IT support can’t always come to you when you’re having a hardware or software issue. While a phone call may be sufficient to diagnose and suggest a fix, it isn’t always enough. That’s when software that allows support to open a remote session, see the client’s screen, and experience the environment firsthand is invaluable.
The Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications has been using TeamViewer for that purpose since 2014. Yu Tai Chung, the college’s IT director, said they initially paid for three TeamViewer channels for their four IT support staff. Each channel provides a connection to assist with various needs, from resolving a computer issue to offering training or installing a program. The channel is active during the remote session and then idle until it is opened for a new session.
A few years later, Liberal Arts reached out to Chung about his experience with TeamViewer when that unit was considering switching remote support software.
“After some discussion, we realized there was an opportunity to save money by working together. Because the connections weren’t always active, we could share the use of them,” Chung explained. “We created a shared pool of channels, where each unit pays for one channel for every five agents on their staff and gains access to every available channel in the pool if we needed them.”
The popularity of the shared system continues to grow. More than a dozen units are currently in the shared pool, including eight that came on board since March, and 139 support agents.
In addition to Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications and Liberal Arts, participating units include: Agricultural Sciences, Earth and Mineral Science (EMS), Health and Human Development, Eberly College of Science, EIT Desktop Services, EIT Service Desk, Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences, Institutes of Energy and the Environment, Materials Research Institute, New Kensington Campus, Office of Student Aid, Schreyer Honors College, and University Libraries.
With the volume of units, the savings are adding up.
The newest contract has the units sharing 27 channels. For a reference point on savings, Chung noted that before joining the pool, the first four units (Bellisario, Liberal Arts, EMS, and University Libraries) each paid $365 per support member for a TeamViewer channel each year. With the newest contract, the cost dropped to $87.02 per support member for each of their shared channels.
Art Fogleman, customer experience and engagement team manager for Liberal Arts IT, said with 22 buildings, 3,000 devices, and hundreds of faculty, staff, and students, his college can provide limited face-to-face IT support. The majority of assistance and managing upgrades to devices happens remotely.
“TeamViewer helps to cut down the length of time to resolve a problem, providing the best possible experience for our community,” Fogelman said.
Whether units join the shared pool of channels or not, the University has negotiated a lower price for the software than they could get on their own. Mike Mrsa, contract administrator for TeamViewer software, said any time a unit reaches out to him to ask about TeamViewer, he lets them know about the shared pool as an option to save money.
Chung said there has not been a time when any of the units in the pool has needed a channel and couldn’t find an open one.