OATdb Archive

2014 - 2015

IT Client Services

Goal
Provide High-Quality Support Services To Campus
Client Services will utilize work order surveys to evaluate clients' perception of the work performed by IT@Sam staff to complete the service request.

Objective
Service Delivery Will Be Perceived To Be Timely And Efficient
Client Services will utilize work order surveys to evaluate clients' perceptions of the duration to complete the service request. 

KPI
Client Perception Of Time To Complete Service Request
We will deliver a work order survey to the client upon completion of the request. The client will be asked to rate their perception of overall service request experience. Available responses are "Very Dissatisfied, Dissatisfied, Neutral, Satisfied, and Very Satisfied." We will target a 95% or better overall satisfaction rating for Client Services Department-specific survey items.


Result
94% Satisfaction Rate Achieved
Client Services achieved a rating of 94% satisfaction from 2304 responses regarding perception of overall service as satisfactory or very satisfactory, one percentage point below the target of 95%.


Action
Continue Monitoring Timeliness And Efficiency Of Issue Resolution
Client Services will continue monitoring survey results on a daily basis and evaluate its response times to strive for improvement.  Service level agreements (SLAs) were established within the past year to better track timeliness of service and identify areas for improvement. Existing SLAs will be reevaluated in the coming year to ensure they are reasonably aggressive and encourage timely response.  


Objective
Service Delivery Will Be Perceived To Be Provided By Qualified Staff
Client Services will utilize work order surveys to evaluate clients' perceptions of the technical qualifications of the staff member assisting with their requests.

KPI
Client Perception Of Technical Qualifications Of IT@Sam Staff
We will deliver a work order survey to the client upon completion of the request. The client will be asked to rate their perception of the technical competency of the IT@Sam representative. Available responses are "Very Dissatisfied, Dissatisfied, Neutral, Satisfied, and Very Satisfied." We will target a 95% or better overall satisfaction rating for Client Services Department-specific survey items.


Result
96% Satisfaction Rate Achieved
Client Services achieved a rating of 96% satisfaction from 2304 responses regarding perception of technical qualifications of technician staff as satisfactory or very satisfactory, one percentage point above the target of 96%.


Action
Continue Monitoring Perceived Technical Qualifications Of Staff
Client Services will continue surveying clients about technical qualifications of staff to use feedback for the purposes of ongoing training, feedback to technicians, and monitoring of service and technician skills.


Objective
Service Delivery Will Be Perceived As A Good Experience For The Client
Client Services will utilize work order surveys to evaluate clients' overall perceptions of working with IT@Sam to resolve their request.

KPI
Client Overall Perception Of Experience Resolving Service Request
We will deliver a work order survey to the client upon completion of the request. The client will be asked to rate their perception of overall service request experience. Available responses are "Very Dissatisfied, Dissatisfied, Neutral, Satisfied, and Very Satisfied." We will target a 95% or better overall satisfaction rating for Client Services Department-specific survey items.


Result
95% Satisfaction Rate Achieved
Client Services achieved a rating of 95% satisfaction from 2304 responses regarding perception of resolving the client’s request as satisfactory or very satisfactory, meeting the target of 95%.


Action
Continue Monitoring Perceived Issue Resolution Of Requests
Client Services will continue surveying clients about the perception of their requests being resolved for the purposes of follow up with clients if needed, ongoing training purposes, feedback about technician staff, and monitoring of service provided.

Objective
Service Delivery Will Be Perceived To Have Kept The Client Informed
Client Services will utilize work order surveys to evaluate clients' perceptions of how well they were kept informed of the status of their request.

KPI
Client Perception Of Adequate Communication With IT@Sam
We will deliver a work order survey to the client upon completion of the request. The client will be asked to rate their perception of overall service request experience. Available responses are "Very Dissatisfied, Dissatisfied, Neutral, Satisfied, and Very Satisfied." We will target a 95% or better overall satisfaction rating for Client Services Department-specific survey items.


Result
95% Satisfaction Rate Achieved
Client Services achieved a rating of 95% satisfaction from 2304 responses regarding perception of the communication provided by IT@Sam during issue resolution as satisfactory or very satisfactory, meeting the target of 95%.


Action
Continue Monitoring Communication Provided By Staff
Client Services will continue surveying clients about communication provided by technicians during issue resolution for the purposes of follow up with clients if needed, ongoing training purposes, feedback about technician staff, and monitoring of service provided.  IT@Sam strives to communicate in an accurate, clear, concise, and timely manner with clients and will continue to strive for communicating as effectively as possible externally and internally.

New dashboards were created this year in for IT Service Management to monitor for ‘stale’ tickets. These dashboards will allow technicians and their managers to quickly identify those tickets that are in danger of failing to meet the division’s communication standards for our clients.


Goal
Provide Quality Information Technology Resources
Client Services will provide resources that meet resource type needs, be reliable and be available when and where needed by the University.

