Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with helpdesk

Help me to build the ultimate IT Help Desk for a 1:1 Laptop program at a K-12 private school.

mrbarrett.com — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 11:42:58 -0800

Help me to build the ultimate IT Help Desk for a 1:1 Laptop program at a K-12 private school. We're doing a 1:1 laptop program for Fall 2010. We'll be using the new MacBooks just released by Apple. Every student from 4th-12th grade will receive one.

And so we're now planning the building of a "Tech Center" at our Middle School and Upper School campuses. Inside each of these "Tech Centers" will be a manned IT Help Desk where students can come for hardware & software problems. It will be manned from 8am - 5pm every day.

I have quite a bit of space to work with--a room about 50 feet long by 14feet wide. We'll be purchasing all new furniture, partitions, storage cabinets, shelving, etc.

What features define the best IT Help Desks you've seen? What works? What doesn't work? How have you handled intake, repair, storage, pickup logistics? If you could build the ultimate IT Help Desk, what would it look like?

So, what do the big boys play with?

converge — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 13:48:33 -0800

I'm looking for some really good helpdesk software. It does not have to be free. Any suggestions? We're a small IT company with a lot of clients. Ideally, this software would do the standard ticketing/tracking, but I would also like to do time management and billing with it. Also, some of our users will be remote, so it needs to feed the same database over the internet, either in realtime or at the end of the day. Offline use would be nice to have. Windows based. Ideally, it would have ACT integration, but that isn't a must. The ones I've tested so far do not work as described. Is there an industry standard? Thanks, in advance.

Free online helpdesk solutions?

adverb — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 08:21:21 -0800

Does anyone know any good free online ticketing / help desk solutions? I'm not looking for anything fancy - just online ticket entry from multiple users (form-based), auto-generated ticket numbers and a way to read and track ticket status. It needs to be a hosted solution, not downloadable/set-up-yourself. This question was asked about three years ago, but I thought maybe the Interwebs had provided a new solution.

I don't need a support system... or maybe I do. Is there a support ticket system for Brick & Mortars?

aristan — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 13:58:51 -0800

I am looking for a client management/help desk/support ticket... thing. Customers come into our stores with items to be repaired and I'd like to be able to allow stores to create ticket for each repair. I'd like for the system to retain information about the customer and the items they bring in... and be able to make notes to the account. What exactly am I looking for? We do luggage & leather goods repairs.

I guess I'm looking for something similar to osTicket, but I'm not sure if it will fit our needs. We'd prefer a flexible, open source, free system. But we're open...

We'd like to be able to:

- Manage client information by keeping their information on file without duplication. Right now, this is all sitting in a database... but if Bob Smith has brought in his suitcase 4 times for repair... all of Bob Smith's information is in that database 4 times. And there's no way to update the status of any of this information. There's really only 'Open/being repaired' or 'Closed/repaired'.

- Manage different items related to the customer. Bob Smith may have 4 bags. We'd like to have notes on Bob Smith and each of his 4 bags without major duplication.

- Update the status of each ticket as it goes thru the system, so that all calls are handled at the location without having to call a certain department and getting an update. Right now, if a customer calls a store to find out what's going on, the store has to hang up, call the repair department, then call the customer back with the information.

- Create accounts and make notes to the account. Some customers try to snow the salespeople, swearing they were never told about shipping, repair costs, extra. We'd like to be able to note things of this nature and have it available to store employees.

- Accessible via the internet by employees in several locations.

Will something like osTicket work for us? Is there another help desk type product that will work for us? Am I looking in the wrong direction entirely?

How do I find a part time IT/Help desk Job in Colorado?

BoldStepDesign — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 12:39:21 -0800

How do I find a part time IT/Help desk Job in Colorado? I need something that pays $15-20 an hour and 15-20 hours per week. How can I find such a job? Suggestions please

refreshrefreshrefresh

mustcatchmooseandsquirrel — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 10:26:29 -0800

Should I quit my job? I've been working at an IT Help Desk/Computer Lab type job for the last three years. It is pretty boring aside from refreshing AskMeFi relationship questions and fixing printers and software. Since I graduated from college, I am only allowed to keep working there until August 20. I really want to just quit after next week because I've come to dread having to sit at a computer for nine hours a day with not much else to do.

