Preparation is key to introducing anything new, take time to read this section.
- Before identifying your needs, consider what you want to achieve.
- This is an opportunity to re-evaluate the way you have, to date, delivered technical support
within the school.processes and activities of what currently happens.
- Choose which areas to improve and which processes to remove.
- Get input from those who would benefit from the Service Desk.
- You need to sell the idea to the other staff, so make it appeal to yourself first.
|
|
Anyone who comes into contact with using computer equipment or the results of using it is
potentially a user of the Service Desk.
This would probably include:
- teachers
- classroom assistants
- students
- administration staff
- technicians
- head teachers
You also need to think about others that would benefit from being able to make requests or log
incidents through the service desk:
- technical support staff
- governors
- caretaker
- cleaners.
|
|
- The person manning the service desk needs good interpersonal skills.
- The person manning the service desk should not be the person providing technical support
(because they will be somewhere providing technical support!)
- The person manning the service desk does not need to be technical but does need to be
organised.
- The service desk could be part of another role performed by an existing member of staff
identified by the school.
- Remember the service desk will enable the person providing technical support to concentrate
on that work and not the details of how to log a call.
Single Point of Contact
Where schools do not provide a single point of contact this can create problems when teaching
staff and technicians need to discuss the incident or request. School staff reporting an incident
may not always be available when the technician arrives to fix it, which can create delays.
Therefore, schools should provide a single point of contact who has knowledge about an incident
when registering a support call with a technician or 3rd party provider. This is most important where
technical support is external to the school eg, it is provided by an LEA or other 3rd party support
company.
How to provide a Single Point of Contact
- Agree how calls will be recorded.
- Decide how much extra work is involved in recording details of incidents and requests.
- Decide which role within the school provides access for teaching staff and those providing
technical support and can accommodate the additional work of maintaining the call log.
- Ensure that the technical support providers and school staff know who is the single point of
contact
Who will be the single point of contact
The role of single point of contact could be an additional function to the following - this decision is
best left within the school to decide
- school administration staff
- ICT co-coordinator
- classroom assistant
- nominated teacher
- network manager (not ideal)
- technical support staff (not ideal)
- other nominated staff.
|
|
- If you are introducing the concept of a service desk for the first time, be aware that people need
to trust the system and so often need something tangible!
- The service desk may well get visitors, phone calls, forms dropped on the desk - so it needs to
be located somewhere accessible.
- You want to make the users feel confident their calls and requests will be recorded accurately
by logging them with a user focused service person.
- The decision about where to place the service desk is as important as choosing who to staff it.
|
|
- Communicate the idea of a Service Desk throughout the school.
- Ensure everyone knows how to use the service desk for all computer equipment incidents and
requests.
- Ensure everyone knows there is no exception to this rule.
- Ensure everyone understands how this will free up the person providing technical support to
actually do that role.
- Ensure everyone understands that breaking these rules even slightly will cause the system to
fail.
- Ensure that the school leaders are seen to be following these rules and not bending them
because of their position!
|
|
Make sure you have a training plan for:
- users on "how to use the service desk"
- service desk support staff on their role
- staff providing technical support on their interaction with the service desk
- any 3rd party suppliers on their interaction with the service desk
- school leaders on their interaction with service desk.
Decide how to introduce the training
- through notes
- someone showing each person individually
- set up a training session.
|
|
Establish the confidence of the staff using and manning the Service Desk by agreeing for the
workload to be monitored and the approach reviewed every month.
Decide what will be monitored before the launch of the Service Desk with the minimum being:
- the number of incidents and requests made through the Service Desk each week
- the types of requests that take the most time to record
- which users appear to need the most support .
|
|
- ensure that implementing a Service Desk is going to bring you benefits and not problems
- check the potential for something to go wrong, what you can do about it and have a fallback
plan
- you should be prepared to pass a critical eye over your plans and identify where problems can
occur with the process.
Risk Analysis
There is lots of information about how to do risk analysis, but knowing your school should help you
identify where the problems could
Identify the potential risks and what you can do to mitigate them.
Fallback Plan
When you create the implementation plan, create a fallback plan.
The fallback plan is a plan for how to cope if things don't work as expected with the
implementation.
For example - if your staff (users of the service desk) cannot all receive the planned training -
provide written materials and have someone who now knows how it works, to show the novice user
what to do.
|
|
- decide how many incidents and other calls are likely to be logged each week
- check which would be the best method of logging these incidents - see table in What is a
Service Desk
- agree which details to record with the staff and technicians. See content of Call Log
- create the Call Log
|
|
|
|
|
