Unboxing IT by Christopher McCay

Author:Christopher McCay
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: undefined
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Published: 2012-06-27T16:00:00+00:00

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Chapter 9

Help Desk

While we will be looking into the various job positions and functions in the IT world later, it is important to understand the various aspects of the help desk a little more deeply. Everyone who works in the IT field has had to assist with troubleshooting to some degree. And no matter how high you are promoted, there will always be someone asking for help with some aspect of their technology. As we become more personally reliant on technology, it is important to understand what the requirements of the help desk are and what you can do beforehand to help the process along to a rapid solution.

Anyone who has owned any kind of technological device has dealt with problems that they could not fix themselves. The help desk exists, obviously, for these occasions. Most help desks are set up along the same lines. There is an entry level at which you provide detailed information about what the problem is. Some systems are designed to take this information and find the appropriate technician to respond. Others have a generalist technician who will attempt to fix the problem first before escalating to a specialist.

The escalation process is one that can be frustrating but is essential to the efficient operation of the overall help desk. The end of that statement is important to note. It is for the efficiency of the overall help desk, not necessarily for the efficiency of your particular problem. No tiered system is designed specifically to make the resolution of your problem take longer or delay the process, but the queuing and tiered systems are in place so that the specialists can focus on the harder problems in the order in which they are presented.

Within many school districts, this tiered system is broken down along the generalist/specialist framework, but it is also broken down geographically as well. Many schools have a school-based tech specialist. This person is there to respond to very basic IT needs within one or two local schools. However, their abilities and access levels may be limited. They are the first line of defense and are there for quick turnaround requests.

The next tier up is an area technician. This person is the one who responds to all server level and infrastructure needs, as well as all of the more complex problems that the tier 1 specialist is unable to accomplish. Any requests that move to this level, by definition, will take longer to resolve. This extra time is important to note and be prepared for. And above the tier 2 IT personnel there are the district-level IT teams. They are responsible for all of the backend technology that keeps everything running (e-mail, websites, network topologies, etc.).

While at the college level, we find that most IT help desks are staffed by students of the university.

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