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!
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Sunday, February 3, 2008
Somehow, it's already Week 4 of classes...
...and time stops for no one. The last few weeks I've been absent due to workings on my HUST comp, but I thought perhaps a quick update on things IT and Communications-related wouldn't go amiss.
The IT Strategic Plan is taking shape, bit by bit. A meeting between section leaders, Janice and myself took place in the first week of classes and it was decided that we would be using Google Docs to put the major pieces of the Plan together. By using Google Docs, rather than a shared space on th network, emailing a Word document back and forth, or any of the wealth of possible solutions to working collaboratively, we're able to add, remove, move around, undo, redo, cut, copy and paste to our hearts' content. Revisions are saved on Google's massive array of servers, enabling us to go back and use data previously removed. Additionally, we're able to tell who made what revisions. It makes for a very nice cohesive (and free!) web-based program for the huge amounts of collaborative work that we're doing for the Plan.
However, my favorite part of all this is purely from selfish reasons: I'm the master editor for the final draft! With everyone working like this, my job will be made much, much easier in the end. All I have to do it take the documents, download them onto my computer as Word documents, put them together and load it back up into the Google Docs for everyone to review. Love it!
Other news from the IT front is that once again, a student body election platform ran, promising crazy technological advancements. HDCs and RCCs (and a couple of ClusCons) laughed at the ideas proposed. One of their claims was wireless in LeMans and Holy Cross Halls, which is planned for the future, but they said that they would move budgets around so that it would be finished by the end of the summer. Right. Of course they'll be able to do that. The student body presidnt/vp positions are nothing to sneeze at, in terms of influence for the college, but one thing these two seemed to have missed is that they have no control over IT's budget and certainly not the greater college's.
Other than that, I worked with Hayley and Kathy at the beginning of the semester to get the transfer students up and running with IDs and email accounts, which went swimmingly and was nothing compared to the Fall Invasion (almost 500 freshman plus everyone else registering computers, asking for assistance and getting accounts/IDs sorted out. Always a barrel of monkeys!).
The IT Strategic Plan is taking shape, bit by bit. A meeting between section leaders, Janice and myself took place in the first week of classes and it was decided that we would be using Google Docs to put the major pieces of the Plan together. By using Google Docs, rather than a shared space on th network, emailing a Word document back and forth, or any of the wealth of possible solutions to working collaboratively, we're able to add, remove, move around, undo, redo, cut, copy and paste to our hearts' content. Revisions are saved on Google's massive array of servers, enabling us to go back and use data previously removed. Additionally, we're able to tell who made what revisions. It makes for a very nice cohesive (and free!) web-based program for the huge amounts of collaborative work that we're doing for the Plan.
However, my favorite part of all this is purely from selfish reasons: I'm the master editor for the final draft! With everyone working like this, my job will be made much, much easier in the end. All I have to do it take the documents, download them onto my computer as Word documents, put them together and load it back up into the Google Docs for everyone to review. Love it!
Other news from the IT front is that once again, a student body election platform ran, promising crazy technological advancements. HDCs and RCCs (and a couple of ClusCons) laughed at the ideas proposed. One of their claims was wireless in LeMans and Holy Cross Halls, which is planned for the future, but they said that they would move budgets around so that it would be finished by the end of the summer. Right. Of course they'll be able to do that. The student body presidnt/vp positions are nothing to sneeze at, in terms of influence for the college, but one thing these two seemed to have missed is that they have no control over IT's budget and certainly not the greater college's.
Other than that, I worked with Hayley and Kathy at the beginning of the semester to get the transfer students up and running with IDs and email accounts, which went swimmingly and was nothing compared to the Fall Invasion (almost 500 freshman plus everyone else registering computers, asking for assistance and getting accounts/IDs sorted out. Always a barrel of monkeys!).
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