Support for basic customer issues such as solving usage problems and fulfilling service desk requests that need IT involvement. These services are free of charge and available to the entire Yale community. All Tier 2 desktop requests need to utilize the Tier 1 support services for both user and desktop IT support questions first. 65% of all requests are resolved by the Tier 1 support resources.
They are:
- ITS Helpdesk: 24 x 7 support (https://yale.service-now.com/it?id=get_help)
- YSM Technology Support Center: 9:00am - 4:30pm, Monday through Friday.(https://library.medicine.yale.edu/services/library-technology/support) If no solution is available, tier 1 personnel will escalate incidents to tier 2 support as required.
Tier 2: YSM Desktop IT Support: YSM Desktop Support Team
Baseline Desktop IT Support:
Our baseline desktop IT support staff are organized into support teams. Typically, a support team is comprised of 4 to 6 desktop IT support staff who work as a team. Each support team supports multiple departments. Workload is balanced by the support team providing overlapping support. Each support team has a primary point of contact reporting to the IT manager.
Each department will have an IT support staff identified as their primary point of contact. However, anyone in the support team can support a department. This ensures coverage for all departments due to staff paid time off (PTO).
Experienced technicians assess issues and provide solutions for problems that impact multiple users or for more complex IT deployments. Tier 2 support staff can also escalate incidents to Tier 3 staff.
Typical Tier 2 Services Performed:
- Technical Projects & Systems Documentation
- Workgroup Computing Solutions
- Active Directory and Group Policy Management
- Oversee Compute Environments
- Desktop Hardware and Software Assistance
- Testing of Systems and Software
- Training of Support Staff
- Hardware - Install, Repair, Inventory, & Replacement
- Software - Install, Repair, Inventory, & Replacement
- Backups and Recovery
Each department is guaranteed a minimum baseline level of desktop IT support. This is established by a school-wide support ratio and is determined by the school’s leadership. This ratio is the school’s faculty and staff population divided by the baseline desktop IT support staff.
Above Baseline Desktop IT Support:
In addition to the baseline desktop IT support, individual departments can elect to add additional desktop support capacity for their department. This allows for increased support capacity for departments that have unique desktop support requirements or need a faster MTR response time.
Above baseline support is based on a percentage of a full-time equivalent (FTE) desktop support employee. The minimum FTE a department can contract is blocks of 50% of an FTE. This FTE capacity is dedicated to the department. With this additional capacity user requests from the department will be prioritized through our support request dispatch process within the support team.
Tier 3 – Specialty Support Services
IT support specialists are M&P staff that provide specialized IT support services beyond desktop IT support. We provide a range of support services from compute, data and storage, networking, identity access and management, and information security support. These staff members do not perform desktop IT support services. Tier 3 staff will transfer these requests to the Tier2 desktop IT support team.
Specialty IT support services can be acquired in two ways:
- By Retainer: A specific IT support specialist can be contracted on a yearly basis for 50%, 75% and 100% FTE blocks. This person is on hand to perform specialty support services.
- Project-Based Work: IT support specialists can be assembled to support a project or provide ongoing maintenance of systems. This will be treated as a project and a project manager will be assigned. A scope of work document will be created along with a scope, timeline, and budget. We use the internal ITS professional rate as a basis for this work. Each project has 20% labor for a project manager.
Service level agreements:
Service level agreements define reasonable response times for incidents. Service level response times are activated when a support ticket is created for the TSS IT team or escalated from Tier1 to the Tier 2 support team.
There are 3 main categories that determine a response time:
- Patient care impacted: 4 business hours to first contact with ticket submitter
- Work is blocked: 1 business day to first contact with ticket submitter
- Routine requests: 4 business days to first contact with ticket submitter
Average Mean Time to Resolution (MTR):
Our average mean time to resolution (MTR) for requests is a result of the faculty and staff to support technician ratio. This ratio will change over the fiscal year as the school’s population changes. For the start of FY25 (July 2024), our support ratio will be 1:410, with a MTR of 5.4 business days. By the end of FY25 (June 2025), the YSM tech to staff support ratio is projected to be 1:460 with an average MTR of 6.0 Business days
- Ratio 1:200 = 2.5 average MTR in business days
- Ratio 1:300 = 3.8 average MTR in business days
- Ratio 1:400 = 5.3 average MTR in business days
- Ratio 1:500 = 6.6 average MTR in business days
YSM Desktop IT Support Staff Expectations and Support Scope:
YSM desktop IT support staff support faculty and staff across the Yale School of Medicine. For YSM faculty and staff located at Yale’s West Campus, they receive desktop IT support through the Yale West Campus desktop IT support staff. For staff located at the VA, they are supported by a dedicated support tech assigned to the VA. For various remote clinical and research locations across New England, they are supported by support technicians via remote connection technologies. If in-person support is needed that will be done by a desktop IT support tech on an as needed basis.
Regular YSM desktop IT support techs do not travel to remote locations, to Yale’s West Campus, or the VA. Instead support requests for these locations are assigned to the support teams already assigned to those locations.
YSM Desktop IT support staff do not:
- Goto or provide in-person support at locations that are not owned or leased by Yale University - this is for Yale liability reasons.
- Enter personal homes for any reason. - this is for Yale liability reasons.
- Drive their personal vehicles while performing work duties - Yale Insurance does not cover the staff. The YSM designated Regional Desktop IT Support staff have access to Yale fleet vehicles for this purpose.
Device selection and approval:
Over FY25 - YSM will be transitioning IBOs to the Life Cycle refresh program. As IBO’s transition to this program, YSM desktop IT support staff will not spec, select, order, or perform initial setups for devices and peripherals for users. Instead, faculty and staff need to complete a request form for devices and peripherals through YSM’s Life Cycle Refresh program.
Personal and Yale “unmanaged” computers:
Desktop IT support staff do not directly support personal or Yale “unmanaged” devices - only Yale Bulldog (Yale Managed) devices are supported. “Over the Shoulder” advice can be offered but the techs do not touch or remote into the device. For assistance with these types of devices, users should utilize the Yale Helpdesk (203 432-9000) or visit YSM’s Technology Support Service Center - located in the basement of the medical library.
Standard Support Ratios and Support Teams:
YSM desktop IT support staff are distributed across the school and have a standard support to user support ratio. The YSM desktop IT support staff are not assigned to specific departments, their work is distributed across several departments and are organized into support teams. If a user submits a support request they should not expect to have that support performed by a dedicated individual.
Submitting Support Requests:
YSM desktop IT support staff are discouraged from accepting support requests direct from users by either direct word of mouth or via e-mail and text. Instead, YSM faculty and staff need to either start their request with the Yale helpdesk (203 432-9000) or by submitting a support request. If you reach out to the support tech directly, they must manually submit and document your request for you. This takes time, introduces errors, and slows down our overall response times.