Network managers and organisation of IT support staff

[tj2419]

Hi

I've been wondering how other schools structure their IT support.

 

If your a Network Manager in a school do you have your own office or share with all the IT technicians?

 

Also how do you delegate jobs? Do you go through the Helpdesk assigning jobs to other technicians or does everyone just choose the jobs they will do? Trying to find a balance between the big jobs I need to do and plan etc and the smaller day to day jobs.

 

Do you just have one phone for IT help calls or do staff ring any of the phones in your office?

 

We have an apprentice we have been training up and I was thinking about making him the kind of first contact for 99% of issues. If he can't solve it he passes it onto myself or someone else. Or this might just be pointless

 

Would be interested in hearing how other schools structure their support and who does what jobs?

 

Cheers

[Marshall_IT]

We have myself as the NM and then i have an assistant NM then 2 techs.

 

We have a Helpdesk that some staff use, other just call our email. I try to put most jobs on the Helpdesk. My assistant NM manages the Helpdesk and assigns the jobs between the 3 of them. I take quite a few jobs too and my assistant NM works on most large projects and takes the lead on certain areas.

 

We have 3 phones, one for techs, one for me and one for my assistant nm. We can all pick up each others phone. We share an office, open plan. I did use to have an office at the back of the room but i opened it all up.

Edited March 10, 2015 by Marshall_IT

[howartp]

Myself (NM) and two techs here.

 

The ITSupport emails come to all three of us, but I ignore them unless I know it's my remit to deal with it, or I'm only one in the (shared) office and its urgent.

 

Help desk phone number only rings 2x techs phones, but I can dial a code to pick it up if I choose.

 

My senior tech does a good job of managing things; he knows when he needs to bring me into a situation and when to just get on with it, so I can do my NM tasks.

[dry]

Previous place (secondary school) 'twas me (tech) and NM. Had a Spiceworks installation which we used as our helpdesk. I would deal with whatever I could and NM would pick up on things beyond my scope- i was the firefighter and he was the 'smoke alarm'- proactive maintenance of the network. Anything political/change-requesty we'd refer to the ICT Coordinator (who was more of a people person!)

 

 

Current place (which is a primary) its just me in the whole school who is techy. People have been reporting issues in whatever way they can- email, phone, paper forms, smoke signals, carrier pigeons etc. At the moment I'm firefighting constantly but hope to change this soon- i'm working with an awesome bloke (ex-school techie) at a local it consultancy who's helping me bring the network up to scratch after the last 'technician' abandoned it in the absolute mess that it's in

[tj2419]

Thanks guys. Really interesting to hear how other schools are run. Keep it coming

 

I often find if people come into the office they walk straight over to my desk and start talking at me even if I'm deep in concentration and the techs are looking up

[Marshall_IT]

Thanks guys. Really interesting to hear how other schools are run. Keep it coming

 

I often find if people come into the office they walk straight over to my desk and start talking at me even if I'm deep in concentration and the techs are looking up

 

Yep, there are always staff like that...

[tmcd35]

If your a Network Manager in a school do you have your own office or share with all the IT technicians?

 

When I started here it was three people using two desks in the smallest broom cupboard available, just happened to be next door to a slightly larger closet that is the server room. A couple of years a go I got my own office just up the corridor, about the same size, maybe slightly smaller, than the old broom cupboard but it's mine. The two techs now have the broom cupboard to themselves.

 

None of these rooms have windows...

 

As a manager, moving to my own office was the best move I could possibly make. Not only can I now listen to american alternative rock all day, but I get to focus more on the strategic planning and can be a little more hands off on the day to day stuff.

 

Also how do you delegate jobs? Do you go through the Helpdesk assigning jobs to other technicians or does everyone just choose the jobs they will do? Trying to find a balance between the big jobs I need to do and plan etc and the smaller day to day jobs.

 

We have a helpdesk. The techs mostly take care of whats on there on a largely ad-hoc basis. I chip in every now and then as timer permits. I rarely go out of my way to delegate tasks unless there's a particular training need or a major time factor. They're professionals, they don't need micro managing.

