In a feature in yesterday’s Computerworld (titled “The New Help Desk: Agile, Educational, Efficient”), writer John Brandon highlighted three IT departments and what they are doing to bring the help desk from where it’s stuck – the 1960s – to the present. One of the organizations featured, the University of Georgia, has put an emphasis on using calls to the help desk to educate users. We like that idea.

Click to see a video on creating charts in Excel.

The old way of working is myopic. If you keep fixing an issue that, with a little instruction, can be avoided, where is the long-term value? And, if you cannot – or do not — track where problem spots are, how can you plan for the future?

At PC Helps, we fix stuff too; we’re a help desk, after all. But we also teach customers how to resolve issues on their own, and how to avoid having them crop up again in the future.

In that spirit, today’s post offers tips for creating Excel charts, a topic we receive many calls about. Happy charting.

Creating Charts

By PC Helps Staff

Data (n.) – raw, unorganized facts.
Information (n.) – organized and processed data that can be useful in some way.

When working with a large amount of data, it often can become an overwhelming task to extract information from the data. Excel provides a great tool to facilitate converting data to visual information through the use of charts.

Follow these steps to create a chart:

Excel 2003 and older:

• Select any cell within the data you want to chart.
• Click on the Insert menu, then select Chart to bring up the Chart Wizard.
• Choose the desired chart type, then click Next.
• Excel will show you a preview of the chart using what it has detected as plot data.
• Verify that the data is correctly organized by viewing the Series tab.
• Click Next to further modify your chart options. You can add titles to the chart or axes, move your legend, add data labels, etc.
• Click Next to set the location of your chart.
• Click Finish.

Excel 2007 and 2010:

• Select any cell within the data you want to chart.
• Click on the Insert Tab, then click on the desired chart type in the Charts group. Excel will generate the chart as soon as you click on the desired chart type, using what it has detected as plot data.

NOTE: Different chart types sometimes need different types of data. For instance, a pie chart is best for displaying a single series of data, but a column chart is capable of plotting several series.

Watch a video on this tip for Excel 2003.

Watch a video on this tip for Excel 2007.

Watch a video on this tip for Excel 2010.

Reordering Data Series in a Chart

By PC Helps Staff

You may find at times that you need to rearrange the order of your data series in a chart without changing your source data. This can be accomplished easily using the Format Data Series dialog.

Excel 2003 and older: 
Click on a series in the chart to select it. Right-click the series and choose “Format Data Series.” On the Series Order tab, use the Move Up and Move Down buttons to re-order the selected series.

Excel 2007 and 2010:
 Click on a series in the chart to select it. Right-click the series and choose Select Data. Use the arrow buttons to re-order the selected series.

Watch a video on this tip for Excel 2003.

Watch a video on this tip for Excel 2007.

Watch a video on this tip for Excel 2010.

Creating a Dynamic Chart in Excel

By David McQueary

If you regularly update the data ranges for your charts, a dynamic chart will help you because it automatically shows data added to the end of a column.

First thing we need to do is create a dynamic named range.

Excel 2003 or older:

• Click on the Insert menu, select Name, and choose Define.
• Name the range, we will want two named ranges: one for our labels and one for our data. We will define the names as Label and Data, respectively.
• From here we will enter formulas to create the dynamic named range. The formula to do this, if you are starting in cell A1, is: =OFFSET($A$1,0,0,COUNTA($A:$A),1) 
Adjusting the column letter and number in the first part of the formula will allow us to change where the named range starts. For example =OFFSET($B$2,0,0,COUNTA($B:$B),1) would start the range in cell B2.
• Click OK.
• Repeat steps 2 – 4 to create the second range.
• Click Close.

Excel 2007 and 2010:

• Click on the Formulas tab, click Name Manager, and select New.
• Name the range, we will want two named ranges: one for our labels and one for our data. We will define the names as Label and Data, respectively.
• From here we will enter formulas to create the dynamic named range. The formula to do this, if you are starting in cell A1, is: =OFFSET($A$1,0,0,COUNTA($A:$A),1)
Adjusting the column letter and number in the first part of the formula will allow us to change where the named range starts. For example =OFFSET($B$2,0,0,COUNTA($B:$B),1) would start the range in cell B2.
• Click OK.
• Repeat steps 2 – 4 to create the second range.
• Click Close.

Now we create our chart.

Excel 2003 or older:

• Highlight our data and go to Insert menu and choose to insert a chart. Make all the settings that you want to the chart, and place it on the worksheet.
• Now we apply the dynamic settings to the chart. Click on one of the series in the chart and look at the formula bar.
• In the formula bar there should be something that looks like =SERIES(Sheet1!$A$1:$A$16,Sheet1!$B$1:$B$16,1). In the spot where it shows Sheet1!$A$1:$A$16 we are going to change that to Sheet1!Label.
• In the spot where it shows Sheet1!$B$1:$B$16 we are going to change that to Sheet1!Data.
• You now have a dynamic chart. If you add more data to the bottom of the column, it will automatically add that data to the chart.

