Chain of Command

• Customer Support and Application Services, Director: Michael Kerntke
  • Computer Consulting and Support, Manager: Kathie Sorrentino
    • Macintosh Lab, M037, Coordinator: Chris Czel
      • Macintosh Graduate Assistant: Jennifer Lachance
      • Macintosh Consultants
    • PC Lab, M051, & Mainframe Lab, M038, Coordinator: Mick DiGrazia
      • PC Graduate Assistant: Peter Ngondo
      • PC Consultants
      • Mainframe Graduate Assistant: Siva Desai
      • Mainframe Consultants
    • Web Development Lab, M037, Coordinator: Andy DePalma
      • Web Development Graduate Assistant: Heather Couture
      • Web Development Consultants
    • Labs Administration, M046: Janet Pastula
    • UConn Web & WebCT, M046, Coordinator: Haleh Ghaem
    • Distributed Servers, M048: Joe Theriault, Josh Boggis, Matt Smith
    • Campus Desktop Support, M048: Lisa Mikolinski, Patrick Taylor
    • Web Design, Library: Steve Garrett

Reference materials available in each lab and the Help Desk.

• Student Employee Handbook
• UITS Guide to Services (available on the University Information Technology Service's Home Page: http://www.ucc.uconn.edu)

Consultant Training Workshop-How To Consult

Consulting

Customer Service

Support Group

Involvement/participation

Transfer of information and skills The CCS staff are some of

Outline of training program

Part 1: How-To Consult.

This workshop is meant to review consulting as a job; the focus is on attitudes and approaches.

Part 2: Self Study.

Through reading, workshops, and other individualized experiences which focus on specific product knowledge. Your supervisor will introduce training needs to be covered in the support area you are working in.

Part 3: Co-consulting.

On-the-job exposure to customers and real problems where you will work with one or more experienced consultants.

Phone etiquette:

• Greet the caller as directed by Governor Roland with the name of the lab and an immediate offer of help: "Good Morning/Good Afternoon, this is your name at the University Information Technology Services Macintosh/Mainframe/PC/Web Development Lab. How may I help you?"
• Smile when speaking. Be courteous and polite.
• Get the callers name and number. Write it down.
• Give the caller your undivided attention. If you must excuse yourself, explain what you are doing.
• Don't cover the phone to have or hide side conversations with someone else.
• Listen carefully to the problem presented. Let the person finish his/her explanation completely, take notes. Wait-absorb the problem-then respond. Gather more information, providing feedback (" If I am hearing you correctly you are saying that the problem is..."). Let the customer provide more information. Ask more questions and provide additional feedback until comfortable with the problem.
• Complex problems and complex explanations are difficult to accomplish over the phone. It would be better to have the individual who wants a more thorough discussion of the problem/resolution come into the lab to see you personally.
• Minimize transferring calls around the Department. If you must transfer the call to someone else, explain what you are doing to the caller and give the caller your telephone number, in case he gets disconnected: " I'm going to transfer you to the MacLab/PC Lab/MF Lab. In case you get disconnected, their phone number is 486-1431/3488/0924."
• In general, get agreement from the customer about the next steps which you will take to help him or her.
• Conclude telephone call with a further offer to assist: " Is there anything else I can help you with?" or " Please call again if you are still having trouble."
• Explain the UITS Help Desk services as first point of contact should the customer not be clear where his/her question belongs.
• Have a computer in front of you and try to recreate the situation, if possible, visually.
• If possible (room permitting), place phone consulting in a quiet less traffic area.

