Students, staff and faculty who’ve needed to update their key card access or reset their password this semester may have noticed that the process for submitting a work request is different from last semester.
According to Director of Instructional Technology (IT) and User Services Chris Gott, over winter break, IT made a switch in the software through which work orders are submitted and processed – from FAMIS 360 (FAMIS) to RT for Helpdesk (RT). Gott said that though IT is the only department using RT as of yet, “everybody will be on the new system” by the time students return to campus in the fall.
Gott added that FAMIS is the software that has been used for work orders for the past few years, but the college’s contract with FAMIS expires in June.
“We were either gonna need to renew that contract – and that is not a cheap piece of software – or move away from that contract,” Gott said.
Gott said FAMIS is “not built for an IT help desk” and is “difficult to use.”
IT made the “pretty easy” decision to not renew FAMIS, Gott said, and made the change to RT – a previously used software. Gott added that there’s no upfront cost for RT, there are IT staff who already know how to use it and the software is customizable, unlike FAMIS.
Director of Maintenance Operations Jim Diaz said the FAMIS system was “pretty good” for his purposes, but the cost of the program “wasn’t worth it.”
Currently, within the FAMIS software, Diaz said work orders can be assigned to a multitude of offices and teams: Campus Safety, Campus Services, Carpentry, Client Services, Custodial, Dining Services, Facilities, Grounds, IT, the KC, Marketing, the Post Office and Purchasing.
“Right now IT is the only department going to the new work order system,” Diaz said. “In May, everybody else will go to it.”
The reason IT made the switch first, Gott said, is so they could manage any “usability issues” before other departments start using the software. Gott said they want a smooth transition between introducing RT and the contract with FAMIS expiring, which will “probably” happen in May but “might slip into June.”
The “biggest motivator” for the switch, according to Gott, was “removing barriers from the problem reporting system.”
Submitting a work order through FAMIS requires “a ton of information,” Gott said, including building location, floor, room number, phone number and more, even when that information isn’t relevant to the work order being submitted.
IT student worker and Dallas first-year Stephanie Hernandez said the “important” part of a work order, in the FAMIS system, is the written description of “specifically what’s wrong” rather than the dropdown boxes that give an idea of “a generalized problem.”
“Once someone types it in, it’s like, ‘Oh, I get it now, I know what I have to do,’” Hernandez said.
With RT, once a student logs in with their Albion account information, details like their name, room and phone number are automatically filled in, and the requester only has to type in whatever their issue is and send it off.
“Your ticket submission is measured in seconds, not in minutes,” Gott said. “It’s a much smoother process.”
Gott added that anyone on campus can also email [email protected], and it will appear as a work order submission in RT.
“Because you can submit work orders through email, it’s faster, smoother, cleaner,” Gott said.
Music department secretary Hope Anderson, alumna ‘93, said she submits work orders “pretty frequently,” having submitted three on Monday morning alone. She “vaguely recollects” using RT in the past and is supportive of the transition back to it.
“I think it’s probably a good switch, because it helps streamline the process,” Anderson said. “We had a bulb go out in a projector; I can send that directly to IT because I know that’s something IT will handle as opposed to going through facilities.”
Gott said it’s “not ideal” for work orders to be split between two systems this semester and IT is “asking for patience from people as we sort some stuff out.”
As a part of this transition, Gott added that campus users can access www.albion.edu/workorders, which will direct them to the right portal for submitting a work order based on their needs.
“I love that we’re always trying to find better ways of doing things here,” Anderson said. “That’s part of being a place of higher learning, we should be showing that we’re also trying to learn better and do better.”
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