Excel 2007 and 2010:

• Highlight our data and go to Insert tab and choose a chart. Make all the settings that you want to the chart, and place it on the worksheet.
• Now we apply the dynamic settings to the chart. Click on one of the series in the chart and look at the formula bar.
• In the formula bar there should be something that looks like =SERIES(Sheet1!$A$1:$A$16,Sheet1!$B$1:$B$16,1). In the spot where it shows Sheet1!$A$1:$A$16 we are going to change that to Sheet1!Label.
• In the spot where it shows Sheet1!$B$1:$B$16 we are going to change that to Sheet1!Data.
• You now have a dynamic chart. If you add more data to the bottom of the column, it will automatically add that data to the chart.

Watch a video on this tip for Excel 2003.

Watch a video on this tip for Excel 2007.

Watch a video on this tip for Excel 2010.

But as with every upheaval, there’s some pain to be had. In the same study, researchers note that while employees are using their iPads, iPhones, Androids and netbooks at work, their employers are unaware of the extent, and have not put solid plans in place to regulate the use of employee-owned devices.

Not only are they on a different page as their employers, they’re in another bookstore.

Here are some of the highlights from the study:

• Employers don’t have an accurate understanding of what and how many consumer technologies their employees are using in the workplace. For example, workers in the survey reported that they are using smart phones, laptops and mobile phones in the workplace at nearly twice the rate reported by employers.
• Workers are using consumer technologies and applications for business, but give their employers poor grades for the internal IT support they provide for these technologies. The researchers found that more than 40 percent of workers surveyed are using text and instant messaging, online communities and blogs for work. Also, industry analysts predict that the number of workers using smart phones for work will double between 2009 and 2014. Yet not even half of employers allow workers to access enterprise applications via smart phones.
• Employees say their employers are more permissive about use of consumer technologies than is reported to be case by organizations. Sixty-seven percent of workers say they can access non-work-related websites, but only 44 percent of employers say their employees can access non-work-related sites. Likewise, 52 percent of workers say that can store personal data on the company network, but only 37 percent of employers say this is the case.
• Employers expect to increase business use of social networking applications significantly in the next year, yet they are not integrating those applications with their enterprise apps and often lack basic guidelines and policies governing the use of social media in the workplace. Forty-six percent of workers surveyed are dissatisfied with their employers’ integration of consumer devices and social networks with enterprise applications. What’s more, 40 percent of organizations surveyed say that don’t have guidelines for social media use in the workplace.

Researchers conclude that, “While [information workers] are intimately familiar and facile with technology, they have little understanding of the security risks, management issues, and policy and governance implications that arise from mass introduction of consumer devices and applications into the workplace.”

In other words, preparedness — that’s IT’s job. And here are some suggestions from the study authors:

• Manage and support these popular consumer technologies;
• Secure critical data and assets against hackers, viruses, identity thieves, and other widespread consumer IT threats;
• Offer the interactive “app” experiences that consumers are looking for when transacting with their suppliers;
• Handle the expected increase in transaction load that these new interactive experiences will impose on the IT infrastructure;
• Attract and retain the new generation of workers entering the workforce.

In a recent post here and on Forbes.com, our CEO Brian Madocks offered his own suggestions. Read what he had to say.

As a tech support consultant, I rely on Internet access for many things, including, most importantly, remotely connecting to my customers’ machines and being able to search for information about the problems they are having.

(For the record: Our other office in Ohio was not affected, so our customers were fine.)

For a good part of the morning, I had to provide tech support using some innate intelligence I didn’t think I had.

After the initial shock of not being able to see my customers’ desktops and find external knowledgebase articles, I righted myself and successfully made it through the calls.

But the experience stuck with me, and, at the time, got me thinking about how PC Helps functioned almost 20 years ago, when it first switched on its phone lines.

The way it has been told to me, back then, our consultants had to use that same innate intelligence all the time. Everything just took a little longer. For example, before e-mail, customers had to FedEx a file on a floppy for us to work on it.

Can you imagine that now? Not just the floppy (gasp!), but using a shipping service to send data. Today, we answer calls in two rings or less, can view a desktop within a minute, and resolve average issues in just a few minutes.

That’s better for our customers, whose needs dictate how tech support functions. They are the ones using smartphones and iPads on trains, in hotel lobbies and in airports. The ones who are tied to their BlackBerrys and Androids 24-7. I don’t think they would have it any other way.