Walk-in etiquette:

• You are the "HOSTS/HOSTESSES" of your lab. Always watch for customers entering, exiting, walking around, at the printers, sitting at the work stations, ...everywhere in the lab. Do not hide behind the computer or monitor. Participate in your teamwork environment helping your fellow Consultant.
• Be "on the lookout" for customers walking in for help. If someone seems shy or confused, step forward and offer assistance. You are the "hosts/hostesses" and in charge of initiating the offer of assistance.
• Smile when speaking. Be courteous and polite.
• Greet customers with your name and an offer of assistance: " Hi, my name is Sam. Can I help you with something?"
• Present yourself as calm and confident; try to set the customer at ease.
• Give the customer your undivided attention; reassure him that his problem is your most important priority.
• Listen carefully to the problem presented, take notes; ask questions for clarification, hear the customer's full explanation of his problem; don't assume you know what the answer is until you have fully heard the problem. Let the customer finish his explanation, even if the problem seems routine to you.
• As you work through a problem, explain what you are doing in some detail. Check to see if the customer is following your explanation: " Do you see what I did there?" If the customer is confused, slow down and re-explain. The customer should walk away understanding how you solved his problem so that he can better help himself the next time.
• If possible, let the customer work the computer, let him/her " drive."
• Especially during long problem solving sessions, you will undoubtedly be interrupted by others for " quick help." If you can render quick help, do so, but don't let your primary customer wait too long.
• If you find many customers queuing up for assistance, call for help. Call other consultants, full-time staff for your lab, or even full-time staff from other labs.
• Conclude your contact with a further offer to assist: " Is there anything else I can help you with?" or " Please call again if you are still having trouble."
• Do not spend all of you time with one customer. You need to be available to other customers in the lab and to your fellow Consultants.

Triage:

• Try to determine how urgent a problem is--by when must it be solved: " Are we up against any deadlines?" Some problems really are more urgent to resolve than others.
• Problems with true deadlines should probably be handled as quickly as possible or by more experienced staff.
• Try to determine how long it might take to resolve this problem, and whether you have time to work on it. If you are close to the end of your shift and the problem seems like it will take longer than you have, it would be better to pass the problem to someone else right away rather than to start working on it and then pass it along at the end of your shift: " It looks like this might take longer than I have right now to work on it. Let me have another consultant get together with you."
• If the user has been frustrated by previous unsuccessful attempts to help him, refer him immediately to more experienced consultants or full-time staff.
• If there seem to be political issues involved (customer is threatening to go to the President if he doesn't get help immediately) refer him to full-time staff.
• If customers needing assistance start to pile up, stop and call for more help.

Data gathering questions/strategies:

• Initial questions should be non-threatening and relatively open-saved: " Can you show me the problem?"
• Focus on the problem, not the customer: " What is going wrong?" rather than " What did YOU do wrong?"
• Focus on the factual symptoms presented by the customer: " Can you show me the error messages? Show me the bad output." Gather symptoms.
• Try to understand the general kind of problem being presented. Is this a VM or MVS problem? What software is the customer using? Is there a hardware or media failure?
• Find out if the problem can be readily reproduced: " Does this happen every time? Can you make this happen for me?"
• Think about whether this problem might be related to other problems going on in the lab or to changes to the technology that might have been implemented recently.
• Try to determine why the error is occurring before offering fixes. In general, " I don't know, but why don't you try this..." is not good assistance.
• Don't say things like: " Well, I guess that's just the way it is" or " The system must have burped."
• If the customer claims he " didn't change anything from the last time it ran," don't believe him.
• Try to understand what the customer expects to get out of the consult.
• Be aware that some customers want help in debugging a problem; others want information to develop programs. There are different kinds of customers with different kinds of needs.

Tools:

• Keep a pad of paper and pencils/pens close by. Take notes.
• Understand how to use the telephone to call for assistance. Keep a telephone book and/or telephone list nearby. Develop a sense for who to call for what kinds of help.
• Be aware of what manuals exist in the lab, and what manuals may exist in other labs. Review the (Mainframe) Usage Notes (on the Web), (Macintosh) Apple.cations (on the Web), or PC Quick Reference Notes (on the Web); and other UITS written documentation that is available to help with answering questions.
• Become aware of on-line Help including the CMS Help system, FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) and NEWS, and context-sensitive help within various packages.
• Become aware of any diagnostic software or hardware tools and procedures which are available in the lab (e.g., virus scanners, file recovery utilities, debugging tools).
• Become aware of alternate software tools which could be used to solve similar problems.
• Don't be afraid to ask another consultant or staff member to look over your shoulder and ask suggestions. If another consultant is busy with a problem and you are not, look over his shoulder.
• Keep a copy of the Consultant's Handbook close by as a reference.

