Is there really such a thing as great IT support? 1

[bridgebuster]

Another interesting IT experience this week.IBM is our IT support and has been for the past 6 months. I requested a temporary administrator's password to install vendor software. The (Lack of) Help Desk sends an email "ticked resolved and closed: but no password. I tried again; got a password but it didn't work. Next I tried on-line chat with an agent. He said he can't access my ticket and said to request a new password. I asked him to install it, then he must have taken a brief nap but when he came back he said OK. He installed it but it didn't work. Thank you very much, good-bye. Then I requested another password to uninstall it. The (Lack of) Help Desk rejected my ticket because I didn't put the words "Host Name" in front of my computer ID.I send the ticket back with "Host Name"; their reply "computer does not exist"; I sent a screen shot with the Host Name their reply "computer does not exist". Then I emailed the in-office IT person and got the usual reply "send me the ticket and I'll take care of it" translation "don't hold you're breath waiting for me".

When the company hired IBM the management insisted employee complaints have been heard a things will be great for forward.About 5 years ago the company laid off the IT staff and outsourced it. IBM is the third company since and by far the worst. When they hired the previous company the management was playing up the fact that this company was based in North America; off course they rarely responded to tickets and when they did call it wasn't easy to understand the accent.

 

[MikeHalloran]

IBM is not what it used to be.
Many, maybe most, outfits that "survive" today are not what they used to be.
GE is a prime example; reduced to a completely hollow shell, and now imploding.

Outsourcing never really saved any money.


Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[IRstuff]

Was their name Apu Nahasapeemapetilon?

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg

faq731-376 forum1529 Entire Forum list

http://www.eng-tips.com/forumlist.cfm

 

[zdas04]

Regarding your basic question: No, great IT support does not exist, it can't. The goal of IT support should be to work themselves out of a job by getting the users to address what I call the "dark screen problems" without IT support, and to be there for equipment replacement, intranet problems, etc. Instead they have to know what applications you've installed since the last time you were there and be able to trouble shoot technical and business applications that they have no knowledge of or interest in. There is no way to do the job "right".

[bold]David Simpson, PE[/bold]
MuleShoe Engineering

In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual. Galileo Galilei, Italian Physicist

 

[bridgebuster]

close; the first name did start with an A.

 

[rotw]

When my laptop was off and/or I could not access the systems I often could go home and get some rest.
So inefficient IT support is not always bad. I suppose however this very frustrating in an environment "managed by trust" where delivering results is a matter of personal commitment.

 

[IRstuff]

Our IT guys do provide great support. I've not yet come across a situation where I found them to be missing essential skills. On top of which, they're essentially on-call 24/7 and working weekends to do backups and maintenance so that we don't have down time.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg

faq731-376 forum1529 Entire Forum list

http://www.eng-tips.com/forumlist.cfm

 

[Agent666]

Back in the day when I used to work for a big corporate (had their own Helpdesk):-

You used to request temporary admin rights to install an update etc, and they flicked some virtual switch on the server and you rebooted and had admin rights for a set period of time in windows. First thing you do after that is grant your own identity local admin rights and you can do whatever you want after that.

You can also use a linux cd to boot to and add windows users so you have a local admin account which you can use to install software.

Where there is a will there is a way.......

 

[drawoh]

...

You can also use a linux cd to boot to and add windows users so you have a local admin account which you can use to install software.

A fairly typical security screw-up is for users to install hardware and software on their own, without consulting system administration. On my computers, the primary boot device would be the hard drive. Your Knoppix CD would not work, and I would not find out (immediately) that you need to be fired ASAP.

I am dealing with excellent IT support where I am now, and they are in-house. Is a pattern taking shape here?

I would think that anyone dealing with proprietary data, national secrets and/or personal information, would be out of their mind to allow outsiders access to it. You hire, train and vet your administrators. Your administrators understand the work that you do and the tools you need to do it.

--
JHG

 

[IRstuff]

There are multiple levels to security; we have some that deal strictly with the office network, which does not require anything beyond being a US citizen with reasonable background check, and others that deal with classified networks that require them to have security clearances to the same level as those who use the networks.

