IT Support

Need IT Support for Your School or College?

Looking for IT Support for your school?

Frustrated and worried about supporting remote learning for your students and faculty? Within the current learning environment, cyber-attacks, Zoom-bombing, etc. on the education sector are up. The more time students spend online, the higher the risk they face.  Additionally, if your school supports a Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policy, your IT support partner can develop and manage a BYOD policy to monitor for viruses and potential network overloads.

A trusted IT support partner will protect your school and take care of your IT services. As a result, you can focus on teaching. You can relax with a trusted IT support partner like ExterNetworks.

Here’s some Benefits of IT Support Services for Schools & Colleges:

Your school or college can potentially reduce IT costs with a more Consistent Budget

With Managed IT Support, most of your IT tasks are handled remotely – including routine requests and support. You may be in a position to free up your IT staff for other projects. And, potentially reduce your IT budget.

Increase Efficiency and Network Reliability

With managed IT support, your systems are monitored 24/7 with thousands of automated checks per device, per week, including endpoints. Issues are automatically assigned to IT support engineers. Next, your IT partner will perform remedial actions to minimize disruptive failures. You’ll receive scheduled system reports informing you of the status of your school’s IT systems.

Share in the Expertise of your IT Support Partner

Your in-house IT team will not have to keep up with all of the developments in educational IT. You can rely on your trusted IT support partner to provide a team of specialists. So, issues can be quickly dealt with, no matter what arises.

What are some of the services that make up IT support for schools?

Let’s go into more depth on IT support services for schools – also known as, “Managed Services’”

Help Desk

In today’s hybrid learning environment, students and teachers need help from wherever they are at the moment be it in the classroom, at home, or in some other “learning bubble.” Help Desk services provide end-client support including: password resets and other more simple-to-resolve issues such as basic end-user application questions. You can think of a Help Desk as tactical where technicians provide reactive support for end-users. Further, Help Desk services handle support issues directly from end-clients including teachers and students.

Proactive Monitoring:

• Network infrastructure – including servers and switches/routers
• Endpoints – including laptops, desktops, and tablets to monitor antivirus software and operating system updates

Your IT support partner will oversee and monitor the performance of your network for critical items such as server CPU and disk space utilization along with network performance. They’ll do performance monitoring via specialized software tools. These software tools monitor availability and overall performance of network services. Network technicians receive reports of any issues so they can detect any potential network performance events which could result in a system slowdown or network unavailability. We can monitor both your network infrastructure and endpoints. Further, you’ll have access to an IT Health Dashboard showing the status of your network and endpoints. The dashboard helps guide your decision making for future projects, budgeting, etc.

Remote Maintenance

• Network infrastructure – including servers and switches/routers
• Endpoints – including laptops, desktops, and tablets

With a remote maintenance plan, support technicians will act on alerts to proactively keep your network running. Maintenance may also include making sure all equipment (network and endpoint devices) are current on the latest software releases/patches. Technicians are also be able to remotely log into your equipment and take corrective action as needed. With remote maintenance for your school’s IT support, our technicians will also know in advance when there is a hardware problem that needs to be addressed. Your IT staff will receive email/text alerts of what needs to be done by themselves or by a resource supplied via ExterNetworks.

Tech Support

While Help Desk Support is critical for day-to-day end-user issues, , you’ll need Tech Support for more complex issues that are not part of routine requests such as password resents, updating software, etc. Tech Support provides assistance with more complex non-routine issues. You can think of Tech Support as strategic where the goal is to make the IT experience better for your district or university.

Tech Support normally works with your school’s IT staff to trouble shoot and fix issues such as server crashes, network downtime, etc. While a full-service Tech Support “Desk” can be very expensive to build yourself, outsourcing this valuable function to a service provider who provides IT support for schools is a very effective option. Your IT support partner has already invested in the people, processes, and systems necessary to create an effective Tech Support service.

Service Management

ExterNetworks uses a service management system to create a process for your school or college where support tickets are generated and tracked. The support tickets along with, service level/response times are based upon workflow rules that your IT department will define with your IT support partner. Users interact with our service management system via a web portal or email. Far more than just a way to log IT problems, the system also offers analysis and planning for your Schools ‘s IT Department. This can result in reduced costs for your school. We can also help you create security policies to keep students from viewing unwanted content reducing your exposure to potential viruses. The system is so versatile that it also can be used with other school services including finance and facilities.

Let ExterNetworks keep your technology working smoothly for your:

• Teachers, Instructors, and Professors
• Students
• Staff

Get in touch with us today for your technology audit