Information Technology Service Level Agreement (SLA) for Help Desk

This document is an addendum to the Stern Information Technology Service Level Agreement Master Agreement which clearly spells out the statement and intent and agreement terms for all Stern IT Service Level Agreements including this one.

Contents:
I           Supported Services                                                          
II         Service Limitations and Exclusions                           
III        Non-Performance                                                            
IV        Service Assurance                                                            
V         Approvals                                                                          

I. Supported Services

This SLA does not cover the following services:

• Computer/Application Training or Extensive Instruction
• Faculty, please contact CITL at 212-998-0919 or citl@stern.nyu.edu
• Administrators, Staff, and Students, please visit: http://www.nyu.edu/its/classes/
• Stern Public Computing Facilities
• Please see http://www.stern.nyu.edu/it/facilities/index.html for information on our Computing Facilities
• On-site Technician Visits
• Please refer to the Desktop Support Service Level Agreement
• Telecommunications/Telephony
• For Information, please visit: http://w4.stern.nyu.edu/process/process-adminservices.cfm

Service Level Objective

The preferred method of entering Service Requests with the Help Desk is via the Help Desk website http://helpdesk.stern.nyu.edu/.  This will allow the Help Desk to process the request and route it to a Specialist in the least amount of time.  If the web client is unavailable, Service Requests should be sent via email to helpdesk@stern.nyu.edu for processing.  This email is monitored by Help Desk staff during all normal business hours.

Critical or very important requests should always be placed with the Help Desk via phone by calling (212) 998-0180 or extension 80180, or in person at the Help Desk, located in Shimkin UC-120.

When a Help Desk specialist is not immediately available via telephone, the customer will be offered to either hold for the next available Help Desk Technician or to leave a voice mail.  Voicemail received during normal business hours will be responded to within 1 hour.  If the request is critical, it is advisable to hold for the next available Help Desk Technician.

At times, there are University-wide issues that may cause heavy call volumes and may prevent staff from getting back to someone within the standard timeframe of 30 minutes.  During these times, the Help Desk welcome message will be modified to reflect the current condition, alerting customers to potential longer wait times.

Responses to email requests will be made within 2 hours, if received during normal business hours.  Responses made to emails received after posted working hours will be made by 10:00AM the next business day.

The Help Desk strives to record 100% of all information and service requests received. Each incident will be logged in a tracking system for reporting and follow up purposes.  An incident tracking number or “ticket” will be sent to the requester via email, given over the phone, or retrieved from http://helpdesk.stern.nyu.edu/. For all requests that are not resolved at the time of initial consultation, the incident will be logged for continued troubleshooting and a workaround will be provided if available.  Depending on the severity or cause of the issue, the incident may be escalated to other Stern IT groups for resolution (please refer to service-specific Service Level Agreements for more detailed timeframes).

Escalation: The Help Desk strives to resolve as many issues as possible by the first person that the client contacts. For those Incidents beyond the skill or knowledge of the Help Desk to resolve, the Help Desk contacts a specialist. The specialist will initiate contact with the client to set up time to work on the issue. For escalated items, the Help Desk retains responsibility to follow-up on the ticket until its resolution is communicated to the client. Specific expertise in the following areas will be contacted as appropriate:

• Client Services Group (CSG): Desktop Support Technicians, Laptop Support Technicians and / or Classroom and Event Technology (CETG) staff
• EOPS: Network, Application Administrators and Application Developers
• CITL: Experts in teaching and learning advance educational technologies

*NOTE: The service expectations for escalations can be found in specific the specific Service Level Agreements of those specialized areas. For example, student laptop incidents that are too complex to be resolved by the Help Desk are referred to the Desktop Support Team which is governed by the following SLA. A complete list of Stern IT SLA’s can be found here.

Part of Stern IT’s mission is to provide a reliable, sustainable, and maintainable technology infrastructure to support the needs of the Stern Community.  Toward this end, Stern IT provides three levels of service:

Full Support is the highest level of support provided by the Stern Help Desk, and is reserved for technology that adheres to the recommended guidelines developed by Stern IT. The Help Desk will maintain in-depth knowledge of these technologies and all efforts will be made to provide full error recovery. Stern IT commits to resolving the issue or providing escalation to the appropriate parties for further troubleshooting within a time frame that will cause minimal impact to the client.

Basic Support is assigned to applications that are among the best of their type but for which there is less need to recommend a standard or to provide a full range of services.  Partially supported applications are useful to fewer clients than is the case for fully supported applications, and there is less need for integrating them into Stern’s overall computing environment.  Stern IT assigns partial support based on an assessment of client needs and IT resources.  Stern IT gives lower priority to providing assistance for these applications than to providing assistance for fully supported applications.  Consultants may be familiar with these applications but do not strive to obtain in-depth knowledge about them.  Consultants may be able to answer questions, suggest strategies for resolving problems, or suggest other sources of assistance, for example user groups, expert users, and bulletin board services.  In addition, hardware that does not adhere to our recommended guidelines, but meets the same minimum requirements is eligible for Basic Support.

