Service Desk Enhancements Focus on You

In University IT (UIT), many of us consider solving problems as our primary role. Nowhere is that more true than at our Service Desk, where staff direct almost all their efforts toward resolving issues.

“In a series of strategic moves over the past year, we have worked to strengthen the UIT Service Desk's availability, quality of service, and service efficiency for you and the thousands of other faculty, students, and staff we serve.

“It's all about resolving issues and getting you back to your important work,” says Jonathan Russell, director of the Service Desk.

Consolidating resources

As part of a recent consolidation, initial support for Stanford’s enterprise systems (such as Oracle and PeopleSoft) is now provided through UIT’s central Service Desk. This change provides a more consistent support experience across more of our services while improving our effectiveness in providing these services. By spreading this knowledge across a larger group of existing support staff, we were able to free up resources that we directed toward service improvements. This allows us to potentially double the positive client impact of the change.

Expanding hours

During the past year, we expanded the Service Desk hours to Monday through Friday, 7 a.m.–7 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday, 8 a.m.–5 p.m. This provides you greater access to assistance and an often faster response to issues.

Supplementing staff

As reliance on technology increases at Stanford, support requests into the Service Desk also increase. Currently, the Service Desk handles 12,000 to 14,000 inquiries monthly. While we do our best to address those increases through efficiencies and service improvements, we also supplemented our staff to handle ongoing requirements and surges.

More to come

As we finish addressing some immediate improvements to the Service Desk, we also are transitioning to a new service management system. During 2016, UIT is working to replace the HelpSU ticketing system platform, Remedy, with a new platform, ServiceNow. This promises many improvements for our clients. For more details on the service management initiative, including the ServiceNow project, see our Service Management Program website.