IT Service and Support Specialist

General Summary:

Reporting to the Director of the IT Service Desk, the IT Service and Support Specialist is responsible for facilitating the first-line technical support to the UMass Boston community on a wide range of technology services provided by the Information Technology Services Division (IT).

The goal of the IT Service Desk team is to solve all "Tier 1" level technology questions, escalate any remaining issues to the designated "Tier 2" support groups in IT, and ensure that all issues are solved quickly and effectively. The goal of the IT Service and Support Specialist is to work as part of the IT Service Desk team, to identify technology problems, research answers, and guide clients through corrective steps, with a maximum level of customer service. The actual support work provided to clients should be performed by the Service Desk's student employee team as much as possible, with supervision and guidance provided by the IT Service and Support Specialist. This fast-paced position provides a connection to every part of the university's eclectic population and many exciting efforts.

Examples of Duties:

• Provide excellent technology support services to the UMass Boston Community with a first goal of solving their problem directly and a secondary goal of routing the client and all needed supplementary information to the correct Tier 2 support service elsewhere in IT as needed. The IT Service and Support Specialist spreads out their time between supporting clients directly, enabling student employees to support clients, and various other projects described here.
• Assist in the management of a team of student employees working at the IT Service Desk.
• Interview and hire student employees each semester. Plan and perform orientations for new student hires.
• Mentor, coach, and develop the student employee team to provide excellent customer service and train them on technical support tasks.
• Maintain the IT Service Desk Knowledge Base and other policy and procedure documentation.
• Closely monitor student employees' work performance, adherence to policies and procedures, attendance, etc., and provide feedback, training, and personnel actions when needed.
• Plan out coverage schedules for student employees to meet the needs across the IT Service Desk and Managed Services groups, as well as enter and approve weekly timesheets. Create the schedule at the start of each semester and maintain it throughout the year, working daily and weekly as changes are needed.
• Track the budget usage for student employees, ensuring coverage needs are met while retaining funding to last through the year.

The daily supervision of the student employee team is broken down into three roles of Chat Supervisor, Desk Supervisor, and Intake Supervisor. These roles are filled in rotation with the other full-time Service Desk team. Beyond the specific duties listed below for each role, the

• Overall supervision also includes performing escalated support to troubleshoot issues that student employees can't do, such as password and multi-factor authentication resets and bypasses.
• Serve as the Chat Supervisor in rotation with other IT Service Desk staff. This role involves monitoring the student employees who are providing support over our chat tool, escalated support, reviewing chat logs to ensure the quality of the interactions and support, and generally providing help to clients with other team members to troubleshoot client issues.
• Serve as the Desk Supervisor in rotation with other IT Service Desk staff. This role involves monitoring and assisting the student employees who are providing support in person at our walk-up help desk, escalated support, reviewing the phone logs for attendance issues, and generally ensuring the team members are working professionally and productively.
• Serve as the Intake Supervisor in rotation with other IT Service Desk staff. This role involves monitoring and assisting the student employees who are performing the ticket intake function, ensuring they are triaged quickly and correctly, monitoring assignee activity on a ticket to ensure work progresses in a timely manner, assisting in assigning tickets to team members and other teams as needed, and generally ensuring that tickets flow through the Service Desk efficiently.
• This role is a hands-on supervisor role for a large number of students working on campus frequently interacting in-person with clients and student employees, so the incumbent will be required to work from campus four days per week.
• Participate in various IT Service Management improvement projects for continuous improvement of our processes around Incident Management, Problem Management, Request Management, etc.
• Work directly to provide Tier 1 technology support to clients. Troubleshoot, diagnose, and resolve client's tech support problems from any operating system or device type on a wide variety of issues across software, web applications, hardware, operating system configurations, authentication, cyber security issues, and wireless network access, providing a quick resolution and excellent customer service.
• Provide support for commonly used software applications such as Microsoft 365 (Office, Teams, Outlook, and OneDrive), the Adobe suite including Acrobat Pro, various university-supported technology tools (WISER, HR Direct, Blackboard), or any other client technology use.
• Provide support on access and authentication issues for university accounts, including password resets, creation of security questions, and multi-factor authentication setup and usage.
• Communicate effectively with clients to provide support over a wide variety of contact types, including phone, email, video conferencing, live chat, direct submission tickets, and walk-ins to the IT Service Desk location.
• Research and explore a problem through a troubleshooting process to discover and evaluate possible solutions. A priority is given to not just fixing the problem but instructing the user on how the fix was accomplished so they can help themselves next time.
• If a solution cannot be discovered through direct troubleshooting, the issue should be escalated to another team within IT who can help with that category of issue. In this situation, the issue should be fully documented in the ticketing system, along with all research and troubleshooting steps performed, and assigned to the correct team.
• Enter records of service requests into the ticketing system, ensuring a complete and accurate description of the client, the problem, and any research and troubleshooting steps taken as well as their results. Complete record keeping is essential for all tickets, especially when they will be escalated to other staff for continued support.
• Work individually and as a team to create effective Knowledge Base articles for common issues experienced by the team, ensuring content is organized, up-to-date, accessible, and has a consistent level of quality and style.
• Assist leadership in projects to improve processes performed by the team with a focus on driving greater automation and efficiency. Participate as needed in project committees and planning groups to ensure effective service from the team and the IT department as a whole.
• Assist the team's leadership in identifying problem trends affecting the team's clients and work with appropriate groups to determine and execute improvements to resolve future issues, including improvements on the technical or business practice side of a topic (if something isn't working right), or on the client training and communication side of a topic (if it's working but users just don't understand it).
• Communicate regularly with the team's leadership and other IT leadership when appropriate, to keep them informed on activities, accomplishments, problems, and future efforts. Maintain an up-to-date tracking repository of tasks, activities, projects, and metrics, and provide status reports, presentations, and graphical reporting aids showing incumbents the team's activities and capabilities.
• The incumbent must maintain a high level of professional development and awareness of current industry best practices and future trends related to the fields needed to perform their duties described here, for today and the future, with a goal of always providing top-level services to the UMass Boston community.
• When schedule, interest, and ability allow, and in partnership with the AVC of Client Services and the IT Technology Training Specialist, plan and present occasional periodic training presentations and workshops to the UMass Boston community in the areas of the incumbent's expertise and interest, relating to the skills used in this position.
• Supports the university's initiatives of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility.

