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National support organization
The document provides an overview of the National Support Organization, including its strengths and weaknesses, the services it offers, current service levels, and strategies for the future. The organization supports over 3,800 clients across 85 offices, receiving around 1,800 support requests per week, with a 68.5% weekly closed request ratio. Strengths include experienced staff and a focus on customer service. The organization aims to further standardize environments, expand its help desk capabilities, reduce costs without impacting service, and continue professional growth opportunities for staff.
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National support organization
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- 2. Discussion overview • • • • • • • • Walkthrough ofthe organization Strengths and weaknesses Services we offer Current service levels How to nationalize the organization How to reduce costs w/o affecting service Overall strategy “Where we’ve been, where we’re going”
- 3. Walkthrough of theOrganization “Who we are”
- 4. Walkthrough of theOrganization “Who we are” • Experience levels (on average): Sr. Mgmt DTM Sys Admin Techs 13 years 14 years 11 years 13 years • Certifications: MCSE MCSA MCDST MCP 8 11 17 47 A+ Network+ Project+ Security+ ITIL CNA/CNE 8 4 2 5 1 2
- 5. Walkthrough of theOrganization “Recent IPM goals” • • • • Metrics Cross training Brown-bag lunches Certifications
- 6. Walkthrough of theOrganization “Our support environment” • 85 offices across the country • 3,800 clients • Standardized hardware and software • Dell notebooks, desktops, and servers • Microsoft Windows XP operating system • Microsoft Office 2003 Professional • 3,000+ software titles
- 7. Walkthrough of theOrganization “Our support environment” • Software license pools • New offices, relocations, and expansions • Video conferencing • 20 sites standardized on Polycom hardware with dedicated circuits • Blackberries and broadband air cards
- 8. Strengths • • • • • • • Impacts PBS&J’s bottom line Experience/ skillsets Customer service Ability to get/keep our clients chargeable Collaboration and teamwork Collective talents Knowledge of client-driven applications Proactive monitoring of equipment and environment
- 9. Areas for improvement •CADD • Remote office support • Standardization
- 10. Services we offer • • • • Remoteand on-site installation and support After-hours maintenance and support Technology hardware support Remote access support • Home offices, hotel offices, client-side offices • Office planning • Relocations, expansions, closings
- 11. Services we offer •Software licensing, inventory, and support Microstation Geopak ArcGIS AutoCAD InDesign CS2 Photoshop HEC-RAS FDOT client Acrobat BDE Civil 3D SelectCAD Illustrator Flowmaster Office 2003 Windows AEView Civil InRoads Project Primavera Crystal Reports HCS StormCAD STAAD Pro GuideSIGN FloodMap VISSIM XPSWIMM SureTrak EPASWIMM WinBDS SewerCAD ICPR SAP SignCAD WordPerfect H2ONET XTOOLS MDX MWH
- 12. Services we offer • • • • • • • Consultantrole to technology issues Data backup/restore/recovery operations Severe weather preparations Disaster recovery Company mergers and acquisitions Telephony moves, adds, changes Asset inventory
- 13. Service levels • • • • 47 employeesin national support 1,800 support requests per week 68.5% weekly closed request ratio How requests get to national support • • • • 30% via online help desk 10% via toll free phone number 38% via in-person communication 22% via application auto-generation
- 14. Nationalize the Organization • • • • Continuestandardizing the enviornment Expand the Help Desk using VoIP CADD license pooling Control the desktop via GPO
- 15. Reduce costs w/oimpacting service • Computer, printer, fax assets • Distribution, allocation, procurement • Does 45% of population need a notebook? • Reduce trickle down • Webex • Asset management and disposal
- 16. Reduce costs w/oimpacting service • • • • • • POTS line based fax machines User education and training Local printers / 3rd party printer services Virtualization Centralized data backup NAS instead of file servers
- 17. Overall strategy • Maintainchargeability of our clients • High level of satisfaction • Courteous, knowledgeable support • Reliable systems • Provide a productive computing platform • Keep PBS&J’s edge on competition • Continue our staff’s professional growth • Reward and retain valuable employees
- 18. “Where we’ve been,where we’re going” • • • • • • • • Minimum hardware recommendation Enterprise-wide deployments Risk and Emergency Management (REM) Security Initiatives Consolidation / virtualization Community Involvement – KidsCLASS Centralized backup Wide Area File System
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Editor's Notes
- #4 There are “technical” and “managerial” career ladders Benefits: Brings us a diverse group of talent Results in employee satisfaction. Employees get to wear multiple “hats” instead of being pigeon-holed into a specific task Reduces need for specific groups (software group, hardware group, printer group)
- #5 A majority of national support (73%) upgraded their certifications as part of their 2007 goals and objectives Microsoft is our primary certification (since we’re a Microsoft shop) Employees who have demonstrated proficiency with Microsoft certification have gone to other technical areas
- #6 Since the TO re-org in 2006, the regional layer of management was removed to promote consistency and standardization across the country. Employee goals and objectives were reduced in number to result in more focus. Work metrics in the areas of Remedy- Timing, integration into daily work habits, detailed work logs, etc. Work quality – Follow procedures on TOPP Demonstrate proficiency with TO utilities and tools E-purchasing SecureFusion Altiris Encourage cross training to provide support depth among techs. This maintains a level of service when techs are unavailable for whatever reason (illness, PTO) Encourage brown-bag lunches to clients to increase knowledge of common support issues (to reduce them in the future) Knowledge transfer with fellow TO folks Tutorials with clients Certifications as shown on previous slide
- #7 Any downtime directly relates to our clients’ ability to be billable, chargeable Support involves more than discussions on the phone. The engineer environment varies by location The engineer focuses on the needs of the client. National support “lives” with them. They know and cater to the engineer’s specific needs
