The role of the help desk is shifting from fixing what’s broken to teaching users how to avoid problems in the first place.

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: Read more…

Jenny Sweeney Excel, Help Desk, How To, Time-Saving Tips 1960s, computerworld, data

The media has spent scads of time discussing the changing IT landscape lately, in particular the consumerization if IT. Last week, publications such as Computerworld, InformationWeek, IT Business Edge and MIT Tech Review reported that as millennials bring their own devices into the workplace, IT departments are struggling to keep up with the influx of non-corporate-issued gadgets.

IT departments are struggling to keep up with the influx of non-corporate-issued gadgets.

There’s no need for struggle. Not if you know what to expect and have a plan in place (or at least a support partner).

Knowing what kind of questions users will ask can be tricky, but finding out the most commonly asked ones can help. Below is a sampling of what we’ve come across recently:

iPad

• Setting up, synchronizing and using email – Microsoft Exchange, corporate and personal email
• Using and navigating with Safari
• Video storage/playback and conferencing
• Creating portable reference libraries
• Connect or turn off wireless functionality
• Running non-native applications Read more…

Jenny Sweeney Consumerization of IT, Mac, Mobile Devices computerworld, Information Week, IT Business Edge, MIT Tech Review

At last Wednesday’s Apple event announcing the iPad 2, Steve Jobs kept referring to something he calls the “Post-PC world.” This new era of computing, according to online tech publication Engadget, “won’t be a debate about displays, memory, wireless options — it will be a debate about the quality of the experience.”

This is part of the Post-PC experience we’d all like to block out: Setting up new devices or troubleshooting misbehaving ones.

This edition of What We’re Reading focuses on just that: The experience. Read on…

“It’s Apple’s ‘Post-PC’ World — We’re All Just Living In It” (Engadget, 3/3/2011)

As mentioned in the intro, Jobs introduced Read more…

Jenny Sweeney Mobile Devices, tablets, What We're Reading computerworld, Engadget, Harris Interactive, iPad 2, PC World, Steve Jobs, tech support, Wall Street Journal

Jensen Harris, director of program management for the Microsoft Windows User Experience Team, explains on his blog some of the logic that influenced the design of the ribbon interface:

Three-plus years later, why is the ribbon still an issue?

“[One] way we use the data is by looking for frequently used features that are hard to get to today. Any time we see this, it represents people overcoming the user interface to use a buried feature because it’s so important.

“A great example of this is ‘superscript’ in Word. In Word 2003, it must be added to the toolbar manually through customization. Yet, even as a non-default toolbar button, it gets more clicks than 30% of the buttons on the Formatting toolbar. The opportunity here is to discover the things that people love and that even more people would use if they knew they could.”

Harris makes oodles of sense. (So much so, it makes me want to uninstall my copy of OpenOffice.) Still, almost four years after it was unveiled, Microsoft’s ribbon continues to confound end users and IT departments.

And “confound” is not an exaggeration: According to a recent report sponsored by Dell KACE and conducted by Dimensional Research, of those IT leaders surveyed, 45 percent said their greatest concern in upgrading to 2010 is the ribbon.

So, three-plus years later, why is the ribbon still an issue? Read more…

Jenny Sweeney migration, Office 2010, Windows 7 computerworld, Dell, Harris Jensen, Microsoft, productivity, the Ribbon

If there’s one thing to be said about Microsoft Office 2010, it’s that it’s poised to be a success. The year 2010 isn’t even over and corporations already are upgrading to the new version. (History has shown that a new version usually takes a few years to catch on, especially in business.)

In reality, business cannot be put on hold while users adjust to a new software version.

At PC Helps, the Office 2010 calls have quickly increased from a trickle to a stream. Most are coming from customers whose IT departments skipped an Office 2007 migration and were holding out for 2010. As with 2003-to-2007 migrations, 2003-to-2010 promises to throw a few challenges the way of end users and IT departments. Adjusting to the new ribbon interface is often the first obstacle. Once users adjust, plenty more follow.