The thing is, if I didn't quit, I would make ~$400 in the extra two weeks I'd be working. That's not a trivial amount of money for me but I don't necessarily need it. Additionally, the job is slightly changing management at the end of this week so the future seems annoying at best.

So, metafilter, how much is $400 really worth? Should I quit my job or just stick it out for an extra two weeks?

Ticket system that runs off emails

c:\awesome — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 13:57:33 -0800

Is there a good ticket/support/bug management system that builds a queue out of incoming emails? e.g. user sends an email to support@software.com; the management system receives the email, adds the body to a queue where I can assign it, add updates, mark as done, and do all the other normal ticket system things with.

How do I be better at system administration and helpdesk tasks?

Anonymous — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 16:41:02 -0800

Small company IT administrators, how do you handle users with a wide disparity of technical ability? Users who hate computers? Who don't want to even restart before calling you? Who treat you like your a nerd from a bad teen comedy? Quitting or hiring someone to help me is out of the question right now. I have no IT experience except that I worked on quite a few projects at grad level that required me to use Matlab and VBA. Computers were a tool, so I figured out how to configure servers and work data sources by just learning it. Fast forward 9 months and I'm now the only, and first, IT guy at a small 50-100 person company.

I was hired to do all sorts of things, like help implement ERP and CRM solutions, etc. I do that, but at least half my time is taken up by help desk. I hate help desk. I've tried really hard to improve things, and believe I have accomplished a lot, but the, say, bottom half of users cause me the most problems and I believe will always cause me problems. They hate technology, don't understand and refuse to understand it. I can automate and lock down things, but it gets to a point where doing so any further would seriously inhibit their ability to do their job. These are multi-tasking, mobile users ... not a kiosk somewhere.

For example: I have to do things like create desktop shortcuts, explain how to type addresses in the address bar and how to make favorites. Fundamentally, they want computers to work like a cell phone. This contradicts with the fact that their tasks aren't as well defined as phone service. Common hardware, silent installs and remote administration can only go so far. I have to deal with meltdowns and vague troubleshooting ("I can't get my turned on, it is too slow" ... "I have no idea what you're talking about").

So what have I done? Documentation, wikis and other collaboration tools. I've tried them all, and they are great if you can get people to use them, but they don't. I tried a ticket and queue system, but that also doesn't work. If I don't respond within 5 minutes I get frantic calls, and nothing saps your energy more than spending 30 minutes explaining how to put a shortcut on a desktop and being treated like I'm Comic Book Guy.

There's got to be something I can do? Again, 70% of users are fine and only need me if they can't go through some basic trouble shooting themselves, like at least reboot a computer. I feel that the other 30% is a mix of people avoiding work and dumping their problems on me. The correct answer may be to "find another place to work," but that's not an option in at least the short term, so I kind of have to deal with this at some level. Most of these people don't have computers at home and only interaction with this whole computer fad is through their work-provided laptop or desktop. Any, any advice or help would be appreciated. Sorry for the somewhat non-structured ranting.

Help Desk Remote Support Software Experiences

enfa — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 07:56:15 -0800

Experiences with remote desktop software for help desk troubleshooting? I've used a few variations of VNC, and Remote Desktop, but our organization that supports a 20k+ users base running every networkable OS is looking for something with a little more ooomph. The nice wikipedia comparison chart has been helpful. I'm looking into NTRGlobal at the moment - care to share your experiences with this or related software? Ideally, the perfect software would:

Work on XP and Vista - OS X would be a nice bonus

Have built in encryption that wouldn't require a separate firewall

Be crazy simple to install on the client end (and be easy to uninstall, too)

Allow the client to see what is going on while the tech is working

Allow the client to easily disconnect the session at any time

Require the client to initiate or at least confirm the connection is OK before the technician can connect

Log the technician's session for later playback

Be nimble enough to work through assorted firewalls

Make it very difficult for anyone other than the intended technician to connect to the client's machine

Keep our security department from yelling at us

Thoughts? What has worked for you?

