Service Desk

Submit your request to the Service Desk.

New position equipment request/moves and relocations: Used to assist employees with the processes involved when a new employee starts, a current employee changes position, or a current employee moves their office to another location.

All instructional servers prepared for student laboratory use will fall under the Sandbox categorization. Accounts are created for students, at the request of instructors, on laboratory servers for their academic work and experimentation. These servers are termed “Sandboxes.” The service level for such servers from ITS is as follows:

• Sandbox servers are not backed up. If a sandbox server is severely compromised, it will be rebuilt within 3-5 days depending upon the extent of damage to other primary systems.
• Instructional servers are purged at the end of each semester without notice to students.
• Instructional servers which fall with the "Production" category are backed up. If an instructional server is compromised, it will be restored within 2-3 days.

• Network account creation request: request a new account. Your departmental liaison can help you fill out the required information and must authorize your request before it will be processed.
• Guest network account request: request temporary guest network accounts.
• College information services access request: request new access or changes to an existing account for Colleague, Informer, WebAdvisor, ImageNow, MAP, and OSP.
  • When accessing this form, sign into MyCollege, select "Additional Employee Services," select Online Forms, and then select "College Information Systems Access Request."
• Mobile device synchronization form: request access to synchronize your personal smart phone device with the Central Piedmont Exchange server via ActiveSync.
  • When accessing this form, sign into MyCollege, select "Additional Employee Services," select "Online Forms," and then select "Mobile Device Sync Form."

When you call the Service Desk, you will reach one of our friendly and informative Service Desk analysts who may ask you a few questions to help provide the best service possible. We will need to know:

• full name
• the inquiry or problem in question
• your location (office, home, etc.)

Depending on the trouble you are experiencing, we may ask for the make and model of your computer, the operating system it uses, and the specific version number of the software you are using. This would apply if the need arose to remotely connect to your office workstation. If you don’t know all of this information, your Service Desk analyst will help you find it.

Once we have the necessary information, we will ask what kind of trouble you are experiencing. If your computer has reported an error, it is helpful for us to know the error message that is displayed. Whenever possible, we will attempt to find a solution to your trouble by assisting you in a troubleshooting process. The majority of calls to the Service Desk are resolved over the phone during this step.

Sometimes, the service you need requires that we assign a technician to your request. In this case, your request for service will be entered into our online Service Desk database and forwarded to a technician in an appropriate group. Our technicians use this database to respond effectively and efficiently to requests for service from our customers. Your Service Desk analyst may ask when it is convenient for a technician to contact you. After your service request has been entered into our system, you will be provided with a service request number. This number is used to reference your request for service. If you need to contact the Service Desk regarding your service request, we will be able to access your information more quickly if you provide this number.

While we do our best to process service requests as quickly as possible, we may not be able to resolve all issues the same day. Expect a technician to contact you regarding your request within two days. If your technician is unable to resolve the problem to your satisfaction, they may escalate the request to an appropriate supervisor. This process ensures that all requests to the Service Desk are resolved to our clients’ satisfaction. All logged Service Requests are assigned levels of Priority (urgency) based on the following aspects:

• the amount of productivity lost
• the number of customers affected
• the overall business impact to the issues

Priorities also have time allotments (ETA's) assigned to them to show an estimated time of resolution:

• Critical: to be resolved within eight business hours
• High: to be resolved within two business days
• Medium: to be resolved within five business days
• Low: to be resolved within ten business days

Dispatching a Request

If the request must go to a field technician, the request will be dispatched. These requests usually pertain to hardware break/fix service or special software installation and troubleshooting instances. The Service Desk professional will contact the field technician, wait for a response from the field technician and collect information on a plan of action, estimated time of arrival, and an estimated time of completion. This information will be entered into the case management software and the customer will be contacted and provided an update with the above three pieces of information via the case management system. The field technician will arrive at the customer’s site to resolve the request. Another site visit may be necessary if hardware is not available at the time of the first site visit. The field technician will stay in contact with the customer on any additional information pertinent to the plan of action and the Service Desk is available for escalation and service inquiry.

Escalating a Request

The Service Desk Analyst will escalate to an on-site staff member, second level support and/or to additional individuals listed on the escalation list. A contact is escalated when the total contact owner is unable to resolve the issues or when the request is not being resolved in the time set by the assigned priority level.

The assigned to will log any updates to the request and the resolution to the request in the case management software throughout the lifetime of the Service Request. All updates will be delivered via email to the original client who submitted the request. All cases will be closed after the request has been completed. Assigned to will close the request and the Service Desk Staff / Case management system will ensure client is fully satisfied with case or take appropriate steps to resolve the case to the customer’s satisfaction. The Service Desk will randomly contact customers to survey their satisfaction with the Service Desk and support received. A follow up email will be generated when the case is closed which will provide a link to a survey to rate the client’s experience with the Service Desk.

When a problem or issue arises:

1. Contact the responsible vendor first and record the vendor support ticket number or confirmation number.
2. If your issue was not resolved by the vendor, contact the Central Piedmont Service Desk and include the vendor support ticket number or confirmation number in the request description.

• McGraw-Hill
• Cengage Instructor
• Cengage Student
• Pearson FAQ
• Pearson Help ticket
• Respondus
• VitalSource Direct 24/7 Online Support; phone: 855.200.4146
• W.W. Norton Help Desk

iClicker Software

• iclicker.com help
• MacMillan iClicker help