Self education, training, personal development:

• UITS/CCS offers a number of hands-on workshops on mainframe, PC, Macintosh, and networking topics. The Help Desk has the list and schedule of these workshops.
• Find out what your Supervisor has set up for you to accomplish as far as training goes. Also, find out what on-line tutorials and other materials may be available in your lab. Go through those materials as time permits.
• Pay attention to bulletin boards in the labs, the office, and other places where postings occur.
• READ YOUR E-MAILS FROM YOUR SUPERVISOR AND CCS STAFF EVERYTIME YOU COME TO WORK. This is our basic form of communication with the entire student consulting staff.
• Check your mailboxes.
• Ask questions. Learn, learn, learn.

Professional Behavior:

• Consulting is a real job. Many of our student consultants are offered jobs (or better jobs) based on what they learn and do in our labs. Don't squander the opportunity.
• Focus on being helpful whenever and for whomever you can. Customer service is the name of the game.
• Maintain a positive attitude. Take pride in your lab; take ownership of the facility and the program.
• You are in the public eye. Conduct yourself professionally. Sit appropriately at the Consultant stations and when assisting users. Feet on chairs or desks is not proper and gives a negative image to our lab.
• Reading non-work related material and doing homework is not a part of the job.
• Mike Kerntke, Director of Customer Support and Application Services and other directors and managers visit our lab. Any non-lab related or inappropriate activity is reported to the Lab Coordinator. We want to avoid embarassment.
• We recognize that you are here first as a college student. However, this does not relinquish your responsibilities to your consulting job. If you find yourself in a bind between your Consulting duties and your studies, please see the Lab Coordinator on the matter.
• Dress professionally. Shoes and shirts are required, for instance. If you come to work dressed " unprofessionally," you may very well be sent home to change.
• Be aware of your hygiene. Wash, wear deodorant; brush your teeth, watch what you eat before coming to work. If you smoke, use breath mints. Be aware that heavy perfumes and aftershave lotions physically sicken some people. Smelly consultants are unprofessional consultants.
• Get enough sleep; eat properly; take care of your health. You cannot do your best consulting work if you're dead tired or sick.
• Think courtesy in any and all of your interpersonal relationships. Swearing is out. Bad-mouthing or ridiculing customers or other consultants or staff is in very bad taste. If you have a problem with someone's behavior, say so in a professional, even-tempered manner. Don't stoop to the lowest common denominator.
• Avoid using emotionally-loaded language.
• Be patient; practice patience.
• Be aware of the noise you make and how that noise may affect the concentration of those around you. Cross-talk which disturbs customers or other consultants trying to work should be minimized.
• Be aware that social games sometimes arise in office settings. Don't buy into this kind of behavior; discourage its existence.
• Be responsible to yourself and your co-workers. If your co-worker doesn't show up for work, let your supervisor know. There may be a bigger problem than he/she forgot to show up for work. We cannot help you out if we are not aware of the problem.
• Be aware of your fellow Consultant(s). Is there a line of customers standing in front of another Consultant? Offer your help. Make sure that the work load doesn't get "dumped" on just one Consultant. Share the lab responsibilities.
• Read the DOs and DON'Ts in your Consultant Employee Handbook.

Escalation and Referral Procedures:

• No one can solve all problems. Give each problem your best shot, but admit when you are in over your head and get some help. Don't give up too easily, but don't wait too long either. Focus on helping the customer in the most productive manner.
• If you pass the problem immediately to another consultant, pass on all the information you have gathered in a manner which allows the second consultant to pick up where you left off.
• If you decide to make a second level referral, take down all the required information from the customer, and then explain what you are doing, how soon the customer should expect to hear back from someone else, and what the customer should do if he does not hear back within a reasonable length of time.
• If you determine that the best course of action is to refer the problem to another lab, call the other lab first and explain what you are about to do and why. Pass on what information you have.
• If you receive a referral from someone else, try to get back to the original consultant with the results of your work; provide feedback to the originating staff.
• If the UITS/CCS staff cannot resolve a problem, they can escalate to other UITS professionals, management, and vendor experts. Just about every problem can be solved.
• If a customer comes in irate or becomes so, try to calm him down. But if that doesn't work, refer the individual to full-time staff as soon as possible. During non-staff hours, inform the Operations Supervisor of your situation, 6-1425. Keep your list of staff phone numbers with you and use if necessary to call up the ladder of responsibility.
• If you think that the customer might benefit from some training in a certain technology, make specific suggestions about upcoming workshops, on-line self-paced training, or other readily available materials.

Customer Base and Quality of Service:

• Undergraduates, graduates, part-time students, faculty, and staff make up our potential customer base.
• Regional campuses and community/technical colleges.
• From time to time, we give tours to all kinds of people including State legislators, university presidents, and visitors from foreign countries. With the advent of our connection to the Internet, we really have a global constituency. We may not know where a particular customer is actually located. Remember, you are always on stage.
• Perhaps 90% or more of University students and faculty develop their impressions of the University Information Technology Services from their interactions with student consultants. Good impressions lead to good public relations and better financial support to continue or to expand the program.

Limits to Our Help--How to say No:

• Don't take the monkey. While we want to be helpful, some users may attempt to dump their problems on us in an accusing, belligerent, or otherwise emotional manner. We can't buy into this emotional blackmail. If you find yourself losing control of the situation, call for help from more experience staff.
• Encourage customers to be self-sufficient/self reliant.
• Software is divided into various categories of support: Levels 1, 2, and 3 (See the handbook for descriptions of the support offered.) Your obligation is to assist the end user to the best of your ability, passing forward a second level if need be. Remind the end user that if they are using a product that is a Level 3 support, consulting is limited to the expertise and documentation available.
• Draw the line at doing someone's homework. Yes, this involves a judgement call, but we're not here to do homework. If you are uncertain about a particular item, ask for help.
• In general, we cannot assist students or faculty in designing their research strategies.
• We cannot leave our workplace to go somewhere else on campus to offer assistance. If you get a request for this, pass it onto the full-time staff. Many " odd" requests are handled as time permits.
• Don't break the law. It's illegal to copy commercial software, for instance. Do not do this even for a fellow consultant.
• Follow the rules for your lab, other labs, CCS, UITS, and the University. If a customer wants something that goes against a rule, seek " higher authority" before proceeding. Most of the time, we've seen the problem before and we have already reached some conclusions about how to handle it. That's why we have rules.
• Unfortunately, sometimes students and staff alike are charged with being part-time policemen/women.

Teamwork

• Labs MUST always be staffed by the required number of Consultants. See your Consultant Employee Handbook on how to handle being late or not being able to work your assigned hours.
• Let the other Consultant(s) know when you leave for your break and for a moment. Take your break at an appropriate time for the lab. Coordinate your meal breaks between the other(s) on duty.
• Read and sign the Consultant Employee Handbook specific to your lab.

What You Can Expect from UITS Staff:

• CCS and other University Information Technology Services staff are here to help you deliver the best possible consulting service. Please feel free to speak with your immediate supervisor, or any of the CCS full-time staff on any issue, technical or personal. We expect to see you in the labs, but you are welcome to come to our offices, send us E-mail, schedule appointments for tutoring or personal discussions, or call us at home if there are emergencies. Make suggestions; we will listen.
• Don't be afraid to interrupt a full-time staff member for assistance.
• From time to time, there may be personality or other differences between student consultants, or other staff. Don't let these issues fester. Try to speak directly to the person with whom you are having problems, and if that fails, seek out your lab supervisor or other staff member to discuss the situation. We will try to help sort out the issue.
• Don't buy into the rumor mill. If you hear something that makes you wonder what's going on, ask a full-time staff member for clarification. We'll be straight with you.
• Assuming your track record is good at work, you can expect to receive raises every couple of semesters. At the end of your stay, we will be very happy to help you with letters of reference for your next job.
• If you give poor service or break the rules, you can expect grief from the staff. That won't make anyone happy.

