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

Escalation Information in InfoSheets

When escalating a ticket, always check the Service Infosheet for that service first. Escalation can be done in one of three ways, depending on how that group uses the ticketing system. We either assign a task to another group, reassign the whole ticket, or notify the appropriate group via email on the ticket.

Because of this unfortunate complexity, I have documented the best way to escalate a ticket in each of the service infosheets. You can usually find an infosheet by searching the KB for the service name and the word “infosheet”.

The Infosheets also cover other important details, so please check them out!

Outage and Maintenance Tickets

Please check the Outage and Maintenance ticket report at the start of each shift. The report includes parent tickets for ongoing issues or potential issues that we should be aware of. Often the parent tickets will have instructions about how to resolve an issue, or what information to collect from the customer. The report is linked to the default “Desktop” app in TeamDynamix and is also listed in RefTool under Documentation-> Outage and Maintenance Tickets.

You may also find it helpful to check the status.is.oregonstate.edu page for current and past outage information.

Recent Customer Feedback

Here are some recent responses from customers on our ticket survey. These are all just from the past week. Keep up the great work, team! Our campus appreciates you.

“staff I work with at the service desk are always positive and helpful”

“As always great service!”

“I spoke with two staff people on that morning because I was onsite trying to load outlook and slack. They were both very kind and helpful. Thanks for everything you all do everyday!!!”

“I received excellent and supportive support to resolve a computer start up issue. Issue has been resolved, and was done in a timely and professional manner. Thank you IS Desk!!”

“Good info and the fix worked ! Thanks”

“Service desk was contacted on May 3 at 2:39pm and by 5:00pm they had installed the Unity Client to the customers desktop.”

“Great service! Resolved my issue promptly and professionally. I really appreciate it!”

“Super helpful, knew exactly what my issue was and was able to fix it in minutes.”

“Staff helped by installing needed ShoWorks in a timely manner. He was very effective and efficient.”

“The response was quick and helpful, and all of my questions were answered”

“Fast, friendly, and got it installed correctly.”

“Super helpful regarding IT question. Staff was able to give me a solution in the moment. He then went the extra mile and followed up through email with an alterative solution for me to try. Thank you! I really appreciated the help.”

“The CN staff are very professional and helpful.”

“Only needed the one call to resolve, very helpful and knowledgeable. Thank you! “

“Meanwhile, during my last 9 years and 4 months of working in the Myrtle Point Extension office, I always felt extreeeeemly grateful for the help and support of your team!”

“Justin Vaughn was very helpful. He took care of my questions and concerns about my laptop computer.”

“Staff was knowledgeable and friendly. No complaints.”

“staff was very quick and responsive to emails / calls. they were very helpful. thank you.”

“Very much appreciate the time and care taken to resolve this issue. Thank you!”

“Thanks for help Charlene”

“The staff at the service desk was very polite and was thorough in taking note of the issue with internet connectivity. I felt like I was being heard, and I appreciated their help. The problem was fixed in a timely fashion.”

“Very helpful and supportive! Patient and understanding…and the outcome was positive!”

“Tim was patient and willing to help the best he could. My issue was strange and we both were a little confused. However, Tim solved the issue with ease. Amazing service. 10/10. Give them a sticker. Awesome job!”

“Very quick and courteous response to my request, remedy suggested was the answer!”

“Knowledgeable, helpful, and reached out multiple times to ensure I had all the information I needed. Much appreciated!”

“Both service and staff were amazing. Able to do what I need it”

“Really quick, knowledgeable help. Made the whole deal a lot less stressful”

“I called late right before 5 on a Friday…he had a great attitude and helped me so quickly.”

Welcome New Team Members!

I neglected to send out a welcome to our Fall 2020 new hires, so let’s start there:

• Madeline Acherman
• Jawad Alamgir
• Zach Breazile
• Troy Cobos
• Nick Dickens
• Tim Gonzales
• Derek Grose
• Andrew LeClaire
• Emmanuel Moncada
• Sameen Shahzad
• Andrew Vester
• Miles Wineland
• Ricardo Wu

And welcome to our new Spring 2021 hires:

• Matt Chiasson
• Nitya Patil
• Julien Plomion
• Axel Pothier
• Colston Warne
• Kitrick “Kit” Miller
• Marco Predovic
• Daksh Viradiya
• Noah Chung
• Eli DeJack
• Justin Kiernan
• Ahmad Rafique

Farewell!

