13 June 2006

Service Desk software

Computer Associates UniCenter ServiceDesk software to go campus-wide.

Last year the Division entered into a three-year agreement with Computer Associates to use CA’s UniCenter ServiceDesk software to manage helpdesk requests. The software is used by the other Academic Divisions, and now ICT Services has chosen it so all the ICT helpdesks in the University are to be using the same software.

ICT Services is currently developing an integrated system for the whole University to use. The Division will still be responsible for managing its own support calls, but it will be easier to transfer calls to other Divisions and to manage staff that transfer between Divisions.

Since the Division purchased its licence to use the software, CA has upgraded the product. Existing data can’t be transferred to the update, so until the new version is commissioned we won’t be transferring from our existing system. At a meeting held on Tuesday, 13 June 2006 it became clear that the best way forward was to gradually transition jobs over Semester 2, 2006, to the new system while maintaining the old one. In January 2007 we would stop using the old system and be fully transferred to the new one.

A minor risk to be considered is that the old system runs on Divisional hardware that runs out of warranty on 29 September 2006. Should the server fail we would need, as a temporary measure, to transfer the existing system to another server until the helpdesk had been migrated fully to the CA UniCenter ServiceDesk product. The risk is manageable and I propose that the Division takes it.