Outsourcing is pretty common, though; there were articles about companies outsourcing order and payment processing to inmates in jail, tossing chickens into a coop chock full with foxes...

Outsourced IT has an added inefficiency, simply because they don't know you and you don't know them, resulting a series of social negotiations before they know what level of user you are, and can give you more relevant help. I've worked with our internal IT guys for many years, and they know exactly the kind of user I am, and I've never (rarely) been asked to reboot the computer, because they know I would have already done that.

Back when Mindspring was a company that supplied DSL, I had the misfortune to have an issue with the connection; multiple days and calls to some remote location in South Asia and multiple requests to reboot my computer, before finally, I was able to badger them into escalating the problem. The escalation led to a secret phone number to a person in Atlanta, who, in 30 seconds, said, "Oh, it looks like someone tweaked the DSL data rate above what your line can handle," another 20 seconds and I was good to go. Great IT support at the secret phone number

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg

faq731-376 forum1529 Entire Forum list

http://www.eng-tips.com/forumlist.cfm

 

[jari001]

My current company has internal IT support and they do a lot and do it well. I think one blessing has been that my company knows (or the IT team is really good at explaining their scope) not to use IT for business system stuff unless it is a hail mary type thing; we have a group of internal business application developers that work on software issues (for the manufacturing side of the company). Overall, I think we have good people doing the work - so it's great!

 

[SandCounter]

Problems with corporate IT support:
[ul]
[li]Version upgrades that do not carry over custom settings or menus or printer connections. . . usually in the middle of a big project with looming deadline.[/li]
[li]"Improved" software without training on the all new GUI. Again, on IT's schedule.[/li]
[li]DRM finger pointing. Get the code from the software vendor, no IT has it, no your manager has it, etc.[/li]
[li]"Upgrades" that are really down grades . . . "Oh, did you really need to be using two screens? Because, this new laptop doesn't support it."[/li]
[li]A multitude of logins where none of them are allowed to match and they cannot include any word in the English dictionary. Oh, and a lockout after 3 missed attempts.[/li]
[li]Size limits on e-mails while blocking file-sharing sites and banning thumb drives.[/li]
[li]One-size fits all work stations, because, you know, high-end FEA, modeling, and drafting programs need the same minimal memory as accounting apps.[/li]
[li]The re-format catch all. Oh, the network is slow? Let's take half the day to reformat your computer reinstall ALL your software, lose your settings and not address the real problem.[/li]
[/ul]


I used to count sand. Now I don't count at all.

 

[Agent666]

I love the lockout one, back in the day our outlook webmail used to lock you out after something like 3 attempts. Login names were everyone initials so very easy to guess, so fun was had locking out others at inopportune times, a great way to annoy your manager on a regular basis.......

 

[Sparweb]

SandCounter: How sad; I had to agree with just about everything on your list.

I just started working for a new company, and it's great for many reasons, but no the IT department. The point DRAWOH makes about letting users install anything willy-nilly on systems holding sensitive proprietary data is well-taken, but this is the first time I've sat at a computer where I don't have Admin rights. It sucks. Going to IT to get anything done is a real drag. They're nice people, but they have higher priorities than daily annoyances on my machine.

Somehow, our IT people don't know how to identify an obvious error in the registry entries. All of our company's users have an instant messenger app (Skype for business). It won't start when I login on my machine, even when the checkbox is checked. I have tried to tell them how to fix it, even e-mailed the registry fix. Nah.

My CAD/FEA programs are not set to Maximized on screen which is a setting in the desktop shortcut. Every once in a while, they get stretched, which relocates some of the toolbars to unpredictable places. You'd think this would be a trivial thing to fix. Nah.


STF

 

[epoisses_]

2 systems worked well for me in the past:
1 Multinational company where Windows was so heavily constrained you hardly had the right to switch the computer on and off. No such things as choosing wallpaper let alone installing any application. IT support was by phone from another country but hardly ever needed.
2 Small company where the IT guy lived 3 offices away and was always willing to sort out my mistakes -- plentysome because I had as much liberty on that computer as on my home computer.
Then the small company got a little bigger and outsourced IT support but without restraining rights to mess around and now obviously IT support is becoming an issue.

