Tag Archives: builds

Milne Office Moves Timeline

Here are the details for our upcoming office moves. If you have questions or concerns about where you will be working during the transition or how processes may be impacted by these changes, please see the chart outside Richard’s office. If that doesn’t answer your questions, talk to Max C., Angela or Kirsten.

Timeline of Moves

  • Friday 3/23
    • We will start clearing out 213C (the old 201)
  • Saturday 3/24
    • We will reconfigure the furniture in 213A
  • Monday 3/26
    • Spring Break starts
    • We will tear down and move out of 213C; walkup customers will be temporarily redirected via signage to 213
    • Contractor begins furniture install in new 201
    • Telecom installs new phones in 213A; David and Keenan’s phones will be moved to 213A at this time
    • CN builds and dban done in 213A
  • Tuesday 3/27
    • Telecom installs phones in 201
    • Lisa moves to 201A (pending contractor break down of her existing furniture)
    • CN builds and dban done in 213A
    • Setup of 201 completed
  • Wednesday 3/28
    • 201 ready for walk-up; can also be used for call center and builds if needed
    • CN builds and dban done in 213A; 201 can also be used for builds if needed
  • Thursday 3/29
    • We will tear down 213
    • 213A used for CN builds and call center; 201 can also be used for builds if needed
  • Friday 3/30
    • Telecom reconfigures phone jacks in 213 for new layout (in preparation for staff moving to new locations in 213)
  • Monday 4/2
    • Contractor begins install of new furniture in 213
  • Tuesday 4/3
    • Contractor completes furniture install in 213
  • Wednesday 4/4
    • We begin setting up staff and student work stations in 213
  • Thursday 4/5
    • We will have a large truck available to surplus old cubicle walls, etc. Until then Milne 228 will be used for temporary storage of furniture bound for Surplus.
  • Friday 4/6
    • Setup of all work spaces completed by end of the day; afterwards builds and call center can be done in 213 and 213A (as well as 201 if needed). Walkups can be handled in all areas. Dbans will be done in 213A.

Process changes to note:

  • CN builds
    • May be delayed 3/26 through 3/30 and possibly as late as 4/6. CN customers will be notified no later than 3/20.
    • A role will be defined for a full-time staff member to monitor builds throughout the day and ensure they are being assigned and completed.
    • After the change, builds can happen in all our work spaces. Clear notes in tickets regarding location of equipment and good adherence to process will be even more critical than before. Please be careful not to misplace customer equipment and peripherals.
    • After the change, Extension customer equipment will likely be stored in Lisa’s new office in 201A. Other CN customer equipment will either be in the Mail room or the new storage racks in 213. The CN outgoing rack will be moved to the new storage racks in 213.
  • Walk-up
    • Walk-up services will be interrupted 3/26-3/27. However, as this is Spring Break, traffic should be light. Signs will redirect customers. Let customers know we are sorry for the disruption, and that the move of the walk-up is intended to make it easier to find.
  • Call Center
    • By the time the tear down of 213 begins on 3/29, we plan to have enough work spaces in 213A to handle our usual load of calls. However, some spaces may need to double-up and do CN builds as well (we will try to limit these), or even handle a walk-in customer.  The worst days will likely be 4/2 and 4/3, as that is the start of the term and we will be space-limited on those days. By 4/4, we should be starting to get back to normal as we begin to set up work spaces in 213.
    • I am expecting some longer call wait times and higher call abandons on 4/2 and 4/3. Do the best you can but don’t worry overmuch about it.
    • More full timers will be assigned to do call mentoring after the change. It won’t be just Robin and Keenan anymore! 🙂
  • Field/On-site appointments
    • Additional staff will be added to the rotation for on-site appointments. More information to follow soon.
    • No one will take appointments 100% of the time; staff will be assigned to varying roles throughout the day. Please read calendars carefully before scheduling appointments.
    • In the future we plan to allow more ad-hoc on-site visits – that is, you take the call, you decide an on-site is needed, you aux out and go see the customer. More information about this will follow soon. (Max and I still need to work out details.)
  • Slack
    • There will be some changes to our Slack channels. More information on this soon.

