chat with External Members or add Guests to a Team

Changes to CN New Account Form

The CN new account form now includes two date fields – a start date for the new employee, and a date the changes are needed by (if earlier than the employee start date).

The “account type” field has been updated to include these three options:

1. Employee
2. Grad Student
3. Undergraduate Student Employee or Other (Intern, Volunteer, etc.)

In the case of the third option, we will create a CN Active Directory account. The account can only be used for Windows login and Exchange email. If the customer needs more services, such as VPN, Zoom, Teams, or Box, they should request a sponsored account instead.

For details about new CN accounts, see: CN – Setup a CN Account for a New Employee

For details about sponsored accounts, see: Sponsored ONID Accounts (Internal)

License Requests for EndNote, SPSS, and Mathematica

Starting July 2021, Service Desk will receive and process requests for licenses to EndNote, SPSS, and Mathematica. There is no need to escalate these requests; they can be processed now by Service Desk techs.

To gain access to the software licensing tracking sheet for EndNote, SPSS, and Mathematica, please complete the new Software Licensing Training:

https://canvas.oregonstate.edu/courses/1635323/pages/software-licensing-introduction?module_item_id=21308686

Once you have completed the training, contact Kirsten Petersen or Max Cohen for access to the licensing tracking sheet.

We will start pointing these ticket requests at Service Desk soon, so please complete the training as soon as you can. Thank you!

Team,

As you saw in Andrew’s June 25 email, Customer Experience (CX) is taking on desktop support for the Cosine user base as of today, July 1. For now, we will continue to call the service “Cosine” and the customers “Cosine customers”. Over time, this will probably change. For now, our goals are to ensure that the customers receive the same level of service they are used to, and that our team have the tools we need to do that.

RefTool has already been updated to show that both CN and Cosine customers are “CX supported.” Cosine supported computers are already enrolled in LAPS, so we can retrieve local admin passwords for them. For any computers that aren’t in LAPS yet, the admin password will be documented in Keeper.

The Cosine student workers now report to Max and will be joining our team. We will also be working to recruit for a new desktop support manager who will manage desktop support for the combined Cosine and CN customer base.

CJ Keist, current manager of the DRI team and former Assistant Director of Cosine, will be helping plan the project to transition Cosine support. Note that only the service desk and desktop support components of Cosine will be coming to CX. Other aspects – such as web support, research computing and server management – will be going with the Cosine staff who support those areas as they are reassigned to other teams in UIT.

We have not yet changed how Cosine users get support. Their calls and emails still route to the Cosine service points and we will probably continue to run things that way for a little while until we have a good transition plan.

However, Cosine customers have been notified of the coming changes. If a Cosine customer contacts the Service Desk now, please do your best to support them at the same level that you would a Community Network customer. If you don’t have access to a tool or documentation needed to fulfill the request, please contact Kirsten Petersen, Max Cohen or CJ Keist for assistance. Please do not refer Cosine customers somewhere else; instead, reassure them that they have come to the right place.

We’ll be working with the Cosine team to create internal documentation in our knowledge base for the Cosine user base. For an example of what this will look like, please see the department infosheets. Let me know what kinds of things you have questions about, so we can be sure to get that documented or addressed before we move service points.

I look forward to your suggestions, and hope you will join me in welcoming our new team members:

• Grace Johnson
• Max Davensmith
• Andy Yu
• Alex Wan
• Kiernan Canavan