A recent spate of emails that some of us have received remind me that it’s once again time to discuss phishing emails or emails that attempt to steal your account information by devastatingly clever little disguises such as emails that supposedly come from ITS or Amazon or so forth. The following information is from Amazon’s site and the information applies to so many of these pestilential nuisances. You can substitute “Amazon” with “ITS” or other legitimate correspondents.
The following advice is taken directly from Amazon.com
ITS is implementing a new version of the software used to track service requests or problem reports from members of the campus community. A primary goal of this implementation is to improve communications from ITS about outstanding requests as well as improve your access to information about the status of your requests.
While you will be able to continue to submit requests or report problems via email (help@pomona.edu), telephone (ext. 18061) and in person, there is also a new “customer portal” that you may use to submit requests as well. The customer portal is accessible via any web browser at http://servicedesk.pomona.edu. With the customer portal you will need to login using your Pomona login id and password. Once you log in you can click on the “New Request” button to submit a new request or to report a problem. You will also see listed on the lower half of the screen any outstanding requests you have submitted. By clicking on the title of a particular request you can view the history for that request and view its status.
If you use the customer portal , in addition to the “New Request” button, you will also see additional buttons on the menu bar:
· “Service Catalog” takes you to a listing of services offered by ITS. You can use it to identify a service and also to submit a request for a particular service.
· “Globals” when there is a major problem or disruption in service ITS will create a “Global Report” which will group together reports of a common issue or problem. If you are experiencing a problem (for instance with email or perhaps network sluggishness) and you wonder if you’re the only one or if others are also experiencing it, you can use this button to see if any Global Reports exist. If they do you will have the option to “Subscribe” to the Global, thereby quickly adding your particular report of the issue to the group. Once the problem has been resolved, you will automatically be notified if you have subscribed.
· “Knowledge Base” takes you to the ITS Knowledge Base where you can search for information and or research a particular technology related issue. Knowledge base articles have been written to answer many frequently asked questions, especially those that start out, “How do I . . . ?”
After the new system has been in place for a few weeks, ITS will be soliciting feedback regarding what improvements you would like to see. Our goal is to make this a useful tool that provides you with information that is helpful to you.
February statistics for the ITS Knowledge Base show a pretty energetic use of this self-help site.
Click on the thumbnails above to see more detail about how Pomona College is using this valuable repository of information and answers about the technology we use every day. Go to the site, log in and play a bit: http://helpdesk.pomona.edu .