 

Do you just have one phone for IT help calls or do staff ring any of the phones in your office?

We have an online helpdesk.

 

That should be the answer, but... I have a phone in my office, the techs have a phone in their office. The techs office is the traditional extension for IT support. Still staff just phone my new extension number and bug me. We now have new greeting when we answer the phone. In the IT Crowd they famously answered "Have you tried turning it off and on again?". Our equivilant is "have you logged it on the helpdesk?"

 

We have an apprentice we have been training up and I was thinking about making him the kind of first contact for 99% of issues. If he can't solve it he passes it onto myself or someone else. Or this might just be pointless

 

Depends on the structure of the team/size of the school, but typically it makes sense using apprentices or junior techs as first line support. We informally do that here. Tech does 1st line, Senior tech kinda does 1st/2nd line, and I do 2nd/3rd line support.

[FN-GM]

Thanks guys. Really interesting to hear how other schools are run. Keep it coming

 

I often find if people come into the office they walk straight over to my desk and start talking at me even if I'm deep in concentration and the techs are looking up

 

Annoying isn't it.

 

Or I get the emails "I know I should log it onto the helpdesk, but...." argh!

[kearton]

We have myself as the NM and then i have an assistant NM then 2 techs.

 

We have a Helpdesk that some staff use, other just call our email. I try to put most jobs on the Helpdesk. My assistant NM manages the Helpdesk and assigns the jobs between the 3 of them. I take quite a few jobs too and my assistant NM works on most large projects and takes the lead on certain areas.

 

We have 3 phones, one for techs, one for me and one for my assistant nm. We can all pick up each others phone. We share an office, open plan. I did use to have an office at the back of the room but i opened it all up.

 

Ditto.

Edited March 11, 2015 by kearton

[JRowley]

We have a NM, an assistant NM and myself a Technician.

 

Didn't see your other questions, we share a single small office with a single phone. Generally speaking when something needs doing we work together on it if needs be or the person with the most experience in that area does it.

 

We don't use a helpdesk, while it might make organising workload easier in some cases 99% of the time the jobs we get can be fixed in 2 minutes or less, a helpdesk would just make the whole process take longer and would get in the way of helping people. Anything that might take longer we can just make a task in outlook to track internally.

Edited March 11, 2015 by JRowley

[Jonah]

There's me (NM), a senior technician and a technician. All in a single office with server room attached.

 

All incidents go on the helpdesk, we simply don;t accept problems reported via telephone/in person unless it's impossible to log on the helpdesk (network down, etc). Luckily we have the full support of the Head in this.

 

As for job assignment, the helpdesk assigns the call to a technician based on the category it is logged as (which works 99% of the time, some times we need to change it manually). So for example day-to-day desktop/laptop issues go to the technician, network infrastructure related problems come to me.

 

Single phone at the minute with a DDI, but this is changing to a phone each over Easter as we change systems.

Edited March 11, 2015 by Jonah

[kennysarmy]

If your a Network Manager in a school do you have your own office or share with all the IT technicians?

 

Share with two technicians and an apprentice, I can't see how you can work if you are all in separate rooms.

 

Also how do you delegate jobs? Do you go through the Helpdesk assigning jobs to other technicians or does everyone just choose the jobs they will do? Trying to find a balance between the big jobs I need to do and plan etc and the smaller day to day jobs.

 

Most jobs get emailed to "help@" and it gets distributed to all of us - if it can be answered via email one of us will reply and copy "help" back in.

Most other jobs are naturally assigned - harware would fall to one of the technicians or the apprentice; software or similar would fall to me (NM)

 

 

Do you just have one phone for IT help calls or do staff ring any of the phones in your office?

 

One phone. Whoever is free answers.

 

We have an apprentice we have been training up and I was thinking about making him the kind of first contact for 99% of issues. If he can't solve it he passes it onto myself or someone else. Or this might just be pointless

 

I designed my office so the first person anyone sees when they enter the room is one of the technicians, who will find out what the query is, fix it if possible and if not escalate to the other more senior technician or advise me if my input is required. (I sit furthest from the door, so get less distractions if I'm working on something!)

