In early January, Information Technology Services will be making some changes to our organization to better meet the technology needs and support demands of the Colgate community. Significant enhancements will include bringing the help line function back on campus, increasing the hours of professional support, improving support options for students, and better integration between the help line and the rest of the ITS support structure.
Moving the ITS Help Line on campus will improve the coordination and integration of the Help Line and Service Desk functions, creating one seamless operation. Two new full-time Help Line staff will join Jon Beers and Sarah Curtis who currently operate the ITS Service Desk. We will be improving the way Help Line calls are routed for additional support, taking advantage of the ability to consult quickly with colleagues. Our newly hired staff will also participate in the campus community and become an integrated part of the ITS support team resulting in a connected and unified support process. With the the Help Line in-house, issues requiring escalation will be directed to the appropriate staff sooner resulting in a more expeditious resolution.
An additional change in our support structure is the promotion of Ahmad Khazaee to Manager of End User Support. In this role, Ahmad will oversee the coordination between the Service Desk and End User Support, including initial hardware configuration, software configuration and troubleshooting, hardware repair, and classroom auditorium and event support. He will also oversee the installation and classroom computing resources and applications, an area where we have been making steady improvements. Many of you know Ahmad and can appreciate his dedication to outstanding customer support, caring nature, and ability to execute on complex projects.
The way you interact with the Help Line will not change. Calling 228-7111 and selecting option “2” will put you in direct contact with a professional staff member. You may continue to send email to itshelp@colgate.edu for inquiries or issue reporting. Starting in the spring semester, professional staff will be available to answer your calls Monday through Friday, 7:30 a.m. to 11 p.m., and Sunday, from 2 p.m. to 11 p.m., an increase of 30 hours per week. Other qualified staff will be on hand outside of these hours to offer assistance and properly escalate issues. Critical outages will continue to be handled by our on-call infrastructure team.
As with any significant change, we recognize that there are concerns about continuity and quality of service. The thoughtful praise and confidence in Dean and Darryl is greatly appreciated. Please know that we have carefully weighed the benefits of this change and are incorporating the community’s feedback into the design of the new support services.
We have heard concerns raised about the consistency and quality of on-campus support, and anecdotes regarding the difference in the degree of helpfulness expressed between the Help Line and on-campus staff. We take these concerns seriously and have formed a customer service action team to better understand these shortcomings and institute immediate changes to ensure we always provide the highest level of competent, friendly, and comprehensive support. We encourage you to reach out to us with additional concerns and suggestions on how we can make this the most supportive technology environment.
Over the last ten years the number of calls to the Help Line has dropped significantly while the number of support calls and events outside of standard hours has increased dramatically. The in-house Help Line staff will be able to handle this additional volume as well as provide enhanced support that was previously referred to other ITS staff. This new alignment will also allow for better support to the more than 1,400 annual events requiring ITS assistance.
These changes allow us to expand the high-quality service the community deserves, which is not possible under the current contract with our external service provider. A unified team working together on campus means improved communication, collaboration, problem solving, relationship building and the ability to grow with Colgate’s evolving technology support needs.
Please contact Jen Servedio, Director of Technology Support Services, jservedio@colgate.edu or Kevin Lynch, CIO, kplynch@colgate.edu with any questions, suggestions or concerns.