Top 5 Help Desk Calls or App Training Tips... 3

[mmorancbt]

A partner and I are creating some free videos aimed at the non-technical user. These are short micro-training, free videos, for a blog aimed at small or mid-sized businesses and their employees.

Most will be between 30 seconds to 5 minutes in length.

My question to you:
What are the top 5 application (MS Office, Web Browsing, Email, Basic Computing, etc.) concepts or specific tasks you believe would greatly help the general user population.

Again, the audience is non-technical. I'm thinking of "how to do a mail merge in word" or "how to best perform yahoo and google searches and work with the results" or ??? whatever.

If you work the help desk or provide support to people, what things would stop most of the "noise" if it were understood?

Thanks.

Matthew Moran (career blog and podcast below)
Career Advice with Attitude for the IT Pro

http://blogs.ittoolbox.com/pm/career

 

[burtsbees]

I have a question for YOU...after trying several times to end my "subscription" to your website, I still get at least 5 SPAM emails a day in my Gmail account. How does one ACTUALLY stop them?

Burt

 

[jrbarnett]

Matthew

Get them to be able to recognise messages displayed on screen (messagebox, status bar etc) and report them alongside any call logs.
It saves us having to deal with the follow up calls to "My computer doesn't work" requests before we are able to resolve their problems.

John

 

[mmorancbt]

burtsbees,

When you indicate a subscription to "your website" are you asking the people at tek-tips or me?

I don't have any websites with subscription content - at least not yet - and send out no email notices of anykind. Which website specifically are you referring to?

Thanks.

Matthew Moran (career blog and podcast below)
Career Advice with Attitude for the IT Pro

http://blogs.ittoolbox.com/pm/career

 

[burtsbees]

I'm sorry---ittoolbox.com...I have repeatedly tried to unsubscribe from receiving techincian emails with issues they have. They usually come in with very broken language, or a totally different language altogether.

Burt

 

[mmorancbt]

Funny - a lot of people think I own IT Toolbox - for a few reasons. I blog on their site, I have a book published by Cisco Press titled - The IT Career Builder's Toolkit, and my former website was cbtoolkit.com.

However, I am just little ole me - and they have many employees and thousands of subscribers.

However, based on your description - language, etc. - you should check the mail headers. There is a high-probability that the mail is spam, unrelated to IT Toolbox at all.

I am subscribed to various aspects of their site and only receive those precise items I've requested, very infrequently, and always in my language.

Matthew Moran (career blog and podcast below)
Career Advice with Attitude for the IT Pro

http://blogs.ittoolbox.com/pm/career

 

[burtsbees]

Well, I registered to the forums, and like an idiot, gave my real email address (DOH!). I still receive emails from everyone asking questions, but instead of them only being on the forums, they go to my EMAIL!!! The only reason they are SPAM is because I mark them as such, but this only dumps repeated mails from the same person and replies to that person. Thanks for the reply, though.

Burt

 

[Lilliabeth]

Understand directory structure and use Windows Explorer.




Lilliabeth
-Why use a big word when a diminutive one will do?-

 

[PCmad]

How to end a program if it stops responding via task manager. How to tell whether an email is spam or not spam. Understanding failed delivery messages and why you shouldn't just delete or ignore them. How to create rules in Outlook, how to create a signature in outlook. Why you should always shut down using start, shutdown and not just switch off (it does happen, honest!!). Difference between an icon and a shortcut, how to change the windows desktop, screen size, colours, screensaver. The difference between windows explorer and Internet explorer (They are not the same, honest no matter how many times you say they are !!) How to amend the windows start menu, how to enable show desktop icon (I always think this should be turned on by default, it is so useful), how to take a screenshot and attach to an email or paste into a word document to help troubleshoot. That should keep you going !! I have many more !!

 

[mmorancbt]

The outlook related comments are well-taken. Email management in general will have a dedicated and ongoing section.

Keep em coming - thanks.

Matthew Moran (career blog and podcast below)
Career Advice with Attitude for the IT Pro

http://blogs.ittoolbox.com/pm/career

 

[AlexCuse]

Differences between a database and an excel spreadsheet would be a good one around here...