 

Would be interested in hearing how other schools structure their support and who does what jobs?

 

On the whole;

 

Password issues/sound issues/copier & printer hardware problems/changing toners/imaging = technician / apprentice

 

More complex hardware issues / hardware setups for events / backups / etc = senior technician

 

Financial planning / network & switch configs / wireless / procurement / etc = NM.

 

Hope that helps.

[Tall_Paul]

Our setup basically mirrors that of tmcd35 above.

 

My two technicians and I were all in one big room (which I actually liked) but were forced out of it as they wanted it as a conference room. Since I've got my own office I've been able to perform the 'IT Manager' role much more effectively and not get dragged off into minutiae which used to happen a lot.

[FragglePete]

Network Manager (Me), plus 2 Techs; 1 being Term Time only and is designated as 'classroom technician, essentially deals with day to day stuff and the other assisting myself and the classroom tech but is full time like myself. Approx 650 devices, 1200 Students & 200 Staff. We deal with everything, Projectors, Printers, Desktops, Wireless, Laptops, iPads, Macs, Servers, Cashless Catering, VLE, etc, etc. Everyday is different, but days do go quick as we're always busy.

 

Pete

[Boredguy]

There's me as the Network Manger and 1 IT Tech who we farm out to the local primary for 2 days a week.

We have a single office that we share (and for a couple of years there was 3 of us in it until my other technician retired)

 

Where possible I delegate support calls to my technician but that's mainly because I have lots of other tasks that typically fall outside of the normal Network Manager role (heck this morning I was fixing a toilet cistern that wasn't flushing)

 

Recently our days have been quite slow as we don't get many support calls raised by staff.. either because nothing is breaking (we hope) or they can't be bothered to log it. Hopefully with budgets coming up next month we might have something to do other than paperwork.

[mdench]

We are a team of 4 with me and the Network Manager in our office and 2 techs running a helpdesk down in the library. We use a helpdesk to keep track of tickets which are assigned to us if the techs can't fix the issue. Our central phone number rings all of our phones but generally the helpdesk guys get there first. Leaving me and the network manager to get on with ensuring the network is working and developing various parts of it

[featured_spectre]

Where I was, it was like this.

 

IT Director - Oversaw All aspects of IT, teaching and learning along with networking, though primarily was just a signature for the NM requests.

|

Network Manager (Me) - in my own office.

|

Assistant Network Manager - in his own office (smaller than mine).

|

4 IT Techs - shared an office, which in terms of size was the twice the size of mine and the ANM combined, however had a workbench and all required tools etc for them to work with.

|

2 Apprentices - shared with the IT techs.

 

That establishment had 2400 users all told, 600 PCs, 200 laptops, 16 servers and CCTV.

[FN-GM]

Where I was, it was like this.

 

IT Director - Oversaw All aspects of IT, teaching and learning along with networking, though primarily was just a signature for the NM requests.

|

Network Manager (Me) - in my own office.

|

Assistant Network Manager - in his own office (smaller than mine).

|

4 IT Techs - shared an office, which in terms of size was the twice the size of mine and the ANM combined, however had a workbench and all required tools etc for them to work with.

|

2 Apprentices - shared with the IT techs.

 

That establishment had 2400 users all told, 600 PCs, 200 laptops, 16 servers and CCTV.

 

Wow lots of staff!

[Tall_Paul]

Where I was, it was like this.

 

IT Director - Oversaw All aspects of IT, teaching and learning along with networking, though primarily was just a signature for the NM requests.

|

Network Manager (Me) - in my own office.

|

Assistant Network Manager - in his own office (smaller than mine).

|

4 IT Techs - shared an office, which in terms of size was the twice the size of mine and the ANM combined, however had a workbench and all required tools etc for them to work with.

|

2 Apprentices - shared with the IT techs.

 

That establishment had 2400 users all told, 600 PCs, 200 laptops, 16 servers and CCTV.

 

We have 1200 users, 30 servers and 1200-ish clients (wired and wireless) and just three of us to run it!

 

I'm off in a fortnight and they're 'going to see how they get on with 2' for a few months (I can predict how they will as we struggle with 3).