 

Where is the customer’s equipment?

Recently there has been some confusion about the location of customer computers, boxes and peripherals.

I have updated our documentation on the purchasing process to cover this: Recommendations and Purchasing

Please note the following:

For AES/Extension off-campus customers:

  • The boxes and peripherals stay with Lisa Gillis.
  • The computer goes back to Lisa after build; Lisa applies a stop tag and arranges for delivery or pick-up.

For all other CN customers:

  • The boxes and peripherals stay in the mail room.
  • The computer goes to the outgoing rack after build. (If it is a laptop, the power adapter will be with the computer.)

Service Desk Digest 2/13/2018

SupportRemote Account Missing on Windows 10 1703 Machines

It appears that Microsoft has made a security change that broke the process we were using to push the local SupportRemote account to Windows computers. The local Support account is still showing up on new computers because it is built into the base image. Note: do not give the Support password to customers.

I have put in a request to the Endpoint team to include SupportRemote in the base image in order to address this issue. (Ticket: 4959306)

Related: Ben and I followed up again recently on the request to get the AD schema change in place to allow us to test LAPS for Windows local account management. The decision about making that change is still pending creation of an AD committee to review the change. (Ticket: 2456940)

Driver Updates and “Dell Command | Update”

It was brought to my attention recently that our build process does not tell the technician to apply all driver updates. It was my assumption that we were already doing this, but in some cases we clearly have not been.

Going forward, I would like to see all driver updates applied as part of the build/rebuild process. Our documentation and BuildTracker steps will be updated to reflect this change.

When building Dell computers, please install the Dell Command | Update utility and apply all critical and recommended driver updates. This software can also be used when doing phone support to help address potential driver issues. (Please remove the software after applying driver updates so that it doesn’t pop-up confusing reminders to the customer.)

In the future we may include the Dell Command | Update utility in the CN image and/or push driver updates via SCCM. For now, this is a good tool for you to know about.

Duo Hardware Tokens Now Available

Customers may now buy hardware tokens for Duo at the OSU Beaver Store. A self-registration site will be launched this Thursday.

Documentation about the hardware tokens can be found here:

Organizational Charts for Infrastructure & Operations Teams

There have been some recent changes to Infrastructure and Operations teams. A new formal Endpoint team has been formed and reports to Brandon Wells. The Server Support team has been absorbed into the Infrastructure team, which also handles requests related to shared infrastructure (formerly “SIG”); a recruitment is underway for a new manager. Steve Fowler is now managing the Telecom team, but is still a point-of-contact for Box support (along with Gaylon DeGeer).

Please see the Organizational Charts folder in our team Box site for details.

These changes are being made in TeamDynamix as well, and our documentation will be updated shortly.

Reminder about Build Check-off Process

There was some recent confusion about the computer build check-off. Please note that are still doing a check-off process; the steps are clearly listed in BuildTracker. What changed recently is that anyone who has been trained on builds can now do the check-off, and you can complete the check-off for a computer you built. There is no need for a second technician or a specific person to do the check-off.

Please let me know if you have any questions about this.

Change to TeamDynamix Feed

In a recent update, TD changed the way replies to technician updates on a ticket are displayed. You will notice that if a customer replies twice to the same technician update, the technician update will be listed twice in the feed, with the customer replies listed separately. This keeps the comments in chronological order.

Operators Documentation

As you know, the OSU Operator service moved from Telecom to Client Services at the start of this term. I have started documenting relevant process in the KB: Operator Documentation

ID Badge Reminder

Please wear your ID badges at all times when you are on-shift. This is particularly important when visiting customers in their office, but is important in our office locations as well.

As we move to our new office layout, we will have customers visiting us in all of our work areas. ID badges will help customers readily identify who our employees are so they feel confident when asking for help.

Updates to CN Windows Image

Please be aware of the following recent changes to the CN Windows 10 image. If you have questions, contact Kirsten Petersen.

