One of the best parts of any job is the perks. To be honest, there aren't too many perks in the world of student workers. Some of IT student workers have it a little better than others on campus: ResNet and Helpdesk girls get Fishsticks (flashdrives), one week early move-in during the Fall, and easy access to a printer from 8-5pm (all wonderful things!).
One of my personal favorite parts, though, is working with the IT staff to bring new things to the dept. and to campus. One of our current projects is researching and the eventual implementation of a new task/inventory tracking system for the Helpdesk. As much as we all "love" the current system (and by "love," I mean despise), a new and functional tracking system is long overdue.
Kathy, Sue, Bonnie, Nate, Francis, myself and other members of IT put together a list of wanted and needed features for a new program last semester, and Kathy spearheaded the hunt. We've had meetings with two vendors already, with two more to come. We've looked at everything from open source to "everything in the box - the KBOX" and we've come across a variety of ideas, costs, and capabilities of programs, with some very interesting conversations along the way.
One of the things that we've discovered is that most of the programs include an inventory bit, which we currently don't have. The impact of this feature is that instead of HDCs (Helpdesk Consultants) having to remember to ask for this information from users (as there's no field to remind us), the program will tell us what that user has. I do a little dance of joy at the thought of no more confusion: "Do you have a Mac or a PC?" "What kind of PC?" "What model of [Dell, MPC, etc.]?" "Laptop, desktop?" and my personal favorite: "What kind of printer are you talking about?" We'll be handed the information!
The really exciting feature for the HDCs is that all of the programs can be tied to the LDAP server. In other words, tied to the ePhonebook, eliminating a step in our already laborious process of creating a record. Other fun features include user and machine history databases, user-created tickets, and automatic replies to users.
I think that the best part of this, as I mentioned earlier, was that we're bringing something new to SMC. We're offering better service, and a faster turnaround time on responses and the like. We're also learning how to use a new piece of software that will prepare some of us for other IT positions or jobs that use large-scale ticket systems. And we're offering faculty and staff a chance to be more involved with their computers as they enter their own problem. They'll learn about their computer in the process, hopefully.
A different aspect of this process is that I get to work more closely with members of IT that I normally wouldn't. Sue, Bonnie and Nate spend a lot of time running around campus, fixing computers. I have a chance to interact with them in a new facet; I have a better understanding of what they need to do their jobs. It's always interesting to have a product meeting with them, because they have questions that I never would have thought to ask but I know will help the HDCs and the Helpdesk, simply because I don't do their jobs.
So here's to Bonnie, Sue, and Nate - for doing an awesome job of keeping the profs (and therefore us!) and the College's computers happy!
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