 

Where you worked sounds like heaven!

[RichCowell]

There's just two of us at my school, me the Network Manager and a technician (though hopefully getting an apprentice soon)...

 

My technician deals with most of the helpdesk and phone calls, and lets me know if it's something I need to deal with, if not she just gets on with things... she's pretty awesome like that

 

Once we get an apprentice, I'd envision the technician still managing the helpdesk and assigning jobs (eventually) to the various people, then she can be getting on with things in the office while I get on with things on the network/servers etc.

[mtillbrook]

I've often found from an external provider's point of view, that secondary schools tend to have a NM and then one or two techies. The techies tend to do the "dirty work" like dealing with stupid questions from staff and students like clearing printer jams etc - the firefighting things. The NM then tends to do the higher level stuff but often gets given things like development plans, budget plans etc which they dont tend to like!

When i go into secondaries as a consultant, its to help or advise the NM on particular issues, ways others are doing things, upgrades etc.

 

I tend to find thought that a good NM keeps an eye on the techies and what they are doing! An open plan office is the way to do that i usually find but it also tends to be a good forum for discussion about new tech when its around and geeky stuff like that.

 

not sure if that helps you?

[featured_spectre]

We have 1200 users, 30 servers and 1200-ish clients (wired and wireless) and just three of us to run it!

 

I'm off in a fortnight and they're 'going to see how they get on with 2' for a few months (I can predict how they will as we struggle with 3).

 

Where you worked sounds like heaven!

 

It was only after complaints from myself, my boss and 2 of the techs that we got the additional roles. We were over worked, often pulling 50-60 hours a week, so rather than bill for overtime every month, they agreed that we get additional staff. The trade-off was that we could finish at 5:30 every day and go see our families instead of working until 8pm each night and getting kicked out by the site agent staff.

[nathan]

It's a little different for me as i'm employed by an academy trust rather than a school.

 

So it's me (Trust Network Manager) and then a technician in each of the schools.

[pirran]

As the NM I line manage and share an office with the following:

x1 Assistant NM

x1 full time tech

x1 part time tech

x1 full time junior tech

x1 full time Design/Web/Mac person

x1 Art and Media Tech.

 

Since I started in the post 2 years ago we've implemented a lot of systems, including Webhelpdesk and SCCM.

 

Assistant NM manages the helpdesk and assigns tickets, he's great at taking what tickets he can from me.

 

Working in a large shared office isn't very good for productivity unless it's build/troubleshooting. I really need a separate office I could retreat into. I spend too much time out of work trying to get the tricker tasks done due to concentration or lack there of, being frequently interrupted is a killer too. Unfortunately the school is already really struggling for space, a great example of the conditions are our canteen that 50 years ago was designed for less than 600, now it's catering for 1200+ students.

 

What I have found is that due to implementing systems such as SCCM, Veeam and VMware we've reduced the overall workload but increased it in certain areas for myself and the assistant NM. Things have got 'more technical', if that's even possible. Whereas departmental packages would have with my predecessor been installed manually or through RM CC4 we're now going through the deployment lifecycle to get it done properly, less tech time, more senior tech time. Thinking about it would others agree that the 'IT Support' landscape is requiring less time from the more junior technicians than it once was?

[kennysarmy]

I've often found from an external provider's point of view, that secondary schools tend to have a NM and then one or two techies. The techies tend to do the "dirty work" like dealing with stupid questions from staff and students like clearing printer jams etc - the firefighting things. The NM then tends to do the higher level stuff but often gets given things like development plans, budget plans etc which they dont tend to like!

When i go into secondaries as a consultant, its to help or advise the NM on particular issues, ways others are doing things, upgrades etc.

 

I tend to find thought that a good NM keeps an eye on the techies and what they are doing! An open plan office is the way to do that i usually find but it also tends to be a good forum for discussion about new tech when its around and geeky stuff like that.

 

not sure if that helps you?

 

I like doing the budgets and planning and managing building contracts and taking photographs and helping put the rugby posts up - it all adds to the variety of the job that is a network manager in a school