Judson ISD Connect! wins its fourth and best award yet!

Judson ISD Earns National Digital Achievement Award

Each year The Center For Digital Education recognizes school districts and other educational institutions for their contributions toward excellence in digital learning. Judson ISD is the winner of the K-12 District Education Application/Project category.  The winning project is the district’s mobile app called “Judson ISD Connect.”  This app for iOS, Android and Kindle allows students or parents to check grades, attendance, calendars, spo

 
rting events, news, district events and even features a “report it” button to anonymously report bullying, fraud or crime. Judson ISD Connect was created by Judson ISD’s Technology Services Department, using an innovative web development platform from Conduit Mobile.

This award is the latest that Judson ISD has earned. Last year shortly after the app was released it became winners of the Webby Awards, Horizon Interactive and the Lovie Awards (International Competition). While those awards are great, this latest recognition from the DEAA is special because of its unique focus on the connection of digital technology and its application to education.  

Links that may be helpful:

• Judson ISD Connect app page: http://www.judsonisd.org/district/technology/jisd_mobile.cfm
• Conduit Mobile:  http://mobile.conduit.com/
• Awards Page: http://www.centerdigitaled.com/awards/education-achievement/2013-Best-of-the-Web-and-Education-Achievement-Awards.html

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Web innovation in government and education?

On Friday I had the pleasure of spending time with a very interesting and exciting group of web innovators.  No I did not spend a day the Googleplex or at Twitter.  I got to spend time with the winner of the DigitalEducation Achievement Awards and the Digital Government Achievement Awards.  People might think that government and education are the backwaters of innovative web services; they would be wrong.  There is a lot of talent and innovative use of web services at all levels of government and education.

The overarching message I took away from talking with fellow award winners was that all of us should be looking at providing data for our customers in formats friendly to their consumption devices.  The talk was all about responsive web design, allowing web content to work regardless of device of the end user.  The other take away was that our customers, who in our case are students and parents, want data immediately.  Long gone should be the days when a parent finds out that their student is doing poorly in a class, at which time it is way too late to work on helping them increase the grade.

I urge you to take some time (or have your school or district web gurus do so) to look at the award winners linked above. They have some truly innovative apps and web sites, which we can all use as ideas to help us improve what our parents and students are demanding.

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Help us help our customers please!

While this may seem a mundane topic, I want to talk about the stalwart backbone of most IT departments:  the help desk.  The busier my wonderful IT staff gets, the more devices and schools they support, the more we are increasingly needing a robust system that can support the increasing demands placed on our busy staff.

Like many schools IT departments, we never allocated a lot of budget funds to the help desk.   We have used a few different systems, which to some extent always seems to be just OK or good enough.   Maybe we got a deal on the software, maybe we could not afford something better, or in the case of our current system, the help desk came as part of a larger software bundle.  It was easy to justify using something that we basically got free as part of another department’s larger software bundle purchase.  But at the end of the day, we now know that the software indeed was a very small insignificant part of the software package.  It has basically been ignored by the company for years, in spite of many customers’ requests for features we feel are needed for increasingly hard pressed IT staffs.

After doing some looking around at what is being offered currently in the help desk market, there are clearly a lot more players and options to choose from, then there were ten years ago.   SaaS and the cloud have had a huge impact on this market.  There are many very affordable cloud based systems available that might be a great tool for IT departments.  Here is a decent (but by no means comprehensive) list of some cloud based systems: http://web.appstorm.net/roundups/communication-roundups/10-online-support-and-help-desk-apps/ . There are still many traditional hosted systems as well, which still can be very attractive offerings and competitively priced.

And from my research, cloud does not at all necessarily equate to a help desk being inexpensive. One of the most comprehensive help desk systems I have seen, which offers a plethora of advanced features for change management, etc. is incredibly expensive and probably not within the reach of most school IT departments.

So what does our IT department need in a help desk?  Well….good question.  I have started a long list of what we would like to see.  While the list is not done, it gives a pretty good idea of what we are wanting.  And my guess is, that many other IT departments, in schools and other industries, would probably like an affordable help desk systems that offers these same set of features.  The features list is available on my CTO Technotes blog at: http://ctotechnotes.blogspot.com/2013/09/my-requirements-list-for-solid-it-help.html

This blog entry is cross posted with the great folks at SchoolCIO

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My requirements list for a solid IT help desk

After looking for a while at many help desk systems available, I have been refining a requirements list for a new system for our IT department.  This list is not complete, but I have the feeling that if an affordable help desk system can meet these requirements, we will be very likely to take a serious look at the system and give it a thorough test drive.

