ITS Expands to Include Around-the-Clock Service

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Dartmouth faculty, students, and staff will have increased access to software support.

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Beginning Oct. 16, 24-hour-a-day software support will be available to faculty, students, and staff. This expansion of the current Information Technology Services (ITS) help desk offering is in response to input from the Dartmouth community.

Expert how-to assistance on Microsoft, Google, and Adobe applications, operating system issues, account lock-out issues, malware removal, and other desktop matters will be available around the clock. Members of the Dartmouth community will no longer need to wait until the next business day to get help.

Under the expanded system, staff from Vitalyst, a software support and services company with call centers in Philadelphia and Cleveland, will assist members of the College community with desktop and laptop troubleshooting when Dartmouth ITS help desk staff are not available or when a Vitalyst staff person is an expert on a particular topic.

Students and employees seeking help should continue to call the ITS help desk phone line at (603) 646-2999 at any time. Calls will be automatically routed to a Dartmouth ITS help desk employee or to the Vitalyst call center, as appropriate.

In contracting with Dartmouth to provide the expanded service, Vitalyst will observe the same confidentiality guidelines as does Dartmouth’s ITS staff, says Ellen Young, assistant director of campus IT support.

“Providing IT assistance to members of the Dartmouth community 24 hours a day, 365 days a year will allow members of the Dartmouth community to seek IT assistance when it fits their schedule,” she says. “In addition, adding support staff who are knowledgeable about Google applications allows us to support a segment of the community at a much higher level than we have been able to in the past.”

Vitalyst has worked with more than 25 colleges and universities nationwide, says Daniel McLaughlin, a senior account manager at the company.

“We understand the frustration of needing technical assistance after hours and are looking forward to partnering with Dartmouth,” he says. “Our advisers work to get to the root of an employee’s problem, identify unmet needs, and follow up with additional resources to reinforce the knowledge needed. We have helped many colleges and universities handle the high impact, high volume of calls, which enables help desks to keep up with the highly technical day-to-day tasks of keeping the business up and running.”

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