Wrap-up

The Contribution of Student Consultants

• Our student consultants make the lab assistance program work. Without them, we could not field the kind of program we do.
• Our students form the front line for computing help to the university.
• Please tell us what you need to do the job. Give us feedback. What kinds of questions are coming in? What kinds of software are people asking for that we do not have? What parts of the program are no longer useful?

General Review

• Using the telephone properly,
• Handling walk-in customers,
• Determining quickly the urgency, difficulty, and our ability to handle particular problems,
• Strategies for gathering information and asking questions,
• The various tools and aids which exist to help us resolve problems,
• And the variety of training materials and information resources that exist to help us acquire the information we need to be helpful to our customers.
• Professional behavior
• Escalating and referring problems which are beyond us,
• Our customer base and the importance of rendering the highest quality service,
• When to say " NO" to a customer request,
• And what the UITS staff can do for you.
• Teamwork.

University Information Technology Services Tour & Thank you for attending.

TOUR STOPS

North-South Corridor

• Macintosh lab; Web Development Lab; Mainframe Lab; UITS Executive Offices; Operations; Help Desk; Office Administration

Points of Interest

• Lab hours and remote lab display cases

M037 Macintosh and Web Development Lab

• Macintosh Training Room (reservable for classes and workshops)
• Macintosh Homework Room (Training Room is also available for homework area when not reserved)
• Macintosh and Web Development consulting expertise
• Mainframe Connected
• Mainframe consulting (limited)
• Multimedia instructors workstation
• Scanning workstations: color, b&w, slide scanner
• Laser printing
• Color Printing
• Digitizing of audio/video
• File transfer capabilities: From PC to Mac; From Mac to PC
• On-campus phone

M038 Mainframe Consulting/PC Homework Lab

• Mainframe Consulting expertise
• PC Homework Lab (when M051 is in use)
• PC consulting
• Laser printing
• Color Printing

UITS Executive Offices

• Michael Kerntke, Director of Customer Support and Application Services
  • Lorraine Costanzo: Mike Kerntke's secretary and Editor and Chief of the "UITS Guide to Services"
• Susan J. Fisher, Director of Network Services and Server Support
  • Sharon Foster: Sue Fisher's secretary.

M001 Help Desk

• Meet the full-time staff
• Verification of student enrollment at UConn
• Applications for student employment at UITS
• UITS services price list
• Consulting Services (all platforms; an attempt)
• Accounts
• Reception Area
• Diskette and zip sales
• UITS Tours
• Dial-in support
• Workshop Lists and Registration (UITS)

Office Administration, M001

• Receptionists; accounts; student administration; supply distribution; printer; conference rooms; applications and systems area.

Accounts - Linda Baker/Sherry Chandler

• They handle all mainframe account requests for all users to include: set up, renewal, special access, security, passwords.
• Certain large mainframe printouts must be paid for. The system will put such printouts on SIZE hold automatically, and users will have to arrange payment for the printout before they can receive their output.

Conference Room

• CCR1 - Cave Conference Room 1

Applications/Systems Area

• CCR2 - Cave Conference Room 2
• Programming staff, managers, systems

Computer Operations

• I/O room; central mainframe processor; servers; console area; printers; tape subsystem; wiring closet; tape vault

M030 I/O Room

• 24 hour access; HP Vectra VL conputers - Internet and Mainframe access; on-campus phone; doorbell and access to Operations for key signout/problems
• Mainframe printouts brought out every 20-30 minutes and filed in bins by paper class (left-A, right-P, bottom/right-reject)
• Large Plotting (paid for in M038 or M037)

CPU (Central Processing Unit)

• S/390 2003-246
• S/390 9672-R63
• S/390 9672-T26
• VM/CMS & MVS Operating Systems

Console Area (6-1425)