1. System should offer robust API access, ODBC access to data, OR direct access to SQL tables.
2. System should offer possibility to manage IT equipment orders with associated tickets needed for setup, installation, etc.
3. System should have Active Directory integration to handle user data and authentication.
4. System should be browser based and works in all modern browsers.
5. It should also should work on mobile phones, tablets, etc.
6. System should allow option to utilize SSL security.
7. System interface must be simple and intuitive.
8. System should feature a Quick ticket for phone support - ie one screen problem and resolution recording for phone support.
9. System should feature end user ticket creation through web, email.
10. Help desk staff should be able to update tickets through email.
11. System should feature automated email notification of user on tickets creation, updates, and closure.
12. System should intermediate all email between help desk agents and end users - and keep all communication fenced within the ticketing system.
13. System should offer comprehensive/customizable customer satisfaction survey at the closure of every ticket.
    1. Satisfaction data should be exposed through the API.
14. System should feature a method for recording of how the ticket was created (web, email, phone).
15. System should allow creation of FAQs/Knowledgebase - this should be categorized and searchable
    1. Should allow tickets to be converted to FAQs.
16. System must allow for unlimited end user web access (no licensing or limits for end users.)
17. System must allow for concurrent agent licensing - OR preferably unlimited  agents.
18. System should allow linking of individual help desk tickets to global issue, allowing resolution of global issue to update/close all linked tickets and send corresponding email notification(s).
19. System should feature a Global Notification Banner or method to inform users of issues or outages.
20. System should have ticket categories.
21. System should have configurable, rule based SLAs.
    1. They Should be able to be tied to ticket categories.
    2. SLAs should adhere to business hours, holidays.
    3. SLAs should allow to for certain statuses to not affect SLA(ie awaiting parts.)
    4. Should readily show technician which ticket(s) are in danger of not meeting the SLA.
22. System should support custom work-flows based on categories and for approvals as needed.
23. System should allow for multiple service/help desk projects to provide functionally separate service/help desks – i.e. one for Human Resources and another for Technology Support.  These should have separate queues, but allow for tickets to be reassigned across queues.
24. System must offer robust customizable reporting capabilities in both text and graphical formats to track trends, call volumes, technician totals, category totals, average service times by category, average service times by technician, SLAs met, etc.  
    1. Reporting data should be exposed to the API.
25. System should support automatic rule based escalation - this may be tied to SLA rules.
26. System should have configurable tickets statuses.
    1. Statuses should allow for creation of statuses that do not count against tickets resolution time.  
27. System should allow for file attachment to ticket by users and/or agent.
28. Add multiple users to a ticket.
    1. Any ticket email notifications should go to all users on ticket, once added.
29. System should allow for two way email communications within the system - no end user ticket replies should ever be sent to the agent's personal email - they should go directly into the system.
30. When looking up users with identical names, we should be able to see distinguishing data from Active Directory (title, location, etc.)
31. System should support configurable locations that can be part of a ticket.
    1. Reporting should report on location.
32. System should have ticket agent collision detection.
33. Allow tickets to be emailed by agent.
34. System should track a parts inventory with pricing information.
    1. Parts should be able to be added to tickets and provide a cost on the ticket.
35. System should allow for ticket escalation based on time.

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Staffing for the back to school tidal wave

Very few if any school technology departments are staffed to the levels seen in most companies of similar size.  By most measures, school technician staffing is at levels unheard of in the private sector.  Numbers like one technician per 500 or 1000 computers are rampant in K-12 institutions.  Other measures that look at how many FTEs (full time equivalents) the average technician supports are equally skewed; one technician often serves many hundreds of employees.  And these numbers don’t even take into account the huge students populations and enormous device count supported in districts. 

These numbers point to vastly overworked technical staffs at most K-12 institutions.  I would argue that many of these departments are slim staffed during the best of times, such as November and December, when typical K-12 workloads are about as light as they ever get during the crazy cyclical K-12 calendar.

When August hits, most school technical staffs are stretched beyond belief.  In what other industry do IT staffs face thousands of returning users in a just a couple of weeks.  Staffs have to cope with many routine items, such as disconnected equipment, accounts, forgotten credentials and the like.  These are often compounded by roll-outs of new technology and systems over the summer, much of which is guaranteed to result in more help desk calls and/or technician visits.

There are many strategies that can be implemented to at least help with some of the back to school crush, and many of us keep asking for more support staff to cope with the workload, but this often does not meld well with economic realities.  So after losing technical staff to budget cuts, while servicing an ever expanding student and device population, this year we decided to try a different strategy, often used in the business world, during cyclical peak periods. 

This year we budgeted for and are hiring multiple temporary technicians to service back to school work orders and to assist with the always ringing help desk phones.  And to further save funds to allow more technicians to be hired, my staff went the extra mile to hire their own temps, rather than rely on an outside agency.  This strategy will allows us to increase our technicians by at least 60% for up to three months, at about 55% of the cost of one FTE.  While we have yet to see how this will work out, we think this strategy will be much more economically palatable, while allowing us to offer up much quicker turnaround time to our customers.

We know there are dangers.  Our biggest fear is that these techs will lack the institutional knowledge of common issues and normal procedures.  We are hopeful that we can hire ones with good personalities that will keep our very high standards of customer service, but we will have to watch this very carefully for sure.