- #9 I believe that our strengths follow the company’s tagline of “building a great place to work.” (as seen in the firm’s publications) PBS&J’s success depends on how employees feel about the Company and their jobs. PBS&J is a service organization and its service is dependent on the people who support the service (that’s us!) Experience, customer service, skillsets keeps our clients billable which impacts the bottom line. We collaborate with other groups (both in TO and outside of TO) to reach a common goal or objective We know where to get the information on subjects we don’t have complete familiarity with. Knowledge of client-driven applications 3,000 software titles brings support “uniqueness” to each district Act as liasion between client/engineer and software expert b/c we speak the same language Adjust to needs of clients / external clients to help them with their technology needs. All our clients are not the same. PBS&J is a multi-disciplined organization Proactive monitoring of equipment and environment (Est. replacement cost $2.5 M) This cost doesn’t include data/related work-hours that is stored onto these devices OpenManage Weathergoose environmental room monitors Server room checklists
- #10 CADD CADD currently makes up about 25% of support requests CADD knowledge is a value-add for national support Limited resources make it hard to find and expert in CADD as well as in IT. Differentiate support requests from training requests (training should be part of an employee’s work skills) Remote office support Limited resources available to support remote offices the same way as larger offices Standardization A regular area of change since it involves a lot of planning and energy. They benefit the company by simplifying the support environment and creating efficiencies. A ongoing “work-in-progress”
- #11 Support all clients, regardless of their location There are about 17 office relocations per year Technology hardware support includes computers, notebooks, servers, printers, and plotters
- #12 Software license pools At least 45 software license pools across the country
- #14 Less than 30% of requests do not close weekly: Awaiting parts, deliveries, approvals – We set early thresholds on purchases in order to maintain a short turnaround time from order to invoice to payment. Awaiting client availability Project-based requests that span longer than a week How do we receive feedback? Remedy follow-up requests are sent to national support leadership on every 15th closed support request Gets local TO involved with the feedback progress – Shows our interest in this area. A Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI) project, a Corporate-wide initiative a few years ago. Upon closure of each request, the client has the option to leave feedback. Feedback is reported on a monthly basis How do requests get to us? Released the online help desk last year– 30% of our client base has migrated to this method People like variety, and we meet that need by providing multiple ways to reach us for help Auto generated requests promote complete-ness to common transactions such as employee hires/termination
- #15 Standardization a few years ago was regionalized and not everyone did things the same way. We’ve made progress, but have more to do. Examples of items new, in-progress, or complete: Printer/server naming conventions Network documentation Office configurations Centralized backups File structure (some permission-based, others not) Drive mappings (home drive, common drive, project drive) Reaction by CADD managers / CADD files and their reference files Local computer administrative privileges CADD License pooling Currently configured by division since they are paying for it If TO buys CADD software, then there are greater economies of scale PBS&J hasn’t purchased a new AutoCAD licenses. Over the last few years, TO has renewed maintenance on licenses (and pooled them) no longer wanted by the technical divisions. A new AutoCAD license costs $3,000+ each. Desktop control Use GPO’s to minimize customizations Risks the impact against company culture because they like personalizing their computers. Losing ability to set their own screen saver generated static a few years ago.
- #16 Computer, printer, fax assets (Assume ownership) Decisions are currently handled by 100+ divisions nationwide Newest hardware is closest to the money Computers sit idle in one division while another division buys new computers Notebooks have higher security risks when left in the office overnight (not a true mobile use) ---- Purchase should be made based on need, function, role Notebooks cost as high as twice the cost of desktops--- and don’t perform as well as desktops. Trickle down: A purchase of one computer leads to a rebuilding/redistribution of 5-7 computers Webex Substitute Live Meeting for in-house desktop sharing instead of using fee-based Webex Asset management and disposal Formalize this program-- Either through a recycling program or Ebay or Craig’s list Create a notification/action procedure for computers that are near to end of life cycle
- #17 POTS line based fax machines A $25/month cost per fax line. Fax numbers printed on business cards. There is client awareness of fax numbers. User education and training Increase role of PBS&J University from a coordinator to a provider/mentor Regionalize training by bringing a single instructor on-site to do training en masse (instead of sending folks to external classrooms) Local printers / 3rd party printer services Reduce model-specific toner, cables, utility power. NAS equipment instead of power vaults for big-time disk space needs Uses a special server OS that includes Microsoft’s Single Instance Storage (SIS) which prevents duplicate files on the same volume
- #19 Minimum hardware recommendation to 1 GB RAM / 1 GHz CPU (October-December 2007) Built 160 computers in this time period Upgraded 845 memory banks in this time period Enterprise-wide deployments (Keeps company running optimally, promotes standardization) (also in a 3 month time period) Active Directory, Exchange, Backup Exec, Windows XP/Office 2003: Completely rebuilt 3700+ computers with a standardized image This will happen again in the future when we upgrade to Windows 7. Windows server 2000 to Server 2003 Miscellaneous patches, Oracle templates Risk and Emergency Management Very mobile group Support does not follow that of a typical brick/mortar office Assembled their mobile command centers – Satellite internet, wireless, plotting, etc. Their client’s contracts require them to be mobile in days after a contract is awarded. Security initiatives (Example of how we assist other TO groups achieve their objectives) Local administrative passwords Rogue computers Wireless network Desktop and server hardening Consolidation / virtualization Virtualizing servers (using VMWare) to reduce hardware and their associated maintenance and support costs) Wide Area File System Promotes work-sharing by increasing file access speeds between offices