Ignorance of certain subjects is a great part of wisdom

 

[mmorancbt]

AlexCuse,

That is one I want to get to - I would have to make it very simplistic for my intended audience - but you are right that clients/management/general users confuse when to use one or the other.

I am dealing with that exact scenario on a project today. They want everything to be spreadsheet driven, when a 3 table DB would provide all the features, multiple user input, and much cleaner data - ouch!!!

Matthew Moran (career blog and podcast below)
Career Advice with Attitude for the IT Pro

http://blogs.ittoolbox.com/pm/career

 

[jrbarnett]

Why keeping security information (passwords, memorable information for password reminders or resets etc) confidential is good.

John

 

[AlexCuse]

I am dealing with that exact scenario on a project today. They want everything to be spreadsheet driven, when a 3 table DB would provide all the features, multiple user input, and much cleaner data - ouch!!!

A very wise man once gave me a term for this exact type of database. XNF - Excel Normal(ized) Form

Aren't they just so much fun? ;-)

Ignorance of certain subjects is a great part of wisdom

 

[SQLSister]

How to find my file that I saved (including and introduction to the concept of folders and how to organize you information)
What to do when the printer won't print
How to report a problem to the technical support people

"NOTHING is more important in a database than integrity." ESquared

 

[GlenJohnson]

SECURITY! How not to give out your personal info when a dummy Papal company contacts you, (It's happened to me several times, and it's never been legit.) Why not to give out info to a south African prince so he can escape and pay you for your help, (Yes this has happened to me also). Why not to open up attachments, etc. Could go on all night, but the bottom line is INTERNET security and safety.

Glen A. Johnson
If you like fun and sun, check out Tek-Tips Florida Forum
Buckle up, it works<---Click here.

 

[mmorancbt]

Glen,

How little compassion you have. That South African prince just wants assistance in getting that money that is rightfully that of the good and just family - there to help the people. Give them that account number and they will transfer the money right over.

Thanks for the input everyone.

Matthew Moran (career blog and podcast below)
Career Advice with Attitude for the IT Pro

http://blogs.ittoolbox.com/pm/career

 

[CajunCenturion]

I'm sure we can all sympathize with many of the issues brought up, but upon reflection, don't many of them boil down to a matter of semantics.

For example, what exactly is a database?

One can very easily collect, store, and organize their data in an Excel spreadsheet, or in Access, and therefore by definition, that IS a database.
Is it a relational database? Not necessarily.
Is it a heirarchical database? Not necessarily.
Is it a CODASYL database? Not necessarily.
Is is a DBMS? Probably not.

But is it simply a database? Well, yes it is. A database is nothing more than a collection of data, organized and stored so that it can be retrieved and used. Data stored and organized in a spreadsheet meets the criteria of the dictionary definition of database, and from customer's perspective, they have a database.

It many ways, it boils down to semantics. Until we all agree on a common definition of 'database' things will continue to be interesting. And let's not forget that the customer couldn't care less about a proper academic definition of a relational database; the customer couldn't care less about normalization (in fact, many IT professionals and programmers don't understand the mathematics behind the normalization process). What's normal to the customer is being able to do their job without being reliant on someone else. In general, people are not comfortable with dependency.

In answer to your question - what would stop the noise - my answer is first agreeing on the definition of terms.

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[Crowley16]

the one I get a lot would be:

"how to check if you've got caps lock on when entering your password"

this is not a joke, I get that 2/3 times a week and I'm not even supposed to be on support...

--------------------
Procrastinate Now!

 

[mrdenny]

Don't you just love it when the end users start deciding what technologies the tech projects should be using.

I had one PM tell me that he wanted a searchable knowledge base built using XML to store the data (one physical xml file per KB article). He actually put it into the spec. I told him that it was going to have a nice relational database as the back end or it wasn't going to be built.

He didn't like my answer to much. To bad for him his VP did.

Denny
MCSA (2003) / MCDBA (SQL 2000)
MCTS (SQL 2005 / Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0: Configuration / Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007: Configuration)
MCITP Database Administrator (SQL 2005) / Database Developer (SQL 2005)

--Anything is possible. All it takes is a little research. (Me)

http://www.mrdenny.com