HTL Support News

Read the latest information and thinking on the world of IT Support Services.

IT Support case study

Case Study HTL GroupIT Support, Case Study

IT Support & Strategy  plc

IT Support & Strategy

Remote & Telephone Support

7am – 7pm Monday-Friday

As a pre-requisite for all  maintenance contracts,  require remote access to the office network. This allows  technicians to access the server remotely stopping the traditional problem of miscommunication over the phone.
Remote Support  technicians can actually view the user’s screen from our own technical support rooms.  can also manipulate the terminal as a user would to fully understand all issues in place. This all makes the reality of support a lot easier for both sides by limiting the need for technical assistance on-site and the full communication of problems.
Telephone Support  have a team of technicians ready to answer any immediate queries or issues that you may have. There are no call queues and you will always speak to a person not a machine. If the relevant technician is unavailable, a message will be taken and they will return the call as soon as they are available.
Email submission For issues that are not requiring immediate resolution but more a long term requirement with a future deadline,  can send an email which will be prioritised accordingly.



How does  IT Support work?
Primary Technician
A  technician will be assigned to the  solution. This engineer will work on the solution from the configuration of the network for support. He/she will be the first point of contact for any support issues that you may have and will have the greatest knowledge of your network among the support staff.
The primary technician will also fully document your network allowing the helpdesk full access to your solution in case the primary contact is unavailable.
Point of Contact
 recommend that there will be designated points of contact for each site, who will be advised and reported to by .
Selected staff at  may be expected to:
- Understand backup logs
- Be able to insert backup tapes as instructed
- Restart machines as directed
- Insert CDs and disks into required machine
- Send test emails and test solutions
- Understand lead composition to run a PC
- Have an understanding of the network topology to help identify point of failure
- Have a basic understanding of the server hierarchy
- Provide software package usage support

Re-active Site Visits
Response site visits will be charged at £100 for the first hour, £75 thereafter.
A response site visit can be utilised when  technical support deem it necessary that technician attend on site to resolve a network issues.
New Solutions/PC installs
New solutions can be implemented as part of a scheduled onsite visits, however if the implementation time goes outside the scheduled visit this will be charged at the  standard hourly rate.

Pro-active Support

Critical Services Monitoring
All critical services that  support are monitored.  are notified immediately in the event of a hardware or software failure and so can begin resolving immediately.
- Servers - immediate notification in the event of server failure
- warnings when server capacities (and individual drives) are within dangerous levels
- Firewalls - immediate notification in the event of firewall failure
- Routers - immediate notification in the event of router failure
- warning if connection speed drops to too low a level
- Services - immediate notification if services such as mail servers and Thin Client services fail

Quarterly IT Strategy Meetings
A senior  technician will attend quarterly onsite meetings, to discuss IT strategy and plan forthcoming projects. Agendas for this meeting will be set by both  and . These meetings also provide a chance to discuss and review service levels.

Backup Support
 will perform a weekly manual verification that backups have been successful.
 /  can be notified every time a backup fails to return a 100% backup. Notification is immediate and investigation can begin for the reasons and therefore a full resolution.

Automatic Updates
 will ensure that automatic updates are set up for both Windows and Anti-Virus solutions. These will run independently and  will also make regular checks to confirm that this is taking place.
Other updates will be implemented remotely by the  team.

On-site Support

Scheduled Onsite Visits
Scheduled onsite visits will be on the same days of each month within the period of the support contract unless both parties reach prior agreement the preceding week.
Scheduled onsite visits can be used for whatever purpose is agreed at the time. In usual scenarios they will be used for:
- General network maintenance – server/PC updates, virus, backup maintenance.
- General user queries.  try to encourage that non-critical issues are built up and addressed during scheduled visits.
- User training
- New projects/hardware/software implementations
- Branch office visits


Support to exclude the following:

- Hardware costs.
- PC rebuilds due to hardware or Operating System failure
- User induced hardware failure - non-specified software loaded, PC spyware/virus infections, non-authorised server reconfiguration servers.
- User software functionality queries, for example “how do I mail merge a word document?”
- Component replacement delivery costs.
- Any new network equipment. Additions will need to be made to the support contract to include any components to be supported by .
- Server rebuilds.


Service Level:

Response and predicted resolution is split in to three categories, Global, Local user and administration. The response times refer to a technician beginning the referral, with the aim to resolve as quickly as possible.  aim to deal with all support issues immediately but the following provide upper limits to the response time.
Type Issue Response Predicted Resolution
Priority 1 – Global Issues
Remote Major server issues: no email delivery, server software failure, critical data restore, exchange mailbox access 1 hour 2 hours
Onsite Major server issues: where issue cannot be addressed remotely, for example server failure 4 hours 8hours
Priority 2 – Local user issues
Remote Individual delivery failure: email software failure, access to exchange functions 4 hours 8 hours
Onsite Individual delivery failure unable to be resolved remotely 24 hours 32 hours
Priority 3 –Administration Issues
Remote Configuration issues: addition of new users, reconfiguration of public folders 72 hours

Initial Site Visit

 will attend onsite for a half day at the head office site prior to the commencement of the support contract. This will involve:
- Survey and Documentation of the existing network
- Meet site contacts and provide basic procedure training
- Installation of remote monitoring and control software
- Identifying any initial issues
Optional visits can be made to branch offices for the same purposes

What does Hardware and Software does  cover?

Support to include:
- Support of all core server & PC functions, including; e-mail, anti-virus, backups, printing and file serving.
- Unlimited telephone, email and remote second line support for IT team with regards to Operating System software, e-mail and network connectivity.
- PC support for network availability issues
- Printer support for network availability issues.

Pricing
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Initial Site Visits

Network Audit and documentation- Head Office Only £
Software and Hardware Audit (if none available) £

Total £100

* Additional Branch Visits/Health Checks will be charged @ £ per site

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Annual Costs
50 user Unlimited Telephone and Remote Support £
Backup Support verification £
Fortnightly ½ day on-site visits (26 onsite visits) £
Quarterly IT Strategy Meetings £

Total £100

Top