Telecom Administration Unit Assessment

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Mission Statement

Telecommunications (Telecom) Administration provides voice service and repairs throughout the distributed campuses and other George Mason University locations. Our mission is to provide responsive and seamless telecommunications services to the Mason community by working collaboratively with other information technology units and vendors.

Organization Chart

Telecom Admin Staff and Responsibilities

Doris Rollins, Manager, Telecommunications Administration, is responsible not only for the day to day management of the Telecom department but assists with strategic planning and budget issues.  Doris monitors and makes projections for three functional telecommunications budgets and reviews and monitors two general accounting telecommunications budgets.  Doris provides technical and project leadership on highly complex issues and on major system upgrades and installations. 

Pam Larkin, PBX Administrator, programs all moves adds and changes in the six (6) telephone systems.  Pam trains on telephone features, designs and implements ACD applications and consults with departments regarding telephone design.  Pam is also the department contact and organizer for the Telecom Coordinators group. 

Jean McNeil, Telecom Services Coordinator, is the first point of contact with Telecom Admin for the distributed campuses.  She coordinates phone orders, PC installs, jack installations, long distance cards and is back up for the PBX Administrator.  Jeannie also serves as Telecom Coordinator for the Department of Information Technology (DIT) and processes all requests for their services.

Carolyn Combs, Mason Mail System Administrator, programs and is responsible for the Mason Mail voice mail system.  (5,840 staff and faculty voice mailboxes and 3,942 voice mailboxes to support the residence halls.)  Carolyn also serves as back up for the PBX System Administrator.

Judy Kratzer, Telecommunications Billing Administrator, coordinates, uploads and produces monthly telephone bills for the University.  She serves as back up for the Mason  Mail System Administrator.  Judy will coordinate and lead the Account Activation team for the Get Wired program.

Kathy Bonafede, Pay Telephone and Cell Phone Administrator, administers all GMU and DIT mobile phone and pager contracts.  Kathy manages and administers all 84 GMU owned pay phones and is the back up for the Telecommunications Billing Administrator.

Eric McBride and Milton Riley, Telecommunications Field Services Technicians, perform all installs and repairs related to voice services for the distributed campuses and other George Mason sites.

Kashif Jamil, Student Assistant, responds to student voice mail inquiries, coordinates computer installs and supports the billing administrator with SQL and database inquiries.  He assists with special projects and will lead the student section of the Get Wired/Account Activation team.

The Year in Review

The diversity and complexity of responsibilities and seamless service the department provides remains one of its’ successes.  And the behind the scenes effort to comply with administrative expectations, from downloading billing information from a variety of vendors to providing un-interruptible dial tone to the university, remains one of its on-going successes.  A request arrives and is processed through a variety of tasks that may include comparing reported telephone information to information that exists in the PBX, finding a new number, having the on-site Verizon tech assign cable pairs or verifying cable pairs for a repair, then on to the PBX Administrator for creating or moving the phone with a simultaneous request to the Voice Mail Administrator for creating or moving a mailbox and then on to the technician for installation or physical moves.  Once the telephone is installed or moved, the request is entered into the billing system and appropriate charges are included in the requesting departments monthly telephone billing.

This has been a busy year and the department has accomplished much, the highlights of this successful year follow.

Accomplishments

Voice Over IP

Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) is a technology that allows voice and data to be transmitted over the same lines.  This use of VoIP has improved service and reduced telecommunications expense for both the university and client.  Telecom Admin developed the business case for this technology.  The Telecom Admin team worked with Network Engineering to justify the use of VoIP, install the VoIP equipment, program the voice related equipment and existing telephone system for this new technology and train staff on the use of phones in their new telephony environment.  The VoIP infrastructure has been extended to Hemlock Overlook, the Psychology Clinic and Center for Cognitive Development (Democracy Lane) offering seamless service with the university and clients.

Telecom Admin Web Site

Telecom Admin developed and implemented their first web site (http://telecomadmin.gmu.edu).  Web Master, Jeannie McNeil, received a BYTE week certificate for “Planning and Creating a Web Site”. Having the department put all our information on the web site created many changes in how our paper version of information looked as compared to what was posted on the web.   The site contains everything a staff person, faculty member or student would like to know about telephones and voice mail features, instructions for using phones and voice mail, calling cards, cell phones, pagers and billing.  Our new site was presented to the Telecommunications Coordinators group at the June 19^th meeting. Initial feed back from Telecom Coordinators has been positive.  They find the site is easy to navigate and read.

