This service
statement has been written for University of Saskatchewan Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Help Desk Services. It sets forth the service that
the ICT Help Desk will deliver to its customers, and describes the processes
that are used when a request for information or assistance is submitted.
Help Desk Overview
The University
of Saskatchewan ICT Help Desk is a technical support team that provides prompt,
knowledgeable, courteous computing support services over the phone, click-to-chat,
in person, email and fax to the university community.
The ICT Help
Desk aims to resolve 70% of all requests for assistance on supported
applications within 1 business day, a further 20% within 2 business days. If
the request cannot be resolved at the Help Desk level 1 it will be escalated to
level 2 or another unit in ICT (level 3). If the problem or request concerns an
unsupported system, hardware, software or service, staff will do their best,
given call volumes, or suggest other avenues of support.
Please refer
to http://helpdesk.usask.ca for listing of college
support units.
Priority System
The ICT Help Desk will use the following guidelines in prioritizing
requests and will strive to resolve the problem within the target timeframe.
Actual resolutions may be shorter or longer depending on the volume of requests
at any one time. However, a minimum of 80% of all requests will be satisfied
within the target periods.
Note: All calls from an in-session classroom are handled as critical and
escalated immediately, completion time is expected within 5 to 10 minutes of a
call, consideration needs to be given if a technician has to be sent to a classroom.
|
Priority
|
Criteria
|
Response Time
|
Completion Time
|
|
Priority 1
Urgent
|
Affects more than five individuals; or is mission
critical and there is no workaround available.
Examples: E-Mail services are not functional;
network is not available; classroom
computing technology is not functioning pending a class )see note above.)
|
Will call or page technicians
for immediate response.
|
Within 3 hours
|
|
Priority 2
High
|
Affects one to five individuals, no workaround
available.
Example: Computer with critical data won’t boot
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Within 4 hours
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Within 1 working day
|
|
Priority 3
Medium
|
Affects fewer than five people, workarounds
available.
Example: Can't check e-mail from one computer,
but could use WebMail from another computer.
|
Within 1 working day
|
Within 3 working days
|
|
Priority 4
Low
|
No effect on productivity, or unsupported software.
A service
request that does not require immediate attention or which involves long range
planning.
Examples: Monitor showing b/w instead of color.
CD player has no sound.
|
Within 3 working days
|
Within 5 working days
|
Customer Responsibilities
The
community the Help desk supports is any person with an NSID or visiting
guests. When customers contact the ICT Help Desk they should have their NSID
and phone number available, be at the computer that they are requesting help
with, have as much information as possible with regard to the request, and abide
by all applicable University and Computing policies.
Computer use:
http://www.usask.ca/university_secretary/policies/operations/4_11.php
Channels of Service
The ICT Help Desk offers a
number of communications channels, phone, click-to-chat, email, social media, mail
and fax.
In-Person Service
The ICT Help Desk will
assist customers who visit ARTS room 70, Murray Learning Commons (MLC), Health
Sciences Learning Commons (HSLC) and Engineering Help Desk with questions and
requests for assistance. An University NSID or UofS ID card may be requested upon arrival. If, after 15 minutes, a customer’s problem
cannot be resolved, the Help Desk Specialist will escalate the user’s trouble
ticket within the organization, or provide the user with additional
troubleshooting steps.
The Help Desk does not
perform hardware repairs or rebuild compromised machines; clients will be
referred to the Campus Computer Store.
Self-Help
For self-help, customers
are encouraged to access online documentation at ICT Website Guides and
Resources which provides information
on how to use ICT-provided services.
Hours of Service
Please refer to http://helpdesk.usask.ca for the current hours of service, and a list of other
support units for the various colleges on campus.
There are no services
after hours, emails and voice mail will be followed up when the Help Desk reopens.
Within the Scope of Help Desk Support
The ICT (Information and Communications
Technology) Help Desk provides support for a variety of ICT services including, but not limited to:
Outside the Scope of Help Desk Support
The Help Desk is not able to
support:
- hardware repairs
- local print sharing
- system rebuilds
- personal/home networks
- replacing a customer’s printer consumables (paper, toner cartridges,
etc.)