Objective
Provide Reliable Core Customer Services To Campus
Client Services will provide reliable core services to faculty, staff, and students, to include: 10-Minute Promise services to support faculty and classroom technology; mass email services; website services; and IT Training courses for all eligible constituents.


KPI
Provide Reliable 10-Minute Promise Service To Faculty
Client Services will track 10-Minute Promise services to support faculty and classroom technology for both availability and first-time resolution.  We will strive for a 95% or better rating for meeting the promise, and an 80% or better rating for resolving on initial contact.

Result
99% Rating For Meeting Promise, 77% Resolution On First Contact
There were 639  requests for 10-minute promise service.  Service was met in 99% of the incidents reported, 4% higher than the target of 95%.  77% of the incidents were resolved on initial contact, 3% below the target of 80%.

 


KPI
Provide "Mass Email" Services To Campus
Client Services will provide (and track statistics for) "mass email" services to campus that include: template creation; content delivery; target audience delivery; and state and federal guideline compliance (CAN/SPAM Act) for faculty and staff. 

Result
825 Mass Emails Sent
825 mass emails were sent during FY15, an average of 16 emails per week.  Turn-around time averaged 3-4 days per service request.  


KPI
Provide Stable Website Platform For The University
Client Services will provide a stable platform for websites to be created, updated, and viewed. We will strive for an annual 99.75% "uptime" rating.

Result
99.96% Uptime Rating
The annual 'uptime' rating for FY15 was 99.96%, .21% above the target rating of 99.75%.  This included scheduled and internet outage downtimes, which were corrected by supplying redundancy.


KPI
Provide IT Training Beneficial Faculty & Staff In Their Work
Client Services’ trainers will provide each attendee of an IT@Sam Training Session with a post-training survey and encourage completion of the survey at all instructor-led sessions. The attendee will be asked to rate their perception of how well the training delivered will benefit their work. Available responses are “Excellent, Above Average, Average, Below Average, Poor.” We will strive for a 90% or better rating.

Result
94% Excellent Or Above Average Rating Achieved
94% of the 32 surveys received earned a response of ‘Excellent’ or ‘Above Average’, 4% above the target of 90%.


Action
Use Of Performance Analytics And Increased Training For 10-Minute Promise
Client Services is using performance analytics to identify classroom equipment that needs upgrading before chronic and/or major performance problems. These types of issues often cannot be resolved on initial contact.  In addition, AV/classroom training for technicians working 10-minute promise services will be enhanced to increase the likelihood of a technician being able to resolve an issue on initial contact without additional support. 


Action
Automating Mass Emails
Web Services currently pulls data from Cognos to facilitate targeted mass emails to a wide range of audiences and is actively seeking ways to automate the process and provide a hands-on service that approved/experienced clients can use to send their own emails.


Action
Continue Monitoring Benefit Of Training Classes Provided
Client Services will continue surveying training attendees for continued improvement of training content, format, and delivery.

Goal
Provide Quality Professional Development Opportunities For Staff
IT Client Services will provide time and funding for staff to attend professional development through training and/or conferences.

Objective
Provide Professional Development Opportunities To Client Services Staff
IT Client Services will allocate funding and time for staff to participate in professional development activities which will enhance staff value to  students, faculty, staff and alumni.


Indicator
Provide Opportunity For High Quality Professional Development That Enhances Value
Client Services will provide high quality professional development opportunities to enhance staff value to students, faculty, staff, and alumni by bringing value to individual employee's work. 


Criterion
Value-Enhancing Professional Development
All training opportunities for employees in Client Services are evaluated by their immediate supervisor for necessity and value.  The department has used both per-capita and on-demand/as-available models for appropriating funding across the various services in the department.  We will strive for a 90% rate for professional development activities attended to improve or enhance operational effectiveness related to CS functions.


Finding
100% Of Training Attended Related To Operational Effectiveness
100% of training attended in FY15 by staff across all areas of Client Services related to improving or enhancing operational effectiveness within the department and/or the division. 


Indicator
Provide Professional Development
Client Services staff will meet or exceed the SHSU Human Resources Staff Professional Development requirements (based on classification as staff or managers, as well as hire date in relation to evaluation requirements). 

Criterion
Staff Professional Development Reporting
Tracking and reporting of internal and external is managed through Talent Management.  Employee thresholds are based on position (i.e., staff or manager), and the amount of training required per employee is prorated against their hire dates. We will strive for a 100% rate for this criterion.




Finding
100% Of Training Requirements Completed By Staff
100% of Client Services staff who were employed in a full-time position in IT@Sam from the start of FY15 met the training required for their position, per review of Talent Management results. 

Action
Continued Focus On Training And Development Opportunities
Client Services will continue strongly encouraging training and development opportunities that will benefit the staff member and support the objectives of the department, IT@Sam, and SHSU, as well as continue monitoring for completion of minimum SHSU requirements.