Someone died and willed me a helpdesk...

tcv — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 12:11:41 -0800

Someone died and willed me a helpdesk... Ok, not really inherited, but in my current job I am now responsible for helping our helpdesk grow and run more smoothly. It's work that I enjoy. What I am missing, however, is an online forum or mailing list that allows me to communicate with other helpdesk managers and planners. I have looked around in various places, but have come up dry. Does anyone know of any resources along these lines?

Getting a job with a help desk?

WCityMike — Sun, 17 Jun 2007 14:57:04 -0800

I'm looking for advice on moving into a computer help desk position. I'm in my early thirties, and although I'm pleased with my current position as a legal secretary for a large multicity law firm, I'm also conscious of the fact that I don't want to be in my forties or fifties and still be a legal secretary. So, I've been thinking about my interests and skills, and trying to figure out what I might be best at.

It occurred to me that I might be suited for a computer help desk. As a legal secretary, I've always had sort of a sixth sense about computer problems, via both inductive and deductive reasoning, and I've got a pretty strong set of skills when it comes to Microsoft Office programs. Although I'm more of a Mac user than a Windows user, I am not too concerned about learning what I would need to when it would come to the finer intricacies of Windows-based tech solutions, based on my occasional experiences trying to help my parents over phone lines with basic Windows stuff, and my ability to learn and to pick up computer know-how very quickly. (Frankly, there have been quite a few occasions at past jobs where I've dealt with help desk people who really seemed to have no computer know-how whatsoever.) Also, I type 120+ wpm -- I can't imagine that's as helpful at a help desk as it is in administrative work, but it couldn't hurt.

My concerns are ...

Salary ... I definitely could not stand to take a pay cut, however -- in fact, my hope would be that this would be a pay boost, so I'm trying to get a sense of average pay in Chicago for this position.

Entry requirements ... My college degree is not in computer work -- it's in (believe it or not) theater. I did do computer help desk as my work-study throughout most of college, though, although that's about 11 years in the past now. I don't see myself returning to college anytime soon: student loans and credit card debts make that a poor choice at the moment. Is this a field one can break into without a computer-related degree? And, as I know education determines salary, would my lack of a computer degree make the pay too low to be palatable?

Job satisfaction ... How long do people last in this field, and do they enjoy themselves while in it? Or are we talking air-traffic-controller style burnout? Part of the reason I think I'm well-suited for this is I kind of like walking people through a problem and getting them back on their feet ... I liked being the "if you need help, ask this guy" informal-help-desk kinda guy at most of my jobs.

I also think this might be useful in terms of getting me in touch with Chicago-based geek culture and in terms of making friends with people with similar interest. Is help-desk work connective with geek culture, or is it "mainstream"?

Anything else you might be willing to share would be appreciated.

Please help me get this IT Support position.

Davaal — Sat, 09 Jun 2007 10:28:29 -0800

I recently went thru an extremely long interview process. thru 3 interviews, i made the cut from 70 people, to 20, to 4. There were 2 positions available. I had the interview of my life and didnt get the job. Now i have another interview for a similar position in another company. Please help me get it. i am an eclectic type with experience in what i do but no degree in the field. i've been in school for 2 years now and have 1 year left until graduation. i currently teach technology at a public school (2 years). its an assistantship with a pay that matches that of a teacher with 1 year experience (about $30k USD). see my resume.

I have a friend who works in the company and department that interviewed me. he says that they raved about my performance for nearly 2 weeks. but then they hired 2 people from within the company to fill the spots. i dont know what went wrong. i was articulate, knowledgeable, well spoken. i focused on all 3 interviewers and answered all questions with confidence. I was honest about my college education, but i think i balanced that with the work i privately (linux server, virtual environments, web development, etc). One of the interviewers actually spoke to me after the interview and invited me to his spring football tailgate. i dont know why or how i managed to screw it up.

but i dont want it to happen again.