Updates to default programs:

  • Email: Outlook 2016
  • Browser: Internet Explorer (IE is still the one browser that works best for most OSU services)
  • PDF: Acrobat DC (Support for Adobe Acrobat XI Pro ends 10/15/2017)
  • Media player: VLC
  • RDP: Remote Desktop Connection
  • OSU home page set as default in IE, Chrome and Firefox (but not yet in Edge).

Start menu clean-up:

  • Taskbar now includes IE, Chrome, Firefox, and Outlook.
  • Links to apps such as Bing News, Bing Weather, etc. have been removed.
  • Search/Cortana and Edge still show and cannot be removed.
  • Now includes just two groups for Office apps and web browsers.

The following Windows apps were not removed and remain provisioned:

  • Alarms and Clock
  • Calculator
  • Camera
  • Cortana
  • Feedback Hub
  • Get Help
  • Microsoft Edge
  • Mixed Reality Portal
  • Paint 3D
  • Photos
  • Windows Store
  • View 3D
  • Voice Recorder

The following apps were removed (following discussion with several techs):

  • 46928bounde.EclipseManager
  • ActiproSoftwareLLC.562882FEEB491 (a.k.a. “Code Writer”)
  • AdobeSystemsIncorporated.AdobePhotoshopExpress
  • Microsoft.BingNews
  • Microsoft.BingWeather
  • Microsoft.Getstarted
  • Microsoft.Messaging
  • Microsoft.MicrosoftOfficeHub (“Get Office”)
  • Microsoft.MicrosoftPowerBIForWindows
  • Microsoft.MicrosoftSolitaireCollection
  • Microsoft.MicrosoftStickyNotes
  • Microsoft.NetworkSpeedTest
  • Microsoft.Office.OneNote
  • Microsoft.Office.Sway
  • Microsoft.OneConnect (Wifi, Cellular)
  • OneDrive app
  • Microsoft.People
  • Microsoft.RemoteDesktop
  • Microsoft.SkypeApp
  • microsoft.windowscommunicationsapps (a.k.a. “Mail”)
  • Microsoft.WindowsMaps
  • Microsoft.XboxApp
  • Microsoft.ZuneMusic (a.k.a. “Groove Music”)
  • Microsoft.ZuneVideo
  • PandoraMediaInc.29680B314EFC2

Changes to Build Bench Build Procedures

Due to reports of build inconsistencies on mac computers. The Build Bench Process has been changed. So what is changing?

  • Macs are moving back to being imaged by Deploy Studio. The process is now essentially a two step process for the basic build.  1: Image. 2: Install casper. I made it as easy and foolproof as I could. With the move to deploy studio, all of the enrollment policies in Casper have been changed so they do not install software automatically. This will make the execution of the quick add package a lot quicker.
  • The builds will no longer include department specific user templates as certain updates have changed the process and now require a complete overhaul to continue it. Which is too much maintenance for something so small.
  • I spoke to Angela, Lucas, Sam and Patrick and Office 2016 for mac is now on the image. Through our testing it has been good, and we feel it is important to get the online archive functionality to our mac users.
  • For macs to be joined to domain: As a reminder, they should only be joined in special circumstances where there are a lot of users using the machine. The machine should only be joined to the ONID domain. You can use the casper policy “CN – Onid – Domain Bind”
  • For Field Techs building macs in their free time. We ask that it be done at the build bench using deploy studio for consistency sake. Using our process completely. Once the rest of CS moves to Milne we can have a couple of ports available for the field techs that can access deploy studio. But as for now all mac computers should be built using the deploy studio process in the Milne 120 build bench.

Also as a reminder: iWork is to be only installed on machines after Late 2013. There is a smart group in casper that indicates whether or not they are eligible for free iWork. If their machine is not in that smart group, the customer must purchase the software from the app store. Under no circumstances should we be installing the software on machines that are not eligible.

As always, if you have any questions, feel free to let me know!