Support that’s a walk in the park

The Regent’s College technical team gets an education in enterprise-grade IT

Regent’s College, one of the UK’s most respected private colleges, is located inside Regent’s Park in London’s West End.

Established in 1984 when the lease was taken by Rockford College, Illinois, Regent's College today is a multi-disciplinary campus community of five world-renowned schools.

Offering both British and American under- and postgraduate degrees, Regent’s College has attracted students of over 85 nationalities and has 50 partner institutions around the globe.

The campus also includes a conference centre accommodating around 370 delegates.

IT does its homework

A team of technical analysts supports all IT and communications equipment for Regent’s College’s 2,000 students, split across two faculties, as well as the teaching, admin and services staff.

Having used a call logging system designed by a member of the support team who had long since retired, the College began to look for a more efficient way to resolve IT support queries, according to David Elliott, Information Systems Manager at Regent’s College.

“We really wanted a tool that would help us assign calls to escalation paths, track resolution times and ensure incident resolution was kept within agreed service levels,” he said. “We were often unsure of the impact on our resources, so wanted to be able to analyse statistics and call volumes to ensure we were providing the best service possible.”

After a thorough review of the market, David and his team chose SupportDesk helpdesk software from Richmond Systems for the 25 strong team split across Support, Infrastructure and Projects within the college. The main features that drove the choice of the new IT support software system were ease of use, speedy deployment, and the ability to map and control workflow.

The first test

The system had to integrate quickly into the Regent’s College way of life as it was needed to support the implementation of a new student records system - set to centralise campus information and make administration and admissions far simpler for staff.

Over the two weeks following the implementation of SupportDesk helpdesk software, the team received over 750 calls needing support for general operations.

At the same time, the student records project team logged over 200 incidents. Richmond Systems’ IT Support technology was flexible and capable enough to cope with even the most demanding of issues.

“We weren’t sure of the impact the student records system was going to have on the support team, particularly in the early stages,” David said.

“But we were able to stay on top of the issues and the support workflow went smoothly. The analysts were able to respond to IT emergencies while simultaneously rolling out our new student records system - that’s proof of how SupportDesk became a critical resource, right from the moment it went live.”

Another aspect of SupportDesk that came in useful immediately was its ability to handle quick incidents, allowing the team to deal with frequently occurring problems without the need to spend additional time filling in a full report.

For example, when a last-minute print job fails and homework is due, a quick resolution can be a massive time saver for the tech team (and a lifesaver for the worried student).

Top of the class

From ongoing administration and maintenance of the students’ IT support needs - like printing issues or forgotten passwords - to the more complex needs of the teaching and admin staff, SupportDesk helpdesk software is able to ensure David’s team is running as efficiently as possible. So efficiently, in fact, that the IT Support operates more like that of a high-end corporation than a college.

“Education has changed - a college like ours is run far more like a business nowadays,” David said. “With IT a critical part of life for everyone - whether working on campus or remotely - we needed enterprise-grade technology to help keep things running smoothly.”

Full marks

David is also responsible for reporting back on response times, resolutions and resources to the Regent’s College senior management team. SupportDesk helpdesk software has provided a clear picture of technical operations, saving time and increasing accuracy when it’s time to report back to the Board.

He added: “Management information is far more meaningful, and allows me to show the Board how we’re keeping IT - the backbone of the college - in good health. Whether we’re solving a single issue, replacing an entire room of hardware, or rolling out a college-wide software system, SupportDesk continues to teach us all a lesson in how to work smarter.”

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