There are three helpdesks I use at work. The first unofficial helpdesk is our assistant editor/Web manager because Marissa
is better at using software, which I attribute to her being light years younger than me. "Can you come over here and look
at my email?" I called her because I couldn't send her an email, which is what I would usually do even though she's only 25
steps from me. Because the send button at the top of my email had disappeared. All the icons at the top of the message disappeared.
Clicking different menu items in Entourage didn't work. Even when you know something exists that is supposed to fix the problem,
if you can't figure out what it's called, you're lost. I attributed it to our recent company upgrade to Office 2007.
Lisa Henderson
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I could use our official helpdesk pathway, which is to submit a helpdesk ticket via the Intranet, and then an IT person calls
you. They could be located in any of our offices nationwide. This works very well and I have no complaints. We have to use
the helpdesk ticket system so we don't bother our inhouse technology support person while he attends to his myriad of duties
supporting our office because he'd probably never get to his real work (like upgrading us to Office 2007) if we constantly
interrupted him.
So as I contemplated life without "send" using the cute envelope button (my son recently saw the attach button with the paper
clip and handed me a paper clip), and resorting to Marissa's suggestion that I "just hit control and enter to send," I found
that it wasn't the upgrade that was the culprit. Somehow I had hid my toolbar. I, of course, would not knowingly do this.
This was an unforeseen event.
Typical helpdesk problemsI have written about technology, business uses, and related issues for this and other industries. I get it. But maybe just
in theory, not practice? Based on a link from ClinPage, I had recently read eClinical Visions, which included articles from
Oracle and about Oracle's RDC-based eClinical products. Under a pie-chart depiction of "Typical Problems Handled by Helpdesk,"
in a general EDC study, 24% of the issues were password reset followed by 22% user account management. Funneling down into
the actual Oracle RDC support issues, 26% were user account issues, 24% other issues, and 11% error message.
This seems all typical to me. Getting an email reminder that my password is going to expire in 14 days, leads me to ignore
all subsequent emails out of fear that I will somehow mess up my computer. Then I realize if I don't change it, I'm going
to have to send a helpdesk ticket from someone else's email because I will be locked out of the system and require a "password
reset." So, obviously, I'm not the only one who is adverse to changing their password.
In this industry, it is vital that EDC users, especially at the site level, use it for it to be effective. Monitoring the
types of issues that cross the helpdesk is beneficial for vendors to know their product function and service. But still, there
is no category for "random technology aversion" or "general stupidity." Or is there?
Lisa Henderson
Editor-in-Chief
email: lhenderson@advanstar.com
http://www.appliedclinicaltrialsonline.com/