This blog entry is cross posted with the great folks at SchoolCIO

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A good forecast for successful cloud purchases

At this point in time, I would guess that every organization has at least some experience using the cloud.  But often, as IT leaders, we are often either bypassed or an afterthought, when other departments and leaders can purchase and turn up a cloud service, quicker than you can say purchase order.  Yet not having IT involved in cloud decisions can certainly negatively impact an organization.  Cloud purchasers often forget to ask about user and data management, and integration with existing systems.  An adopted  cloud system which does not play well with other systems, which has its own separate user repository, or for which security is an afterthought, can quickly turn into an nightmare for IT or for the adopters who did not know what questions to ask the provider.

Just the other day I was speaking with a small cloud provider, who had pretty good answers for most of my questions, but what was unsaid was the fact that this was the equivalent of a mom and pop cloud provider, which was most likely one car accident away from dissolution of the cloud company.  That could pose a big risk for our organization, especially if this was a critical cloud service.

An IT director in Schertz, Texas, Myles Clauser, recently shared a list of questions to ask cloud providers, before deciding if their service is right for your organization.  This is a pretty tough set of questions and you may be willing to accept a variety of answers, depending on what the particular service is, nonetheless this is a great set of questions to help vet the rapidly expanding list of cloud services:

Questions and considerations for using cloud providers:

1.       Ownership of all data must be spelled out. Many cloud providers specify that using their services means relinquishing ownership of the data.

2.       What format is the data stored in at the host site?

3.       Where is the live data actually stored? Where are the backups stored? (Are all sites within the continental US?)

4.       Is it encrypted – either in transport or in storage. This includes backups.

5.       Is there any possibility for vendor staff to review / copy / duplicate the data (with the exception of routine backups) without our knowledge?

6.       Is the data / information we contemplate storing in the “cloud” subject to any relevant Federal, State or other privacy requirements or agreements already in place? (i.e.: PCI compliance, HPPA, FIPS, CJIS, etc.) If so what documentation can the vendor supply that ensures that their storage and delivery systems comply with those requirements?

7.       Are there any limitations regarding access to the data – i.e.: are we notified in advance of planned downtimes, etc.

8.       Are there any QOS provisions in the agreement – i.e.: the data will be available 24/7, 7 days / week with a guaranteed minimum response time from their system based on agreed-upon criteria.

9.       If we delete data from a system what proof do we get that the data has been removed from backup systems, disaster recovery sites, etc.?

10.   What formats can we use to retrieve any and all data – i.e.: what utilities exist that will allow us to archive data in industry-standard formats for later retrieval by City staff without having to work through or with the vendor’s proprietary format.

11.   Since this is a web-based system can the vendor provide certification that their systems are updated regularly? This includes patches, antivirus systems, backend databases, web interfaces, etc.

12.   How often does the vendor perform security audits on their systems and when was the last one done? Can we see the results?

13.   What is their policy regarding informing us if a data breach occurs? Are they liable to us for any damages, remediation costs, etc.?

14.   If the vendor is contacted by an outside party (i.e.: subpoenas, open records requests, etc.) to provide information contained in one of our documents, how do they respond? If we are required to hold data for litigation purposes do they have a mechanism / system in place to do so or are we on our own?

15.  What provisions have been made to protect our data if the vendor closes its doors or is sold

This blog entry is cross posted with the great folks at SchoolCIO

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E-Rate: The Sequel?

E-Rate: The Sequel?

While many educators have been enjoying the relative relaxation of summer vacation, there has been a flurry of activity in DC around the federal program known as E-Rate. 

E-Rate has served as a catalyst for school technology growth to power research, communication and online learning, since its inception in 1997.  E-Rate has provided schools with funding for powerful networks, which have become pervasive, and crucial to the functioning of the education process.  School networks are now a crucial utility to schools, much like electricity.  But networks need to change; much like the electrical wiring at schools has needed to be increased from the days where all that was plugged in was a filmstrip projector.  The uses of networks in education are expanding daily and the numbers of devices and users on them is climbing rapidly, with the advent of 1 to 1 and BYOD programs, bolstered by a host of online learning initiatives.

Several groups, such as CoSN (the Consortium for School Networking), have been advocating on schools’ and educators’ behalf and have been pushing the FCC to revisit E-Rate funding, which has been largely static, despite a massive increase in needs.  Just over a month ago, there appeared to be progress, with President Obama’s announcement of the ConnectED initiative.   And just this past week, the FCC voted to overhaul the E-Rate program. 

A true technology leader, Sheryl Abshire, Chief Technology Officer at Calcasieu Parish Public Schools, testified before the FCC saying, “E-Rate needs to move beyond assessing whether a classroom or library has an Internet connection to determining whether that connection’s speed meets the needs of users who seek to access and use the most up-to-date digital content, courses, resources, services and tools.”   We could not have asked for a better advocate on our behalf and it appears the FCC listened.

So now the rest of us need to help out; The next step for all of us is to provide comments on the new proposals as the FCC provides details on the proposed programs, so be sure to keep an eye on the FCC’s site.  

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