Author: Patrick Chinn

User Support Services (USS), a campus wide support organization created under the Transform IT program, is designed to:

• Increase efficient use of IT support resources
• Reduce or eliminate duplication of user support for IT services
• Consolidate support tools, processes, and services
• Create a consistent user experience

USS is designed to provide User Support Services on both a geographic and functional basis.

The USS Service Desk will provide contact center support to all students and employees. Four USS Support teams will provide technical assistance to academic and administrative units. Of these four teams, three have been assigned to cover units with an academic mission, and one will provide support to units with an administrative mission.

Customers supported by USS will be able to request assistance via the UO Service Portal. Depending on the type of request, your question in the Service Portal will automatically route to the appropriate IT staff for assessment, troubleshooting, triage, and resolution.

User Support Services’ mission is to respond and resolve customer service requests in a timely manner depending on the type and complexity of the request.

For customers who request assistance through the UO Service Portal, User Support Services will respond to the customer within 6 business hours. If not resolved upon first response, next steps will be communicated by the technician with an agreed upon plan and timeframe for resolution.

Ticket and survey data will be evaluated and analyzed quarterly. The service level goals are:

• 95% of Service Portal tickets responded to within 6 business hours.
• An average score of 3 or higher on all customer surveys.

See User Support Services Metrics to review this data.

The User Support Services Implementation project is on track to be completed in early January, 2021. The final scheduled transition will be with the School of Law.

Business Affairs in the Thompson University Center will transition support on December 1. That’s a revised date for that group’s transition.

The User Support Services (USS) project team began transitioning university IT support into USS in April, 2020 after a one month COVID-19 delay in the spring. The project paused in June to review metrics, and resumed transition work in July. See the USS Implementation Schedule for more details.

Performance metrics for each of the four USS support teams is posted monthly in the Service Portal at User Support Services Metrics.

The User Support Services Implementation schedule began with transitions into User Support Services by College of Design (on April 27), School of Journalism and Communication (on April 27), and College of Arts and Science (on May 18).

User Support Services is gathering and sharing the following metrics:

• Customer satisfaction scores for four questions, each using a 1 to 5 scale
• Time to respond data

During most of June, implementations were put on hold while we gathered data on the quality of support. The new team, USS Academic North, is comprised of IT professionals from College of Design, School of Journalism and Communication, and College of Arts and Science.

Customer Satisfaction

The chart below shows customer satisfaction scores for the new team and compares those scores with those from the Technology Service Desk (Tech Desk) for the same period.

Time to Respond

This measures the amount of time it takes, on average in hours, from when a customer creates a ticket to when they receive the first response.

Figures above are average of the absolute hours to first response for the period shown. Here, “absolute” means the clock starts when the ticket was created and ends when the initial responsible group first responds regardless of work hours. Teams with shorter hours of operation may see longer average times due to requests that arrive just past close of business. 

More Data Available

Information Services will publish metrics monthly for User Support Services at User Support Services Metrics (UO Service Portal).

In the future, we aim to include first contact resolution (FCR) metrics. FCR is the measure of how often a question is answered on the first contact.

The User Support Services team is excited to announce six new employees for the Enterprise Device Management (EDM) team! Michelle Brown leads this newly-formed group.

The EDM administrators, who will be responsible for systems administration of enterprise devices, are:

• Shane Martins, previously with SAIT;
• Jason Shirley, previously with College of Design;
• Ryan Stasel, previously with School of Journalism and Communication; and
• Michael Suskin, previously with Lundquist College of Business.

The EDM team will also manage campus computer labs. The EDM Computer Lab team is comprised of:

• Peter Verrey, previously with UO Libraries, lead as the Lab Manager;
• Ben Heiken, previously with Information Services, will be a lab administrator reporting to Peter.

The searches for the Knowledge Manager position and two USS manager positions continue.

For a more complete picture of the User Support Services organizational structure, see the USS organizational chart on this site.

Paul Taylor, project manager, Gary Sullivan, director of user support services, and Gary’s assistant directors continue to develop a transition schedule for the User Support Services Implementation project in conjunction with stakeholders in each unit.

Revised 3/4/21

Work to implement User Support Services has resumed. The project team is now planning to transition the College of Design and School of Journalism and Communication during the week of April 27.

This transition, which was originally scheduled for March 31, was delayed while the university responded to COVID-19.

User Support Services is comprised of four support teams and an enterprise device management team. IT support for Design and Journalism will be provided by the Academic North support team, which is comprised of IT staff from Design, Journalism, and the College of Arts and Science.

The User Support Services transitions for College of Design, School of Journalism and Communication, and other units are on hold as we focus on teaching, learning, business, and research continuity in light of COVID-19. The College of Design and School of Journalism and Communication were originally scheduled to transition into User Support Services on March 31.

This first transition will be rescheduled for a later date, and the rest of the transitions will be rescheduled accordingly.