 

[drawoh]

SparWeb,

There is a sysadmin and an office politics issue here over which you have no control. I am the system administrator, and I am responsible for the computers and applications working, file backups and system security. You make a mistake of some sort and approach me to fix it.

You crawling worm! How dare you interrupt me while I type clever stuff into Eng-Tips!

I need to appreciate that if you forget or mis-type your password, you have selected a strong password in support of the security I am responsible for. When I ran a UNIX network, I set up a central file system, and I insisted that people not make copies. Inevitably, people trashed stuff. I was friendly, polite and efficient (as possible) as I recovered the files from the backup. They cooperate with me. I am nice. The system works. There are lots of corporate systems that need to work this way.

I was at a presentation on BSD UNIX. The guy described how he set up his Windows workstations with zero user access. He described how if a machine did not work properly, he immediately swapped it for one from his closet and got the user back up and running again. The broken machine could be fixed at his leisure.

I do not see how a CAD network can work unless a CAD person is involved in the administration. On our UNIX network, the AutoCAD worked because I was a heavy AutoCAD user.

--
JHG

 

[CWB1]

I've dealt with good and bad IT depts enough to confidently say that results vary greatly. IMHO the ideal is a multi-tiered system where lower levels happily pass you along to higher/specialized geeks fairly quickly when necessary, and the higher level folks have some ability with both IT and the software they support. Having used them in the past, I would also say the ideal system has a remote cluster or two for heavy computing/simulation in addition to decently capable PCs sitting on users' local desks.

 

[Sparweb]

I'm reminded of the advice: "Never assume malice, when negligence will do". I think IT just doesn't care, and the situation doesn't need politics to explain it. No surprise either. The IT dept. is responsible for network security, up-time, licensing and software acquisitions, and so on. My pretty desktop must be a long way down the priority list.

Thankfully, I have found some alternative software to my preferred utilities that don't need an admin to install. Chief saviour is>>
SMATH Studio to replace Mathcad. Gotta give these guys a shout-out for a great piece of free software that is so self-contained any user can install.

As for CAD, it's workable, but the use of AutoCAD LT rather than the full version was a shock. I'm a bit better now, but still trying to type into the command bar the shortcuts to LISP routines that it will never run. That was a financial decision, not a technical one, and I don't blame IT for that.

STF

 

[fel3]

SparWeb…

I have a personal copy of Mathcad Prime 3.0 on a personal laptop, which I sometimes use for work. I print to PDF and that's the file that goes into the project folder, not the Mathcad file.

Also, I run SMath Studio off a thumb drive along with a few other small, free engineering programs that I'm not allowed to install on my work laptop (EPANET, WinTR55, Free42, etc.). That way I can use the programs I need without IT hassling me about non-approved software on the company computer.

Fred

==========
"Is it the only lesson of history that mankind is unteachable?"
--Winston S. Churchill

 

[FreddyNurk]

I suspect that there are two aspects to what is being discussed here, one is 'Support', the lower level interaction in terms of getting IT to assist with issues (including password resets, user specific applications and so on), the other aspect is that IT is really infrastructure in the same manner as provision of fleet vehicles, company premises and so on.

As to the 'Support' aspect, in most cases the opinions of the OP and people like zdas04 are right, particularly with outsourcing the basic helpdesk aspects. There are obviously economic aspects (is it more cost effective to get the user to self diagnose faults, or is it better to get the expensive user onto another desktop and have IT resolve the issue separately) that can drive decisions on which way to go, as well as an understanding of the user base.

More prevalence of different issues in IT can also be a driver, removal of admin permissions (effectively the ability to authorise installation of software on a machine) can often go a long way in terms of prevention of inadvertent cryptolocker issues, which can obviously be counterproductive to allowing specific user software to be run or installed. Depending on the operating system, it can be trivial or quite difficult to allow different administrative permissions to run, and my experience in Windows environments is that its been all or nothing in terms of being granted the permissions.

Agent666, I've had to do things like you've suggested, my favourite was cloning the HDDs so as to be able to install a Linux OS and being able to dual boot if needed. My worst experience was one where everything in the user profile got reset at startup.





EDMS Australia