Cal State Helps the Help Desk
California State University, San
Bernardino, is a sprawling campus. With 64 buildings on 430 acres, it's not easy
to find your way around quickly.
No one knows that better than the
university's support technicians, who traverse the campus daily responding to
calls for technical assistance. Before setting out, they carefully map their
routes to ensure the most efficient use of their time.
Even so,
technicians were getting a workout by showing up at the wrong locations. On a
campus the size of a small town, it is hard to keep track of more than 1,500
staff members as they change jobs and offices. When a staffer calls the help
desk, the caller's name and location are displayed, but the accuracy of the
information hinges on how recently the phone directory has been uploaded into
the Heat database, a customer relationship management application from
FrontRange Solutions Inc.
To ensure that technicians did not waste time
going to old locations, Jeffrey Hicks, director of data center services in Cal
State's Information Resources and Technology Support Center, customized the Heat
system by creating a green box with a large yellow check box to remind
technicians to double-check the caller's location. It was a simple solution that
made his job and his technicians' jobs immediately easier. "It was a
three-minute fix," Hicks says. "Next time the technicians logged in, there was a
check box. I stopped getting complaints immediately."
Hicks has often
customized the Heat system in response to the university's needs. "I consider
myself proficient in PC and mainframe applications, but I'm far from a
programming expert," he says. "That's how easy the system was to customize."
From the outset, the ability to customize was at the top of the
university's demands for support center software. "It was a consensus from the
selection committee that we must have the flexibility to customize the system,"
Hicks says. "The user interface Heat has—with the convenient tabs and little
check marks—is great. Little things like that really make the product
exceptional."
Hicks also customized the system to streamline electronic
processing of tests, a function assigned to the data center. Previously,
professors would drop off tests and write the test information on a sign-in
sheet. The data center staff would assign the job a number, process it, and put
the test results behind the counter for the professors to pick up the next day.
To Hicks, the paper-based system was inefficient and disorganized. He also
thought the new system would save professors time by having their results ready
sooner.
So he built a detail table for the key information needed, and
the system was ready to go. Now when tests have been processed, professors
automatically receive e-mail notification. Plus, Hicks used a reports feature to
generate custom reports that track the number of sheets run through the
university's Scantron Corp. test-scanning machine each month. That way, the data
center staffers know when to perform preventive maintenance.
"Before,
job tracking was very time-intensive, and data gathering was all manual," Hicks
says. "Now we're more precise with tracking." His vision was to install Heat
campus-wide, with the data center serving as the central point of contact for
all campus calls.
To do this, he launched a pilot program in the
College of Arts and Letters. First, the technician assigned to the college
provided him with a list of first-level questions for service and support staff
to ask. Hicks then customized Heat to accommodate those questions and designed
the system so that, when a call comes in, a first-level technician simply has to
type the caller's phone extension and the software automatically supplies the
caller's name and e-mail address. Based on the caller's location, Heat can
automatically assign a work order to the appropriate technician.
The
customization and implementation process went smoothly. "I was able to build the
call groups and detail tables in just a couple of days for them to review,"
Hicks says. As the first point of contact for the college, the help desk can now
often resolve problems on the first call, saving about three to four hours per
day. "Now, they're only having to deal with things they truly need to be
involved in," he says. "They're not having to answer the phone. They can
actually do their work."
Cal State now uses nearly the full range of
Heat functions, including Web-enablement, the Business Process Automation
Module, Auto Ticket Generator, and customer self-service. "The support given to
the campus would not be as proficient without Heat," Hicks says. "It has made
all the difference."
For more information, contact Jeffrey Hicks at [email protected].