New renovations, future plans for NERIC Help Desk will help fix problems before users even find them
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| The newly revamped Help Desk area at NERIC. The monitors help staff members ensure servers, Internet connections and power sources are all operating smoothly. |
When school district and BOCES staff are faced with a technical problem, they call the Help Desk at the Northeastern Regional Information Center. But what if behind the scenes, the Help Desk could actually anticipate and fix those problems before any staff member felt the need to call?
Very soon, staff members won't have to wonder what that would be like, thanks to some recently completed renovations to the Help Desk — and more enhancements coming down the pike.
The Help Desk is a crucial hub for identifying and diagnosing problems that can occur with NERIC equipment and services housed throughout the region.
It started out as an old receptionist area that was converted into two work stations. After a while, it became clear a more comprehensive space that fit the Help Desk’s needs was necessary. So, after a bit of construction, the area received a makeover.
The new Help Desk center is now outfitted with monitoring equipment that allows staff to keep track of server space and Internet connectivity wherever NERIC provides such services, which helps to identify and troubleshoot problems even before users do. There’s also a white board for staff to collaborate and manually brainstorm design solutions for any issues that arise.
“Before, the helpdesk was more reactive,” says Jim McQuade, managing coordinator of LAN (local area network) services. “The Help Desk technicians would basically sit and wait for a phone call. But with the new monitoring equipment in place, we’re trying to be more proactive so we can identify problems before users do and fix them before users even suspect something might be wrong."
Down the road, NERIC is looking to build its managed services model around the Help Desk, meaning the eventual goal is to have multiple NERIC services constantly monitored and, if necessary, troubleshooted through the Help Desk. For example, right now the Internet content filtering service is monitored at the help desk, allowing NERIC to quickly identify workstations in districts that might be infected with viruses or populated with inappropriate content.