Unsupported Services are defined by hardware and software not in the first two categories Stern IT will maintain little to no expertise for this category, but will attempt to find a resource for the Client (e.g. Vendor or Manufacturer) and recommend the necessary upgrades or services. Stern IT does not support client personal hardware or devices such as a home PC or home network.  Stern IT does not commit to resolving these issues.

For specifics on which software is covered under the above three service levels, please refer to Stern list of Supported Hardware and Software.

Service Availability
Academic Year Hours (Spring & Fall Semesters)

• Monday – Friday: 8:00 a.m. – 10:00 p.m.
• Saturday – Sunday: 8:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m.

Summer Session Hours:

• Monday – Thursday: 8:00 a.m. – 9:00 p.m.
• Friday: 8:00 a.m. – 8:00p.m.
• Saturday – Sunday: 8:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.

Client Responsibilities

• A valid NYU ID card, Stern username
• Please have available your name and contact information (Phone, Location, Email)
• Detailed description of the issue and problem
• Willingness to work with a Help Desk technician for initial incident diagnosis and troubleshooting, and to be available to the Help Desk Support staff for follow up
• Signed copy of Data Release Form when appropriate
• English version of Windows 2000/XP/Vista or Mac OS X on a localized machine; due to driver differences and compatibility issues, Stern IT does not support foreign operating systems or hardware
• Adherence to NYU’s Policy on Responsible Use of NYU Computers & Data, located at http://www.nyu.edu/its/policies/responsibleuse.html
• Maintain professional conduct when interacting with Help Desk staff
• Good Citizenship Feedback: The Service Recipient will provide the service provider with satisfaction feedback at the conclusion of each service rendered.  Feedback information will be used to evaluate and manage service continuity.

How to Access the Service

Cost
 
There is currently no charge for these services.

II. Service Limitations and Exclusions

Scheduled Events that Impact Service Availability

Routine Downtime
The Stern IT Help Desk is closed during University holidays.  A complete listing of the Holiday schedule can be found at http://www.nyu.edu/hr/calendars/offcal.html. Both the Help Desk voicemail and email are available for incident reporting during holidays, and will be monitored by Help Desk support staff.

Other Limitations
During periods of high call volume, such as during a University and/or Stern-wide system outage, clients may experience delays in reaching an available technician.  In addition, we do not guarantee availability of the Help Desk service during situations outside our control (e.g. power outages, natural or man-made disaster, etc).

Exclusions
The Stern IT Help Desk is only able to provide support for Stern-based computing and account incidents.  For issues at the rest of the University, or for problems related to the NYU ITS NetID, all inquiries should be made to the NYU ITS Help Desk at (212) 998-3333.

III. Non-Performance

The successful implementation of this agreement depends upon all owner parties’ full execution of responsibilities detailed in the document. This section lays out what constitutes non-performance and its consequences.

Service Provider

Non-Performance
Failure to meet service level goals provided in Section I: Supported Services/Service Level Objective will constitute non-performance on the part of the Help Desk per this agreement.

Consequence
In the case of two months of non-performance in a row, the Help Desk Manager will analyze the cause of failure and present a plan of corrective action to the Stern IT Director of Client Services, CIO, and Deputy CIO to bring the shortcomings of the service back in-line with our desired goals.

Client

Non-Performance
Failure to adhere to the Client Responsibilities outlined in Section I will constitue non-performance on the part of the Client per this agreement.

Consequence
Failure of the client to meet their obligations may result in the following:

• Delays in timely escalation or resolution of the reported Incident
• Closure of the Service Request from the tracking system
• Inability of Client to access/utilize Stern’s technology services

IV. Service Assurance

The Director of Client Services may be contacted via telephone or e-mail during regular business hours to address any problems or concerns related to the service provided.

Help Desk quality of service is determined by a number of measures, including:

• Percentage of Interactions Answered or inversely, the Abandonment rate: an Interaction can be a call, email or walk-in.  For calls, the goal is to answer 90% of all calls made to the Help Desk.  The Abandonment Rate refers to the percentage of callers who terminated their call before it could be answered.  Calls terminated within the first 30 seconds are not factored into Abandonment Rate figures.
• Wait Time: The amount of time a customer waits on the phone line for the next available Help Desk Specialist.  The target is a wait time of 5 rings or less to speak to a Help Desk Technician.

Stern IT will provide a standard set of reports to measure performance against this Service Level Agreement as  outlined below. These reports will be presented to IT Management, the Stern Technology Advisory Committee and posted on-line on the Stern IT website.

V. Approvals

Stern IT

Stern Administration