• Operations is staffed 7 days, 24 hours except:
  • midnight to 8:00am Saturday & Sunday
  • a few holidays (Christmas, Memorial Day...)
• Electronic security system
• Any and all after-hours emergencies or issues - ask for operations' help
• Operators can " force off" hung users from a mainframe session
• Report subsystem outages, other problems
• LOGMSG management
• System and network monitoring

3829 & 3900 Model Laser Printers

• Output routed to SYSTEM
• 3900 Model, 2 paper classes
  • Class A - white, 8.5x11", default, no holes, non-burst
  • Class P - white, 8.5x11", drilled holes, non-burst
• 3829 Model, 3 paper classes
  • Class H - white, 8.5x11", 20# bond, 3 holes, cut paper
  • Class N - white, 8.5x11", 20# bond, no holes, cut paper
  • Class Q - white, 8.5x11", 20# bond, no holes, cut paper, printed off-shift
• HELD output - call operations to arrange for payment/release, 6-1425
  • Examples: purposely put on hold by end user; exceeded line limit...
• Output considered to be abusive will be held by Operations
  • Examples: multiple, multiple, multiple copies
• Remote printers not working - call operations, 6-1425
  • Examples: printers broken, poor print quality...

Automated tape library/tape librarians

• 20 cartridge drives inside 2 Tape Silos, 2 external; two reel-to-reel drives (note: if used may slow your job down since only 2 exist), shared by VM and MVS; automatic tape library gives 24 hour access to tapes, although not all cartridges are in the library.
• Mount messages received and processed by the automatic tape library or operator. Most active tapes are stored in the silo. There is an approximate 20-40 second access time.
• Operations copies data onto/off UITS-owned cartridges; user gets his tape back.
• Unaccessed tapes are removed from the library after 16 months. User begins to be notified after 12 months, if no response after 2 attempts, the cartridge is scratched and reused.
• For copy-out: tapes can be purchased from the Co-op, cartridges can be purchased through the warehouse; brought to Operations where the staff will copy the data from UITS cartridge to user cartridge/tape.

Operations Manager Office

• Mainframe hardware error messages and problems,
• print quality issues,
• offshift-any issues with security, alarms, fire, water leakage, abuse of system or personnel,
• help with locating any UITS staff,
• to answer questions about Operations,
• significant, longer-than-expected run-times,
• and issues with the conduct of any Operations personnel should be directed to your Supervisor who will pass along the issue to the Operations Manager.

East-West Corridor

• M042 UITS Training Lab; M048/M046 CCS offices; M047 Copy Center, Scheduling, and Data Entry; M051 PC Lab

Points of Interest

• Staff directory, room location, phone number display case
• UITS CCS training information display case

M042 Lab

• UITS holds classes in this room.
• These classes are open to UConn staff and cover a wide range of mainframe and PC topics.
• A course listing is available at the Help Desk and on the web at: http://vm.uconn.edu/ ~workshop

M046/48 CCS Office and full-staff work areas

• Meet full-time CCS staff supporting Macintosh, Mainframe, PC, and Web Development, WebCT, Distributed Servers, Campus Desktop Support
  • Lab Coordinators, consulting, and Lab and student administration.
  • Troubleshooting and support staff for campus servers and workstations.
  • End users looking for full-time staff and setting up a meeting with a full-time staff member if requested

M047B/49 Scheduling (Production Control), Data Entry, and Copy Center

• Administrative production work is scheduled, debugged, and delivered from this office at Storrs and regional campuses.
• Courier services available to Storrs and regional campuses
• Bubble tests scanned; results are optionally routed to the faculty member's mainframe CMS account.
• Copy Center
  • Every other Thursday, you will go to the Copy Center, M047B, after 3pm for your paychecks. Copy Center hours are 8:30 am to 4:30 pm.
  • Resume and colored paper available
• Lamination
• Diskette Duplication
• CD Duplication
• Fax Services

M051 PC Lab

• PC training room (reservable for classes and workshops)
• PC homework room (when NOT reserved)
• PC consulting expertise
• Mainframe connected
• Mainframe consulting (limited)
• Multimedia instructors workstation
• Scanning workstation
• Laser printing and plotting