- local file sharing
- training or extensive instruction
The Help Desk Process
Request
Capture:
A Help Desk Specialist will capture all requests and may verify the right to
service based on the NSID or affiliation of the caller.
If the request relates to
unsupported software, the customer will be notified. Help will be offered on a
best effort basis.
Trouble
Tracking: The Help Desk Specialist will open a trouble ticket in Tracks that will
consist of the Customer’s full name, NSID, phone number, affiliation, and
problem description.
Problem
Resolution: The Help Desk Specialist will attempt to resolve all problems and
requests for supported operating systems and applications. If call volume
prohibits the specialist from spending any more time on the call, or (s)he is
unable to solve the problem, the ticket will be escalated.
Escalate the Request, if
necessary: The Help Desk Specialist will update the ticket, and escalate the request
to second level within the Help Desk or to third level support outside of the Help Desk.
Log
Resolution into Ticket: The Specialist who resolves the problem is responsible for
appropriately updating the ticket with the action taken.
Ticket
Closure:
All Help Desk tickets will be closed when a resolution has been offered, with
the status of the ticket set to “Resolved’. Tickets with be set to “Closed”
through a ‘2 day’ auto-closure process that will generate emails upon status
change and closure.
Customer
Satisfaction Surveys: The tracking system “Tracks” will randomly send customer surveys to
gauge satisfaction with the Help Desk Services. Based on survey results,
customers may receive a follow-up call.
Quality of Service Measures
Help Desk quality of
service is determined by a number of measures
including:
- Customer Satisfaction measured via ticket
completion surveys, positive responses to be over 85%.
- Day One Resolution Rate: The Help Desk
consistently measures and reports on the number of requests for assistance that
are resolved on the day that they were submitted. Our goal is for 70% of all
requests to be resolved on day one.
- Percentage of Requests
Resolved in 2 days: The target is for 80% of all requests to be resolved within 2 days of
the initial contact.
- Percentage of Calls
Answered, or inversely, the Abandonment Rate: The goal is to answer more than 90% of the
total calls made to the Help Desk. The Abandonment Rate refers to the
percentage of callers who terminate their call before it could be answered; we
strive for less than 10% of all calls to be abandoned. Calls terminated within
the first 30 seconds are not factored into Abandonment Rate figures.
- Wait Time: Wait time refers to the
amount of time a customer waits on the line for the next available Help Desk
Specialist. The target is an average wait time of 45 seconds or less, to speak
to a Help Desk Specialist. During peak periods users may experience a
longer wait time before a call is answered.
Metrics can be viewed at https://wiki.usask.ca/x/QIBMGw
Ticket Tracking and Escalation
The Help Desk files a
ticket for 100% of the requests for assistance (Incident) or services (Service
Request). If the problem is not resolved on the initial contact, it is
researched by a Help Desk Specialist (Tier 2). If a resolution is found, the
Help Desk Specialist replies to the customer with the solution. If a solution
cannot be found, the ticket is escalated within ICT. Tickets assigned to the Help Desk are
automatically escalated according to the priority ratings. In this manner, the
Help Desk can ensure that tickets do not become inactive. Tickets for which solutions have been offered
are set to “Resolved”; these will close automatically after 2 days; tickets
which require more input from customers, will be set to “Client Pending” and
close automatically after 5 days. A notification email will be sent to the
customer when the status is changed to “Resolved” requesting that they contact
the Help Desk if further assistance is required.
Note:
Incident: Any event
which is not part of the standard operation of the service and which causes, or
may cause, an interruption or a reduction of quality of the service.
Service Request: A request from a User for information, or
advice, or for a Standard Change or Access to an IT Service. For
example, to reset a password or to
provide standard IT Services for a new User. Service Requests that are usually
handled by Help Desk/Service Desk staff do not require an RFC to be submitted.
Service Disruption Communication
The ICT Help Desk will notify other participating U of S Colleges and Administration IT Support Units of any major service outages using the following ICT Services Disruption Notification Process.
Other U of S IT Support Units, who would like to be included in these communications, are welcome to subscribe to ict_alerts .
Feedback
Feedback for quality of
service is requested via surveys that are initiated from Tracks tickets, or by accessing the survey directly.
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