Topic 7 – User Support
In the exam you are expected to:
Training
Why is Support Needed?
Software today is getting ever more sophisticated. At the same time more and more people are using computers, which twenty years ago were the domain of very specialised people. The more complex the software, the more expertise is needed to solve any problems.
All companies that write software, whether it’s a software house writing a tailor made package for a client company, or a package you buy off the shelf, will provide some kind of software support. Software support has to be paid for:
Hardware is supported in a similar way, although most manufacturers have a 12 month guarantee in case of equipment failure. Many small shops will sort out problems on the premises. It is often better to use a small independent retailer who will do this, rather than one of these large out-of-town suppliers who will give you the box and tell you to get on with it. For an experience person, this would not be too much problem, but for a novice with no clue what to do, it is quite daunting. With these big retailers, the equipment may well go to a central workshop for any repair, sometimes vanishing without trace.
The temptation is for a user to try to sort things out for themselves, and get into a hopeless mess. I know; I’ve been there. A little bit of knowledge is a very dangerous thing.
I am very lucky in that a colleague of mine is an expert in computer systems. What he doesn’t know about what goes on inside a computer is not worth knowing. And he has sorted out my system on several occasions…
Suppose you have decided that you have dug yourself into a hole and it’s high time you stopped digging. Some help desks tell you to e-mail the query. This is a receive-only service, and you may have to wait for several days before you get an answer. More often or not it is not all that helpful. Also, if you have messed up your computer, the chances are you won’t be able to send an e-mail anyway!
You ring up the help desk on the number. You may get a single person manning a telephone, or a large support centre, whose location bears no relation whatsoever to the address on the documentation. Questions are typed into the database, and the database may well have answers to a particular problem. On the other hand, the problem may well need an expert to sort it out, and usually they are not immediately available. Communication can be a real problem, especially if the person asking for help is inexperienced. Callers call the help desk only as a last resort and may well be frustrated. The help desk will typically log:
That is if you can get to the help desk:
Technical Support
Technical support desks tend to be staffed by experts who may well have helped to write the software. However they may well not have any business experience. They may well know everything about the software (or hardware) but find it hard to communicate to the business customer who wants the software to do a particular function. The business user may well get quite cross at the technical jargon.
Many hardware and software companies provide technical support on the Internet, with answers to frequently asked questions (FAQ). They will also have:
· Patches – small programs that sort out problems with particular software.
· Drivers – programs that enable the operating system to communicate properly with hardware. Lost drivers are a bugbear for many users who have tried to sort out their systems. The default operating system drivers are only very basic.
Help Desk Software
The picture shows a screen-dump of typical help desk software.
There may be an expert system with answers to tens of thousands of different hardware and/or software problems. The software may well solve the problem, or enable the operator to take over the user’s computer.
In some networks the software may well pass a message to all users, for example that the network will be down between 17.00 and 19.00 next Tuesday for maintenance.
Other Ways of Support
Users new to software may well receive written documentation with the software. You wrote some documentation in your Module 3 project (didn’t you?). This may include:
Users need documentation that is appropriate to their level. For example, clerical workers may well need a tutorial, while advanced users may well need a reference manual when using software for increasingly sophisticated tasks.
In the old days, documentation came in a large ring binder. Nowadays it tends to come as portable document format (.pdf) files in conjunction with the software. It is up to the user to print out whatever section they want.
Employee training is in itself big business. There are numerous reasons for training in general. And training is needed from the most junior to the most senior levels. Training is needed for:
When new ICT systems are installed, proper training is essential for the success of a new system, without which the system is an absolute waste of money.
There are different training needs at different levels within the organisation. Senior managers who are well trained in ICT will have a better appreciation of the benefits and problems associated with ICT. They are more likely to make better decisions than less well informed colleagues when:
· Establishing a corporate ICT strategy;
· Appraising advice from ICT professionals from within or outside the organisation;
· Allocating resources.
At middle management level, the training will ensure:
Well-trained middle management will ensure the effectiveness of a computer system. They will have been well trained on:
For a middle manager, or knowledge worker, the training will tend to be skill based. They might need to produce a graph from spreadsheet figures and insert it into a word-processed report for the Board. An office supervisor may well produce a house-style for memos, and produce a template. They may well work out macros to automate various procedures.
For junior levels, such as clerical staff, training tends to be task based. This might be on how to prepare the weekly sales figures, or to check a customer’s credit-rating. They might need to know what key does what function. Secretarial staff need good word-processing skills.
Methods of Training
Computer based training has several benefits:
The downside is that employees may well skip the boring but essential bits by clicking the next button, and not take all that much in. Also it is rather impersonal.
Instructor led training is generally more effective, especially if the trainer is a good and inspirational communicator:
However a bad trainer can be dire, especially one who reads monotonously from a script, with little regard for the audience.
Visit http://www.jasonlove.com/column/1999/bored/ for a description of a dire meeting.
Training does not finish at the end of the induction process. Employees need to have their skills refreshed from time to time. Initial training might not, for example, cover the year-end procedures. However this needs to be done as the financial year ends and the accounts have to be prepared for auditing. Managers might want to learn how to do advanced functions. Also newly promoted employees will need further training in more advanced aspects of their new jobs.
Corporate Training Strategies
Companies with well thought out training programmes have well defined goals that the training should achieve, for example, greater productivity, better customer service, etc. Their employees will have these characteristics:
Those companies that do not take training particularly seriously will quickly lose their competitive edge. Their workforce may well be:
Unwilling, unresponsive, and unskilled staff will negate even the most promising strategy.
Not much sense of ownership of or pride in the job is being shown in this study in indolence spotted on the A6.