Comment I'm doing this in two weeks.... (Score 4, Insightful) 628
I'll be doing this myself as a ResNet consultant for a major east coast university. Some quick tips:
1) If a user has crappy hardware, tell him or her so. Make them splurge for a 3com. When you're configuring that many students, if 1% of them are running cheap-ass ethernet cards that their local vendors told them would "speed up the internet" or some such nonsense, I can guarantee you'll be spending plenty of time supporting that 1% over the phone for the rest of the year. Nip the problems in the bud.
2) Definitely keep it as simple as possible. Make flowcharts. Win98? Ok, open box, insert card, driver disk / os disk, so on and so forth. Make sure everyone working gets a flowchart. Make them for the top 5 operating systems at your school. If the situation they encounter doesn't work / doesn't have a flow chart, have the consultant refer the problem to his manager. This minimizes hassles for everyone - flowcharts help your techies streamline things, and as a bonus you only get problems that require actual thought.
3) HIRE AS MANY PEOPLE AS POSSIBLE. One day of training for 1 consultant for every 50 anticipated setups per week. (Our "Dorm Storm" lasts for three weeks. YMMV) Seem excessive? This is 10 setups a day - enough to compensate for the average difficult setup. More will leave your techies bored. Training should include NIC installation, different OS's, common user questions and the like. Bonus: handing out cd's with an automated installation and config program
is a good idea. Handing out static wrist guards so that someone working under you doesn't fry an expensive machine and piss of someone's daddy is a *great* idea.
4) Only higher tech support that is friendly. These people will be interacting IRL - they'd better be able to at least fake people skills.
5) Keep everything as low stress as possible. That means air conditioning everywhere (it's the little things), free coffee for techies / walk in students, and anything else that makes this massive hassle a little less of, well, a massive hassle.
6) Past five o clock, stay open with a skeleton staff, and have consultants ready to drop in on the dorm who are on call (i.e. have immediate phone access and the ability to go at a moment's notice.) Don't abuse this privilege, but do use it.
7) Lastly, be prompt. Have everyone who doesn't get serviced by flowcharts go to the first manager AND DEALT WITH IMMEDIATELY. More than 24 hours for turnaround is too late, especially with this heat. Those who can't get helped by the managers should be an extremely small group - have one more manager and/or an emergency response team to deal with these guys.
Good luck with yours... I'm at 1.5 weeks and counting...
1) If a user has crappy hardware, tell him or her so. Make them splurge for a 3com. When you're configuring that many students, if 1% of them are running cheap-ass ethernet cards that their local vendors told them would "speed up the internet" or some such nonsense, I can guarantee you'll be spending plenty of time supporting that 1% over the phone for the rest of the year. Nip the problems in the bud.
2) Definitely keep it as simple as possible. Make flowcharts. Win98? Ok, open box, insert card, driver disk / os disk, so on and so forth. Make sure everyone working gets a flowchart. Make them for the top 5 operating systems at your school. If the situation they encounter doesn't work / doesn't have a flow chart, have the consultant refer the problem to his manager. This minimizes hassles for everyone - flowcharts help your techies streamline things, and as a bonus you only get problems that require actual thought.
3) HIRE AS MANY PEOPLE AS POSSIBLE. One day of training for 1 consultant for every 50 anticipated setups per week. (Our "Dorm Storm" lasts for three weeks. YMMV) Seem excessive? This is 10 setups a day - enough to compensate for the average difficult setup. More will leave your techies bored. Training should include NIC installation, different OS's, common user questions and the like. Bonus: handing out cd's with an automated installation and config program
is a good idea. Handing out static wrist guards so that someone working under you doesn't fry an expensive machine and piss of someone's daddy is a *great* idea.
4) Only higher tech support that is friendly. These people will be interacting IRL - they'd better be able to at least fake people skills.
5) Keep everything as low stress as possible. That means air conditioning everywhere (it's the little things), free coffee for techies / walk in students, and anything else that makes this massive hassle a little less of, well, a massive hassle.
6) Past five o clock, stay open with a skeleton staff, and have consultants ready to drop in on the dorm who are on call (i.e. have immediate phone access and the ability to go at a moment's notice.) Don't abuse this privilege, but do use it.
7) Lastly, be prompt. Have everyone who doesn't get serviced by flowcharts go to the first manager AND DEALT WITH IMMEDIATELY. More than 24 hours for turnaround is too late, especially with this heat. Those who can't get helped by the managers should be an extremely small group - have one more manager and/or an emergency response team to deal with these guys.
Good luck with yours... I'm at 1.5 weeks and counting...
