SIGUCCS 2017

The University of Washington is an global institution that is composed of three campuses, several hospitals, affiliate academic units around the world and a user base of more that 250,000 people. As a result, operations can never suspend regardless of time or day.

In 2014 IT help desk support was limited to standard business hours. The University of Washington's central IT department (UW-IT) saw a need for customers to have have access quality IT support whenever they need it: 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. 24/7 operations are costly and outsourcing was not an option. The Computer Operations team was identified to have both availability and capacity to assist with expanding the hours of the help desk.

Opposing schedules, additional unrelated responsibilities, incongruent cultures, a brand new ticket tool and incorporation of the ITIL framework made the incorporation of these two teams difficult but well worth the effort.

By leveraging existing 24/7 operations staff, the University was able to extend the service desk hours to meet the needs of a global institution and an ever increasing complex catalog of services with high quality, high availability support.