Creating a new position

[dandy34]

Hello,
I'm an IS Admin for a small town with about 215 users at 14 sites all connected to my server room\office.
So far it's me and a part-time person taking care of all things computer related plus just about everything else that uses electricity. I'm trying to justify the need for another full time person but I need to be able to justify before the city will commit.
Part of the justification requirement is a log of our activities showing time spent divided by category (Desktop, Network, Running Away...) and how much time is spent.
The boss likes graphs and I'm trying to find a software that I can use for all this graphing. We already use Trackit but I'm looking for something like a log with categories.
Anybody know of something like that?
Thanks,

Sam

 

[philhege]

Excel makes nice graphs. We use it with our TrackIT system to present support metrics. You can simply connect to the TrackITxx_DATA DB and select the elements you need to report. (Your TrackIT installation is SQL-based, I hope. If not, the file-based version will do.)

Phil Hegedusich
Senior Programmer/Analyst
IIMAK

http://www.iimak.com

-----------
Not NULL-terminated yet.

 

[LadySlinger]

Agreed with the Excel Idea.

One place I worked at I set up an Access Database that graphed out everything for me (categories of what I worked on, number of call logs per day, etc).

Basically though I go with the rough estimate of 80-100 users per support personal. However I understand that you need to prove it.

 

[philhege]

I saw somewhere that the optimal ratio was 25:1. That'll be the day. In our shop it's 325.

Phil Hegedusich
Senior Programmer/Analyst
IIMAK

http://www.iimak.com

-----------
Not NULL-terminated yet.

 

[dandy34]

Yep, that sounds about right. Before this job I was at a California high school with 220 staff and 3500 students all with accounts. There were over 650 computers on campus and it was just two of us. Never a dull moment...
I want to use the Trackit information but we just don't have the time since most users don't know the HelpDesk exists (No time for a rollout) so I'm looking for something I can load on a PDA and enter things as they occur.
Anyone seen anything like that? It needs to categorize and tell the time spent.
Thanks,

Sam

 

[ElementX]

I wish it was 325 at my place. For almost 2 years it was like 1000:1. Its a little better now with 750:1 but half my team has only been with us for a year or less meaning my workload hasn't gotten any better, i now have to be the helpdesk for the helpdesk.

 

[aarenot]

pocket escel for pda.

 

[jrbarnett]

The main disadvantage with an Excel based system is that you have to log the jobs on behalf of the users. With a web based (or windows app) they can log the jobs themselves, which in itself will save you time which can be better used in solving the problems.

A colleague in a different department developed his own based around PHP and MySQL, developed in his own time (as a "can I do it" project to get to learn about LAMP based systems - and its logged over 5000 jobs now in 18 months since going live).

On the login page there is a counter showing the total number of outstanding unassigned jobs, so that the people logging calls could get some sort of idea of the outstanding workload before it may get looked at (obviously they do prioritise based on the number of people/PC's affected and the seriousness of the problem).

John

 

[philhege]

TrackIT, which the OP is currently using, has a web-based user interface. We drive our users to it all the time. You can also set custom columns to categorize work orders. Then you can use Excel for the graphing.

Phil Hegedusich
Senior Programmer/Analyst
IIMAK

http://www.iimak.com

-----------
Not NULL-terminated yet.

 

[Marauder2004]

Dandy34,

A few years ago I was in the same position! Basically I told the VP of my former company that if something was to happen to me, then the company dependence on me will suffer due to a single point of failure w/ out backup support.

Charts are cool but relastic examples paints a totally different picture. Sometimes senior level managers needs to hear your concerns directly.

That's my 2 cents.

 

[saravn]

Ahh... The big red bus theory...

That's what we always called it at my last job. If I stepped out in the street and got hit by the big red bus today, what would you do? It's always a good question to ask the people in charge. AND it basically happened at this job where we had a person that did a lot of work and held a lot of knowledge that was not documented or known by anyone else. Then she had a heart attack (no doubt working all those hours with all that stress contributed)but a year and a half later and we are still picking up the pieces and trying to figure things out.

Now, Dandy34, I know that won't convince people that assume that it won't happen to them, or that only understand things in terms of numbers (or graphs ). One tract that you could try is just a month or week long look at what it costs a single department or division to have to wait for you to have time to help them. That price might pay for another person!

Good Luck!!


SaraVN
Cisco Unified Call Manager 4.2
Cisco Unity Connection 1.2
Blackberry Enterprise Server 4.1