Below we present the top five end user challenges so your IT department knows what to expect during the migration crunch. Read more…

Jenny Sweeney migration, Mobile Devices, Office 2010 Access, computerworld, Excel, Gartner, IT department, NetworkWorld, Outlook, pitfalls, PowerPoint, the Ribbon, user interface, Word

The headline of a recent article in Computerworld magazine grabbed my attention: “Help Desks Under Siege.” An image of angry workers armed with flaming torches popped into my mind. They were storming the help desk, calling for an immediate moratorium on rebooting and demanding basic rights like software that doesn’t require patches and updates. There were even rumblings of self-serve password reset capabilities.

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, Read more…

Jenny Sweeney Help Desk Cara Garretson, CIO, CIO.com, computerworld, Customer Service, outsourcers, temps

This week’s batch of stories deals with the good, the bad and the ugly. The good news is that the decline in tech spending may be history. The bad and the ugly: Google’s customer service. Read on…

The Good: Forrester says the Tech Spending Downturn is Over — Huzzah!

Support requests can be sent only through e-mail, to which Google can take up to 48 hours to respond. Yes, two days.

Computerworld magazine reports that the tech spending downturn is over, according to a report released by Forrester. The research firm predicts that IT spending in the United States will increase by 6.6 percent in 2010, after falling 8.2 percent last year.

Even if Forrester’s predictions are correct, it will not necessarily mean a full recovery, according to Computerworld. Spending for 2010 will still be less than in 2007 and 2008. What’s more, the mag warns of the possibility of a double-dip recession – that is, a growth spurt, followed by another decrease of 3 percent to 4 percent. Cross your fingers.

The Bad and the Ugly: Lessons in Customer Service from Google Read more…

Jenny Sweeney This Week in Tech News CNN, computerworld, Google, InformationWeek, Nexus One

You didn’t think you’d ever read the following: Reports are in and Windows 7 is proving easier to handle than its detested predecessor, Vista.

Coming up with a plan to manage the resulting IT hodgepodge will prove maddening for any CIO.

According to a recent article by Ina Fried in CNetnews.com, Microsoft is experiencing fewer support calls since it launched Windows 7 – about half of what it expected. It’s attributable in part to the new version’s higher quality, but also, writes Fried, to Microsoft’s efforts to increase the effectiveness of self-service with an experts’ forum called Microsoft Answers and its @MicrosoftHelps Twitter feed.

As if that wasn’t good enough news for Microsoft, here’s another report to add to the Windows 7 love fest: According to market research firm ChangeWave, Windows 7 satisfaction has stimulated corporate IT spending. Read more…

Jenny Sweeney This Week in Tech News, Windows 7 CNET, computerworld, Gregg Kaizer, Ina Fried, Microsoft, Patrick Gray, Vista, Windows 7

The tech world’s knickers have been in a bunch these past few weeks. While Mozilla (makers of the Firefox browser) and Google (makers of everything else) are sniping at each other over Google’s new Chrome plug-in, the anti-Microsoft camp is warning of the dangers of the Ribbon. There is an upside: Out of all that griping we have two new tech terms (new to us, at least). Read and enjoy.

One reader asked Baker if she was “jealous much?” Another comment accused her organization of hypocrisy.

Ribbonize: (verb, derogatory) To remove universally familiar software menus and put in newfangled, Microsofty ribbons.

On Sept. 22, Computerworld magazine ran a piece titled “Mozilla plans to ‘ribbonize’ Firefox.” A week later, the magazine ran another piece, this one with the headline “Mozilla denies it will ‘ribbonize’ Firefox.”

What gives? Read more…

Jenny Sweeney Tech Babble computerworld, Google, Microsoft, Mozilla, the Ribbon

After reading a recent rant on CIO.com, I’ve decided that Meredith Levinson is my new favorite blogger*. Her post, a response to Computerworld’s Best Places to Work in IT feature and accompanying sidebar 7 Tips for Keeping IT Employees Upbeat, was laced with vitriol, but it wasn’t wholly bitter. She included a speck of humor, and a heap of truth.

The Computerworld piece that raised her hackles included these suggestions for building employee morale: Read more…

Jenny Sweeney Office 2007 Migration Assurance Program, ROI CIO.com, computerworld, Meredith Levinson, software support, Training