At the end of May, the following three support lines were handed over and fully integrated into the outsourced Helpdesk service:

• Support for Indico ( Indico.Support@cern.ch).
• Network operations, known as "netops" ( netops@cern.ch).
• Video-conferencing monitoring and operations ( videoconference-support@cern.ch).

In practice all of the Helpdesk staff will now be able to reply to questions in these computing areas, or escalate them to the appropriate expert, with second or third level of expertise, as required.

The three e-mail addresses ( Indico.Support@cern.ch, netops@cern.ch, videoconference-support@cern.ch) are now redirected to the Helpdesk ( Helpdesk.Computing@cern.ch or Helpdesk@cern.ch). Phone calls to 74927 for network problems and requests will automatically be redirected to 78888 for the Helpdesk. Please note that the number 74927 may be disconnected in the future.

The Helpdesk staff have been trained and given access to the necessary tools to provide first-level assistance for the most frequent and basic problems or requests in these three areas.

The reason for these changes is to allow the specialists to focus on more advanced issues and to increase the Helpdesk efficiency and competency. In this way the Helpdesk has a global overview of all IT services, which helps, for example, when a general problem with a critical server affects several services.

The main objective is to provide a better service for you, our end-users. All of the IT computing support lines will be revised in the near future to identify other areas where a similar change would be suitable.

Remember that if you experience problems with PRMS (Remedy) tickets or the Helpdesk, you can contact the IT manager on duty (tel 163013, e-mail mod@cern.ch) or e-mail user.relations@cern.ch with any comments about the service.

Also, before submitting a problem at the Helpdesk, don't forget to consult the IT Service Status Board where all of the incidents, scheduled interventions, power cuts and service changes are recorded.

Useful link

IT Service Status Board: http://cern.ch/SSB