Windows XP's Remote Assistance lets you request help from a friend or help desk staff, who can then log on during a period of time you specify, taking control while you observe (and chat via Windows Messenger). For these remote tools to work, your firewall or router will need to permit traffic across port 3389.

Text Chat - Requires a current browser. Our preferred browser is Internet Explorer 6 or Netscape 7. Remote Control - Requires a file download and customer permission.

West Central Support's Help Desk Services has the flexibility to meet your companies specific needs. You determine how you would like your calls handled. We'll work with you to setup a standard of service levels and Quality Assurance metrics that will insure that your customers are receiving the level of service that they deserve. This information will be made available to you on an interval and ad-hoc basis based on your requirements. Whatever you need, we'll work to provide it.

The wizard will also give you advice on when to ask your system operator (for example if a firewall is blocking ports that need to be open.)

The Office of Information Technology recognizes this and wishes to protect Susquehanna students, faculty and staff from falling victim to Internet fraud. Education on the topic of Internet fraud and personal identity theft is critical to raising self-awareness when performing any Internet transaction. Supplied below are links to informational Web sites that will help you better understand and recognize Internet fraud.

It is basically the admin funtions of the help desk that help you do that little extra for your customers. For example, certain solutions provide a dashboard feature to the administrators. This feature allows you to look at your customer service data in different views, at different times and at a broad overall level. More sophisticated dashboards display customer request data in dynamic graphs. This helps you determine if and how much on track your service department is.

Some IT department managers have ventured overseas for network design, infrastructure development, application programming and development, and other high level IT management matters, and have discovered later, many costly issues they weren't counting on. Language problems, unmotivated and unskilled staff, poor IT helpdesk support, lagging technology, and inabilities understand and fulfill contractual obligations.

If you connect too many devices [including telephone, fax, answering machine and the like], your ADSL may be affected and may fail. Please check the underside of your phone for the REN [Ringer Equivalence Number] which should not exceed 2.5.

To protect yourself against EFS-encrypted files loss you should always export your Private and Public key, along with the keys for the Recovery Agent user. Note: You'll need a blank floppy to run the process. ERD is an excellent multi purpose product, but you should know it is not a necessary one if you have a healthy system and your sole problem is the inability to logon to Windows due to a forgotten password. Check if the computer or online system will not support a pass phrase, use the same technique on the shorter password. What makes a strong password. This site.

If in doubt consult a software professional for advice. Ideally create a helpdesk think tank within your organization to determine your needs. This will help ensure that the software vendor gets a clear picture of all the areas the help desk software will have to cover in your case.