Number of staff to users/devices

[Badzeye]

Hello all,

 

Just been having a think. Always used to be two of us here and the workload was managable but now im down to just myself in the IT department and it doesnt look like were getting anyone else in as far as ive been told. Im just after some evidence or advice to present to the powers that be. Admitedly as im now the only one here my pay has gone up but the number of hours in the day hasnt and I cant be in two places at once and its being expected of me... Im just getting drowned in work at the minute. Miss being able to just focus on a project and leave the day to day support to someone else while it gets done.

 

Currently we have 750 kids 70+ staff 100+ desktops 200 laptops 120 chrome books 200 iPads and a dozen servers + copiers etc for me to look after.

 

Any of you go through something similar or have any advice?

 

Thanks

Edited January 10, 2017 by Badzeye

[mjk]

We have about 650 machines per technician, but mostly they are chromebooks.

It looks like you are in a similar situation, so I'd try and decrease your PC's in favour of chromebooks/boxes if you want to make it manageable.

[Rob_D]

If you include the network manager We have around 180 full fat computers per technician. Plus 44 servers (between the 3.5 of us)

 

Which (touch wood) is a perfectly manageable workload.

[Sagima]

we are about 250:1 techs to computers (if you include mobile devices) and about 15:1 for servers

[ADMaster]

I have roughly 1900 students 200 staff, 1700 chromebooks, 400 PCs (Desktops and laptops) and about 100 ipads.

It is just me and I get contracted support once a week to help with hardware repairs. Your workload looks very manageable by comparison.

 

What are your day to day problems, can they be prevented or streamlined some how?

Chromebooks are a breeze to manage mostly hardware issues with them.

The Ipads used to consume a lot of my time they are a pita to manage, thankfully they are going away.

I have all the PCs locked down so no junk software to deal with.

I take a teaching approach to issues where I can, a screen is zoomed in, or headphones don't work because they have ticked something in settings. I show the classroom teacher how to fix these issues.

I have remote support setup on all the PCs saves a ton of time if an issue is across site in another building.

The PDQ software has saved a ton of time as well with software requests.

Write scripts to do repetitive tasks.

Standardize where you can having all the same make model of something makes working on them much easier.

Get a helpdesk to track issues, if you a busy stopping you in the hall is not acceptable.

 

Get SLT to help you set the proper expectations there is only one of you.

Depending on work load try to make a schedule, work on projects / servers in the AM and go see users in the PM as one example. Building A on Mondays and B on Tuesdays etc.

I hope some of these ideas will make you a better one man IT department.