Now i'm about to interview for this position. even if i got the lowest pay rate - near what i make now - 3 or 4 years experience would help my resume, allow me to finish my Degree, and give me some experience in the field i wish to go into.

should i mention my side projects? i built (and now admin) an entire Sports Site which serves about 40 individual sportswriters. its a custom job with many unique features developed by me. i did this to learn PHP and MySQL because it may be a year or so before i can find time to take a proper class. to further facilitate this project and skills development, i built a LAMP server. I then built a simple Political Forum for some colleagues. At home i not only run my own server, i built and admin a local network which i use to support my closest neighbors and business machines belonging to 2 friends. i'm also the local 'comfixmycomputer' guy. i think i could easily pass a number of certification exams as i do pretty well on practice exams. The only reason i havent taken the actual tests is because everyone tells me that these certs are a waste of money. i have a family and dont make a lot of money teaching; i cant afford to drop hundreds (thousands) of dollars on pieces of paper which may not do me any good. i figured it was better to save the money to pay for college classes.

Ok. so thats it. i've laid it all out. Support Managers, customer service managers, fellow geeks, HR people - what do i need to do to get this job?

OSXFilter: MySync broken - how to fix it?

SansPoint — Sat, 28 Oct 2006 04:35:30 -0800

OSX SoftwareFilter: How can I fix what MySync did to my Mac mini, and find a new solution to keep my machines in sync? Okay, here's the backstory. I got an iBook back in August for my first semester at college. I've been using it to keep notes and other portable computing stuff. I've been taking my class notes and other stuff in the program Yojimbo, and using MySync to keep Yojimbo, iCal, my Safari bookmarks, and other stuff together without having to buy a .mac subscription. It worked almost flawlessly.

About a week or two ago, while trying to sync with MySync, I got an error saying my desktop, boojiboy, was "foobar" (no. really. that's the error message. No explanation.)

Since then, I've been trying like mad to get things to sync again. For a time, it wouldn't even start a sync session, but I hammered that out. Now it syncs, but takes up to ten minutes to locally sync the data on my desktop... and it's not actually syncing. Every time I reopen Yojimbo, it shows the same stale notes, while my laptop is the most current.

I have tried:
1. Resetting the sync histories of both machines
2. Nuking the archived data that MySync saves on the desktop box
3. Nuking MySpace and reinstalling (using AppZapper)
4. Switching the Desktop to "Slave" and the laptop to "Master"
5. Nuking my desktop's Yojimbo database (after backing up the data)
6. Repairing Permissions and Verifying my desktop's hard drive. (I know it's hoo-doo, but I'm out of ideas.)

Furthermore, I just checked my desktop's iCal to find it displaying doubles of all my calendars before having every calendar disappear.

So, my questions to you:
1. How can I fix the glitches that MySync has made on my desktop
2. How can I synchronize data between my Macs?
3. Am I going to have to shell out $99 that I don't have for a .mac account?

What are these Norwegian monks saying?

Joleta — Thu, 05 Oct 2006 07:43:21 -0800

It's easy to figure out what's going on in this YouTube video titled "Help Desk," but I'm sure it would be even funnier if I knew what they're saying. (Monks speaking Norwegian, one trying to explain to the other how a book works.)

Help me get out of the helpdesk!

damn dirty ape — Fri, 29 Sep 2006 11:32:39 -0800

Help me get out of the helpdesk! I've been doing tech support in one form or another for the past six or so years (some PT as a student). My work history is pretty solid and I have good refernces. I've switch jobs a few times but because those jobs were temp or contract positions. None of my jobs have had any advancement potential. I've sometimes been the "sole IT guy." In my adventures I've done more than a fair amount of systems adminisration and networking and am usually one of the most competent members of the team. Usually I'm the "go to guy" for difficult technical issues.

I just got another tech support job which is fine but its still the helpdesk. I've done little else than make lateral careers moves and frankly am getting sick of tech support. I'm in my 30s now and am worried that I might be doing this forever. What options do I have to climb the IT ladder? Or even a related careerpath?