Goal
Analyze Opportunities To Increase Campus Efficiency
Client Services will continuously analyze processes to increase campus efficiency in one or more of the following areas: costs, operations, and communications.

Objective
Evaluate Processes To Increase Campus Efficiency
Client Services will evaluate at least one process within the department to increase campus efficiency.

KPI
Improvement Of Division-wide Communications
Client Services will lead the division in efforts to develop and implement a division-level communications plan outlining communication efforts both internal (within the division) as well as external (to the campus community).  This was initiated in 2013-2014 but not completed. 

Additionally, the department will lead the division in improvements to the division's website, newsletter, and social media outlets, providing more regular postings and informational updates.  We will also reach out to the campus community to determine alternative (and best) venues for disseminating information. 


Result
Progress With Enhancing Communication
The Communication Plan has not been completed and is still being actively reviewed and revised within the IT@Sam Managers’ Group and Client Services Communications staff.  The division’s website has undergone maintenance that includes placing all pages in a responsive template as well as breaking out the departments to have their own sites to manage.  The newsletter was redesigned in April and placed in a responsive design as well.  The newsletter received over 11,000 views during FY15.  We have increased our social media postings this year.  We have an average of 1 blog post per week, 3 tweets per week on Twitter, and 4 posts per week on Facebook. We have also added an Instagram account to our communications channels this year.  With the redesign of the Cherwell Portal, a new Portal Announcement section was added. This helps to facilitate our communications for Problems and Changes that are upcoming.


KPI
Tech Shop Operational Improvements
Client Services’ Tech Shop area will develop and demonstrate operational improvements in laptop imaging (specifically turnaround time frames), and updating and documentation of policies and procedures.   


Result
Laptop Imaging Time Reduced
A new server hardware was implemented for imaging laptops. The hardware was designed to meet specific speed and throughput requirements. Solid state hard drives were also part of the solution to transfer images to the laptops much faster than a mechanical drive would be able to.  A change in the specification of laptops to solid state drives also helped to achieve this goal.  Changes implemented resulted in reducing laptop image times from 8-12 hours to 4.5 hours.  In addition, the tech shop has over 100 processes and procedures documented within the area.  All processes were reviewed and updated over this past year.


KPI
IT Service Tool - Service Delivery Improvements
Client Services will lead the division in efforts to improving service delivery for a more positive customer experience level, specifically with improvements to our IT "ticketing" tool by (1) reducing the service catalog options; (2) streamlining processes for end users; and (3) creating a more easily-navigable portal; all areas based on user feedback from both “internal” IT staff and the “external” campus community. 


Result
Items Accomplished
These items have been accomplished.  On January 11th, a new Service Catalog was published that reduced our offerings by 2/3. We opted for broader Services and Categories to accomplish this significant reduction. We also introduced a new redesigned portal experience for our end users with quick ways of entering commonly-placed tickets right from the main page.  We were able to contact those that participated in focus groups for feedback on how well we delivered on their needs, and feedback from both internal and external clients was extremely positive.

Action
Focus On Finalizing Communication Plan
A finalized and enacted Communication Plan for the division will be a priority in FY16.  The finalized Plan will be a living document that is used as a guide for the division’s communication internally and externally, but also updated on an ongoing basis as needed. 

Social media will continued to be used and monitored for effectiveness as a supplement to emails and portal notifications to communicate with all clients.



Update to previous cycle's plan for continuous improvement

Client Services strives to use allocated staff and resources as efficiently as possible.  The department was restructured during FY15 in the following manner:

- Align Tech Shop and AV/Classroom support—two areas with like responsibilities and objectives—under one manager
- Centralize software renewal and purchases for the division with Asset Management and Inventory, with a dedicated manager
- Hire a manager dedicated to the Service Desk, an extremely busy unit within Client Services and arm of the division where communication and interaction with clients is an important, critical and primary focus

As evidenced by training statistics given early in this assessment report, 100% of training attended has been to improve or enhance operational effectiveness. Managers continue to work with staff members to establish, document, and refine as needed best practices and procedures. 

Documented procedures are held in a central location online and accessible by all staff.  Procedures are reviewed annually, or sooner when necessary, and revised as needed.

We are increasingly utilizing Cherwell as a resource for tracking tickets from entry to resolution and strive to provide more meaningful data to assist managers with tracking the progress of work. As a division, we meet regularly to evaluate the current use of Cherwell and discuss needed changes to increase functionality.  This will continue throughout FY16.


Plan for continuous improvement Efficient processes, beneficial training, and clear communication continue to be critical aspects of ensuring that Client Services is working optimally. The following measures will take place during FY16 to focus on these primary objectives:

- The division’s Communication Plan will be finalized, communicated with all division staff, and enacted
- An outside consultant engaged to act as Interim Director of Client Services will work with managers to evaluate current key processes, revise where possible to streamline and be more efficient, ensure documentation, and ensure communication with all staff involved
- Training and professional development opportunities will be identified by managers for staff members that will make full use of allocated training funds and further develop current staff