Additional responsibilities as directed by the supervisor consistent with ability and position

Qualifications:

• Two or more years of experience are required in a field relevant to this position, such as support, troubleshooting, or training of technology topics. A bachelor's degree is required, preferably in a field related to this position. An additional four years of relevant work experience may be substituted for the bachelor's degree requirement. An ITIL Foundations, CompTIA A+ certification, or related certificate may be substituted for one year of experience or education with approval by the hiring manager.
• ITIL Foundations certificate is preferred. If the incumbent doesn't have this certificate then they will be required to achieve that certificate within six months of hire.
• Demonstratable experience in hiring, training, and supervising a team of support staff, with a focus on providing excellent customer service and accurate technical support consultation.
• Experience with a wide variety of technology is required, including Windows, Mac, iOS, and Android devices, including hardware, operating systems, software, wired and wireless network connectivity, peripherals, printers, Microsoft consumer applications including Microsoft 365, OneDrive, Teams, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Outlook Web Application, Cybersecurity topics and best practices.
• Experience with ticketing systems: Proficiency in using and managing IT service desk software, preferably ServiceNow, to track and resolve user issues is required.
• Strong analytical and troubleshooting skills are required to diagnose and resolve a wide range of IT issues efficiently.
• Proficiency in remote desktop tools and troubleshooting with the patience and ability to guide users through technical issues over the phone or chat.
• Strong interpersonal skills which facilitate positive working relationships with both co-workers and end users.
• Strong oral and written communication skills for personal interaction with end users, written reports, documentation, and call ticket tracking.
• Strong ability to provide high-quality customer service to people at all levels in a university setting.
• Strong organizational skills to keep multiple active projects running while preserving strong attention to detail on individual tasks.
• For all experience listed above, that experience having been performed in an academic setting is preferable.

Application Instructions:

Please apply online with your resume, cover letter and list of three professional references.

Review of candidates will begin following the application closing date.

Only Internal candidates in the Professional Staff Bargaining Unit will be considered during the first 10 business days of the posting. All other candidates will be considered after that period.

Salary Ranges for the appropriate Pay Grade can be found at the following link:

Grade: 31

Salary Ranges

This is an exempt union position.

All official salary offers must be approved by Human Resources.

UMass Boston is committed to the full inclusion of all qualified individuals. As part of this commitment, we will ensure that persons with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodations for the hiring process. If reasonable accommodation is needed, please contact or 617-287-5150.