I'm thinking I could pick up an MCSE and a CCNA and start marketing myself for a sys/network admin position but I am worried that these positions are usually promoted from within and if I just pick up these certs I might just look like a helpdesk guy with some silly certs. I could really use some general advice on what to do or how other people graduated from the helpdesk. I also have some basic web design and coding skills I could build upon but might require schooling. I currently have a BS and am not against the idea of going for an MS, but dont want to go back to school for a degree that won't help me professionaly. Any suggestions?

What are some good free/open-source Help Desk software solutions?

thefreek — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 10:23:51 -0800

What are some good free/open-source Help Desk software solutions? What are some good free/open-source Help Desk software solutions?
Bonus points for email ticket support and web interface.
What are some hurdles to watch out for while setting up a company with Help Desk software for the first time?

Good interview questions

Cosine — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 14:13:56 -0800

What are some good technical questions to ask a potential candidate for a tech support position during the initial interview? I do tech support (helpdesk type stuff) for a large financial institution, it's been agreed that a promotion to a sysadmin position will be coming soon (YAY!). Because of this a new person will be hired to replace me at my current position. I've been asked to sit in on the interviews and handle the technical portion of the grilling. Can anyone suggest some good questions that reveal the intelligence as well as knowledge of the potential candidates?

Numbers geek seeks similar

urbanwhaleshark — Thu, 24 Nov 2005 12:25:30 -0800

A question about statistics related to an technology helpdesk. I run a helpdesk for a publishing company. This is not an IT helpdesk which tend to run to corporate infrastructure issues, but a helpdesk with which (on the whole internal) customers can log calls for services that our technology dept has built for them - online services, editorial systems, data feeds and the like.

Over the last year my reporting on these services has improved three- or four-fold. I report mostly on service availability, resource expenditure, call activity. More recently, for a Value For Money presentation, i took a leaf from my old economics classes at college and tried experimenting with service/call elasticy (whether an increase in the number of services has an effect of the number of calls being logged - it did). True to form the information was never used, but it got me more interested in statistics than ive ever been, so i'm now looking for more interesting ways to experiment with the data, maybe increasing the scope of the data that i have already. My last presentation merited a Good Job from the Director, but id like to excel (no pun intended) on top of what i've already got.

A quick look at google didnt reveal that much in terms of helpdesk/statistical courses, so i was wondering if anyone here with similar work experience was using more advanced methods of reporting than i (like the elasticity process mentioned above), or can offer advice as to the direction i should take, or courses (online or off-) that would be a good starter-for-ten. I'm in the UK.

Combined FAQ/HelpDesk solutions

Auz — Sat, 17 Sep 2005 04:48:57 -0800

I'm looking for a cheap/freeware combined FAQ/trouble ticket system, along the lines of RightNow or Fuze. I'm sure they're both wonderful systems, I just don't think we can afford anything where the price isn't shown up front (if you have to ask... :). Bugzilla and such are also good, but I don't want people to be able to see everyone else's problems nor comment on them. I found this listing on the PHP resource index but they mostly seem to be just a knowledgebase or a trouble ticket system, plus it's difficult to get an idea of how well they work from a quick demo.

Why won't my WinBook connect to the wireless network?

bingo — Sat, 02 Jul 2005 18:50:09 -0800

The dreaded 'TCP/IP is not enabled for this connection. Cannot proceed.' My wireless card sees the network, but will not actually connect. The web is full of discussions on this problem that end in hopelessness. My setup: WinBook J4, WinXP Pro SP1, Pentium 4 2.4GHz, 480 MB RAM, 35 MB hard drive. McKaffee was installed, but I removed it (the problem existed before I removed it). The wireless network is not protected by a password, and other computers are connecting to it fine. ipconfig gives a blank space next to 'default gateway.'

This computer was just given to me, so I don't know it's history. When I booted it up, it claimed to be installing various windows updates...which it was apparently doing through the wireless network. I will answer any and all questions about the specifics of my system, and I will try any solution that doesn't seem batshit insane.

Helpdesk Lingo

yoga — Fri, 02 Jan 2004 06:02:38 -0800

One for the helpdesk [hopedesk!] folks: when one is referred to as "starfish", is it a reference to being a butthole, or does it mean one is so low on the food chain they have no brain (like arms + legs + head = 5 appendages)? Neither?