I wonder where we will be in another 20 years.

An IT department that points and laughs is hardly encouraging learning and business alignment.

The piece highlights the fact that the help desk, despite the growing importance of IT/business alignment in the enterprise, remains in the “condescending gatekeeper role.”

As evidence, Wailgum includes a video that features Andy Bitterer, co-chair of Gartner Group’s BI Summit, doing Jay Leno-style “man-on-the-street” interviews in London. Among Bitterer’s questions to the masses: “Do you use a database?” “Do you know what Business Intelligence tools are?” “Do you know what OLAP is?”

Honestly, does this Gartner bloke really expect everyday people to know what these things are? As Wailgum asserts, Gartner conference attendees may find it amusing (ha, look at the stupid users!), but it really demonstrates how out of touch IT is with its customers.

This paragraph, in which Wailgum describes IT’s image problem, is particularly illustrative: “A technological arrogance that lurks behind and manifests itself in arcane techno mumbo-jumbo and smug conceit, that, for lack of a better word, really pisses off end-users and has turned them against IT departments.”

Nicely put, Wailgum.

What’s really troubling about the five-minute video, however, is the fact that a number of the interviewees seem to be lying when the say they do know what OLAP and BI are. Perhaps they feel compelled to pretend they know, even though they clearly have no idea.

Feigning knowledge to avoid appearing ignorant happens in the workplace all the time. And an IT department that points and laughs is hardly encouraging learning and business alignment. Such a help desk delivers only lost productivity, and a whole lot of errors.

I don’t find that funny at all, and neither should a CIO.

FOR THE RECORD: OLAP stands for Online Analytical Processing (Wikipedia page here); and Business Intelligence, or BI, uses technologies, processes and applications to analyze mostly internal, structured data and business processes (Wikipedia page here).

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A supply closet as an office? For employees who are responsible for the computing capabilities of an entire company? Shame on them.

Alas, the piece wasn’t about corporate coups d’etat (it’s a little far-fetched, I concede), but it did highlight the pressing issues help desks are facing today, in this sorta-kinda-post-recession era. Namely…

1. Efficiency

The piece’s author, Cara Garretson, mentions improvements that would make help desks more efficient, such as a central knowledgebase, remote control capabilities, and a database of standard responses to common problems. The problem, says Garretson, is that those improvements cost employee hours.

They don’t have to.

There are companies out there, outsourcers or “best-of-breed” service providers like us, who specialize in efficiency. They are experienced with providing remote desktop support, and maintain extensive knowledgebases that  include ample information about common software problems. Best of all, when you hire them, you don’t pay all the ancillary costs of having a hulking, certified IT department – you pay only for what you need.

2. Appreciation, Understanding, Alignment

Garretson also mentions the disconnect between IT and the rest of the business and its effect on how well the help desk can operate. One of her sources laments that his department is not fully appreciated by the rest of the company, and that his previous office was actually a supply closet.

A supply closet as an office? For employees who are responsible for the computing capabilities of an entire company? Shame on them.

This misalignment is a holdover from a different era, when IT’s job was to fix things that broke or caught fire. Plus, IT historically hasn’t been seen as a proactive bunch, at least not by the corporate population in general.

When the help desk gains the budget funds, loses the attitude, and actually begins to help people get their jobs done — that’s when its reputation will undergo a renaissance.

3. Full-Timers, Temps, Outsourcers – Oh My!

I agree with the writer’s assertion that piecing together a department with a mix of full-timers and temps isn’t a long-term strategy. But I also believe that it’s impossible to staff a department with techs who are expert in every application a company uses.

I’ve written a few posts on this issue and have included a breakdown of just how much money a company “saves” using each. (Click here to read the full posts.) Here’s a sampling:

Most temps are generalists who cannot support advanced issues like macros and application development. They can support only 18 applications on average. And while they may seem cheaper than full-timers, you’re still paying them a fixed rate plus overhead. That amounts to an average of $43,000 annually.

Factor in the temp response time (6 minutes), the whopping abandonment rate (10 percent), eternal peak hold time (15 minutes), and the troubling amount of time it takes to resolve an issue (45 minutes on average) and the savings disappear.

With full-time employees, the numbers are not much better.

4. Quality of Service

If a CIO expects quality from a deep-discounted, all-in-one outsourcer whose techs’ main goal is to get the person OFF the phone, then that’s just bad business. Likewise, overloading existing IT staff with too much work will only decrease quality.

Although much can be said about each of the points individually, they do not operate independently. The help desk’s quality of service is directly tied to its perception by the rest of the company, and its perception and efficiency affect how big a budget it receives. Everything is related.

Maybe a coup is needed after all.

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