Reactive to proactive support: a corn dance

The Linfield College support desk was disorganized and inefficient. The number of Integrated Technologies (IT) department personnel had remained static while the staff, faculty, and student populations grew. We could not keep up with the growing demand for service, our work queues grew longer, and we could not stay on top of viruses and malware. Our mission was to reinvent the support desk to meet the growing needs of the campus community but we were technicians, not managers, and this project was outside of our experience.The resources available for our reinvention project were limited. The IT staff was few in number with only a couple of student workers for assistance. Money for IT infrastructure upgrades was scarce. We spent our time in crisis management rather than preventative maintenance.The Fall 2005 Special Interest Group on University and College Computing Services (SIGUCCS) conference presented a variety of new ideas that gave us the direction we needed to make our support desk project succeed. Returning to campus, we had a fresh perspective for our IT support desk. We automated our network security with Cisco Clean Access and developed an assembly line for repair work with increased student worker technicians. TheBrain™ software centralized support desk management and helped us develop an "on demand" phone support. The campus support desk now offers increased network security, a wider range of services and faster repair times.