With the rightsizing of the IT Operations group into smaller and more agile teams, OneIT needs to make sure that all understand where tickets need to be routed prior to escalation to Level 2 (L2) or Level 3 (L3) support. OneIT also need to address how tickets are updated so that when escalated, our support teams don’t duplicate what has already been done and further frustrate our user community. It is about expediting a resolution and our user’s experience with our services.
Information Technology Operations group has been divided into the following teams. The bullet items under each team represents the highlights of what each group is responsible for but does not represent all the areas they support:
IT Business Administration and User Services
Central Helpdesk Services
- Level 0 and Level 1 user calls
- Reset Passwords
- Assist with access to LMS and other resources
Campus Support Service
- Provides end user support services for computing devices, monitors, speakers, headsets, and all personal devices
- Computing device ordering, setup, and distribution
- Patch management for TCC owned computing devices,
- Classroom A/V and similar technologies,
- Event support,
- Collegiate high schools, and
- Ad hoc requests
User Services
- Level 0 and most Level 1 incident responses - Ellucian’s Central Help Desk (CHD),
- Level 1 and Level 2 user support,
- User account management,
- Application management,
- Shared drive / shared folder access and drive mappings,
- Undetermined assignment for tickets, and
- Many other functions
Video Production Services
- Video production,
- Editing,
- Event capturing and broadcast support for Board meetings
- Digital Display Announcements, and
- Specific campus video display services
IT Contracts and Compliance
- Contract management
- Contract negotiations,
- Payments management and tracking, and
- Budgetary planning
Learning Management Systems
- Provides support for the Canvas Learning Management System,
- Instructor support and training, and
- Both term and academic year setup
Business Relations Management
- Provides contract administration with respect to our district wide printer implementation and support
Infrastructure Support Services
Cloud and Systems Administration Services
- Provides support for user authentication (Active Directory / MIM),
- Exchange Mail Services,
- Virtual Systems (VMware),
- Virtual Desktops (VDI)
- DNS (both inside and outside services),
- Server patch management,
- Systems security,
- Application Support (specific applications),
- Enterprise-wide data storage and
- L2/L3 support.
ERP and Database Services
- Overall support for the ERP (IBM) system based on Oracle and Ellucian Colleague applications,
- Database administration and support services
- Overnight and back office processes,
- Report generation and printing, and
- End of year 1099 printing and mailing services.
Network and Communications Services
- Supports the district wide network (inter and intra-campus services),
- Wired and wireless access
- Performance monitoring and management
- Internet Service Provider (ISP) selection and management,
- IP Address management through DHCP and other tools,
- Firewall appliance support,
- Load balancer appliance support,
- Telephone systems programming and circuits, and
- Network Cabling and wiring closet management
Incident Workflow – Inter-Departmental
We are OneIT and there should not be any barriers between our various groups, teams, departments or whatever the designation de jour is. The primary message in this section is around escalations to L2 or L3 Infrastructure Support Services (ERP, Network, Cabling, Phones, Cloud, Servers, Virtual systems, etc.,) before anyone in our Service Desk, Campus Support, or User Services Support teams has had a chance to review the incident. Many incidents can be resolved without escalation to L2 or L3 support services if the teams listed above are notified first. With exceptions, as noted below, all end user incidents need to be reviewed by either a Service Desk, User Support, or a Campus Support staff prior to escalation.
Exceptions
- Cable drops or port activations – Network and Communications
- DHCP scope adjustments – Network and Communications
- Phone Number assignments and Pin resets – Network and Communications
- DNS request - Cloud Services
- Request for Server (physical or virtual) – Cloud Services
- Request for Virtual Desktop Application Enhancements – Cloud Services
- Uninterruptible Power Source/Supply (UPS) - Campus Facilities - iService Request
- Building or Room power - Campus Facilities - iService Request
Example 1
User calls in and can’t connect pc to network. Service desk would dispatch a person to determine if the PC is bad or the Network connection (wired or wireless) is faulty. If the Tech’s computing device works, the tech would then troubleshoot the device to resolve the issue. If the Tech’s computing device also fails, then the call is escalated to the Network and Communications team.
Example 2
User calls and states phone has badly frayed cable from handset to phone on desk. Tech would replace handset cable and not escalate to Telecom Services.
- Note - As OneIT migrates to softphone technology, Tech’s will have to be educated on troubleshooting Teams, Jabber, or whatever application is used to create voice calls.
Example 3
In the ticket above, the call was escalated by CHD to User Services. Instead of dispatching a support service tech from the campus, the User Services representative escalated the ticket to a Cloud Service L3 staff member without contacting the user. Since this is an end user issue, either a member of the campus support services team or the User Services representative should have made contact after the escalation from the CHD staff member prior to escalation to an L3 staff member. Having to route the ticket to the Campus support staff delayed the user from getting the resolution requested.
Escalation Details
When a ticket is escalated, details of all activities and tried remedies need to be included in the ticket. As an example, the following extracts are from a ticket shows how an issue was identified, but then never mentioned again as being resolved.
This incident was opened on January 13, 2022 with a student being unable to access WebAdvisor; it was updated on February 28, 2022 making this ticket over 1 ½ months old.
On February 22, 2022, it was noted that the student needed to contact the registrar as the account was suspended.
There were several attempts made on the 22nd and 23rd to reach the student and on the 25th, the student did call back. However, the ticket never says if anyone spoke with the student.
On February 28, 2022, the ticket, with no update as to whether the student talked with the Registrar’s office or not, was routed to the Cloud services team where it was intercepted and returned to the escalating team for further investigation or additional information.
The above is a prime example of tickets being passed from one group to another without any additional details or ever having spoken to the student that was requesting assistance. Not only is this frustrating to the student, but it is also frustrating to the support teams wanting to assist the student. CHD, User Services and/or Campus Support teams should engage with the requester prior to escalation. In addition, all notes should be entered into the ticket to track contact information for the next technician or management. In this case, a note was made that the student needed to contact the Registrar’s office as the student’s account was suspended.
There is no record of:
- The student ever contacting the Registrar’s office, or
- That the suspended account was ever released
Without this information, further troubleshooting is practically impossible.
Escalations are important and are needed from time to time. Without a full set of notes in the ticket, the different levels of support don’t know where to focus their efforts and waste a lot of time retracing what has already been done.