We had a few students leave us recently. Please join me in wishing them well on their next adventures.

• Clayton Irish
• Matt Sleeper
• Cole Lingo

Thank you for being part of our team! We will miss you.

Spring Term Items

We are in the process of planning the Spring Term student meeting. If you have suggested topics for the meeting, please let Kirsten or Max know, or contact one of the student leads.

If you are graduating this year, please remember to do a FERPA release if you want a supervisor to respond to reference calls for you. You can also contact Max, Kirsten, or Andrew for help with your resume, cover letters, or to ask for a letter of recommendation. I also recommend setting up a LinkedIn profile – Max or I can add you to our LinkedIn group where current and former CX employees share job postings. It’s a great way to stay connected.

Reminders

Verify ID when resetting a CN account password.
We need to make sure we are resetting the password for the right person, and not being socially engineered. The process is similar to Duo verification and is documented here: CN – Accounts – Administratively set a CN Password (Internal)

Only use ConnectWise when needed.
You should only be asking the customer to do a remote session when you need to see their screen. There are many requests for which this would not be needed, and we don’t want to waste the customer’s time. Always tell the customer why you want to do a remote session, and ask them if they are okay with doing that. Always ask before taking control of the remote session, and always tell the customer what you are doing as you do it.

Respect the customer’s time.
Know whether you are making forward progress in a call or not. Give the customer a rough idea of how long things will take so they know what to expect. If you are not sure, let them know that, too. If you are not making progress, seek help. Sometimes a referral may be needed, but make sure you are getting the customer to the right place and that they know why you are referring them elsewhere.

• Case in point: A customer recently gave feedback that they spent 3 hours on the phone with us before we told them we couldn’t fix their issue because it wasn’t an OSU service. That is something we should know and address at the beginning of the call.

Involve instructor in course-specific troubleshooting.
We support Canvas from the technology side of things, but if a student or TA needs help that is specific to a course or assignment, they should probably talk to their instructor. For example, sometimes instructors post assignments incorrectly, and they are the only ones who can address that. We can email information – such as troubleshooting steps tried – to instructors if needed.

Ask yourself: could this be a warranty issue?
If you are helping a customer with a university-owned device that appears to be having hardware issues, please look up the service tag or serial to see whether it is under warranty. Part of the CN service includes helping coordinate warranty repair or replacements for customers. For computers at Extension sites, we can often have the vendor go on-site to do repairs, meaning the customer does not need to ship the computer to Milne. For more about CN warranty repair, see: CN – Hardware Warranty Repair Process (Internal)

Customer Feedback

The following are just a few of the comments we received on customer surveys last week:

“Quick and professional as always.”

“I appreciate all of the help I received as well as clarity in explanations and support services both on the phone and online. Thank you!”

“Very helpful and it did not take too long to get the issue resolved.”

“Many thanks to Mr. Burks, who was very patient with my questions and helped me learn some things.”

“It took a 2 phone calls to complete the requested help, but both techs were extremely helpful and kind to work with! Thank you!”

“Your team was great at walking me through the problem and guiding me to a solution. I was also impressed at how quickly they were attentive to my request. Good work.”

Keep up the great work, everyone!

ONID Activation Changes

There will be a new ONID activation process soon, which should hopefully reduce support calls. The change had been scheduled for 3/25, but has been pushed back to next week (probably 3/31). You can see a walk-thru of the process or try it yourself. For info, see: New ONID Activation Process

IAM have already written draft updates to the relevant KB articles; these will be published when the new process is put in place.

Security Software Deployment

There will be another round of security software deployed to university-owned Windows computers (workstations and servers) starting Thursday, 3/25. If you run into issues with high disk I/O or CPU utilization that appear to be related to the new software, please see the parent tickets and ask in the SD Internal Talk channel for assistance.

MyCN Status

MyCN is working for access to CN-Home and CN-Share. However, customers can no longer access other network shares. Password changes are also not working at this time.

It is likely that MyCN is going to stay like this for a while. Please help customers with work-arounds: MyCN Parent ticket

Changes to Wireless Network

NOC has made some updates to the wireless network, including disabling WPA TKIP legacy encryption method. Only a handful of devices were seen still trying to use this method. For details, see: Wireless change parent ticket