Voice Mailbox Creation Streamlined

Every semester, Mason Mail creates approximately 2,850 mailboxes to accommodate the resident students.  In the past this was an 80-hour process as each box was individually programmed.  A new process to create mailboxes has been designed by Carolyn, using templates developed in a support system (2nd Nature) and working in conjunction with an MS Notepad database.  The database remains in MS Notepad and then is sent to the templates in 2^nd Nature system.  2^nd Nature schedules the new download to the voice mail system after hours then deletes the existing mailboxes and initiates the new mailboxes.  This process takes a total of 48 hours and is usually scheduled on the weekend.

Pay Phone Plan

The Pay Phone Administrator developed and is implementing a strategic plan for pay phones.  This plan includes removal of 16 extremely low volume pay phones, increasing cost of a pay phone call to match Verizon phones, and a long-term strategy for the deployment and decommission of pay phones.  Kathy will be monitoring the remaining pay phones and possibly removing additional phones as usage decreases. 

Field Service Technicians

Telecom Admin has integrated two Telecom Field Service Technicians into the department.  Being able to “reach out and touch” the technicians has had a positive impact on service.  Milton Riley feels overall communication with telecom, voice technicians and the client has improved since the integration. Telecom can monitor and reprioritize service calls, and on several occasions we have been able to redirect the technician reducing the turnaround time on repair calls. 

Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Plans

Disaster recovery and business continuity plans were developed for the department and are to be included in the University’s crisis management plan. 

Department “Redbook”

A “Redbook” was developed by the department to help Telecom staff with on-site emergencies in the absence of the primary support staff.  For example, if you arrive at work and you are the only staff member at that time, whom do you call if voice mail system is down?  The “Redbook” contains the initial call information for vendors, some basic trouble shooting instructions and an ITU/Support Center escalation procedure.

Jacks R Us Initiative

Jacks R Us completed a successful debut.  This initiative was a spin off project from Get Wired and was started to inspect all telephone, data and cable jacks for connectivity in the residence halls.  Work orders generated by the initial inspection of residence halls totaled 571.  Old jacks in the rooms, which were left from the prior infrastructure, were covered with a blank faceplate eliminating confusion as to which jack the student should use for connectivity.  Calls to the Support Center and complaints to Housing were reduced.

Training Efforts

PBX and Mason Mail administrators re-designed training materials and conducted a Lunch ’n Learn and Let’s Talk information session on Telephone and Voice Mail tips.  Both sessions were the highest attended sessions of this type sponsored by Human Resources.

Improved Contractor Billing

University Services’ contractors saw an improvement with telephone billing by eliminating hard copies of the vendor telecom reports, creating an electronic invoice for the vendors, and giving the contractors access to the online Telecom summary reports if the vendors choose to view the detail. 

Telecom Coordinators Meetings

Telecom Coordinators meetings continue to be well attended.  The list of department Telecom Coordinators is approximately 200 and about 70-80 coordinators regularly attend the meetings.  Meeting focus remains on training on any of the telecom functions, to include the coordinators responsibility, and guest speakers who represent a division or department that impact the Telecom Coordinators responsibility.

Telecom Service Reengineering

Telecom Admin worked with a group of University staff, Ben Crandall, Network Engineers, Information Services, and Verizon to develop a plan to minimize the impact on our PBX and Voice Mail systems of severe voice traffic during peak usage times like Back to School and crisis situations. The plan proposes re-engineering our telephone trunks (lines), increasing the number of incoming lines and re-programming our connection to the voice mail system.  Telephone traffic studies at Verizon’s central office and in our PBX were simultaneously conducted to help analyze the best approach to re-design our telephone lines. 

ACD Optimization

The PBX Administrator and Voice Mail Administrator met with the departments that utilize Automatic Call Distribution (ACD) to help develop a plan that would minimize telephone traffic during peak times. Seasonal changes were made to the voice mail options, announcements were changed offering web site information and managers were offered additional training with ACD Max (software that allows mangers to see real time statistics on ACD calls).

Areas for Improvement

Increase Frequency of Client Training

Increase training visibility through training on telephone features and voice mail tips or etiquette classes.  Most of our training requests are coordinated through Telecom Coordinators so as a result most departments do not know we provide this service.  Awareness within the different colleges varies with how much information and what type of information Telecom Coordinators share. Relying on the Telecom Coordinator to share their knowledge, especially on telephone and voice mail features, creates a learning gap for faculty and staff.

Reconcile Telecom Billing Database to Banner

Work with TSD Database Applications Division, General Accounting and Pinnacle to insure complete accounting of telecom database feed for Ledger 4.  Currently Ledger 4 account billing is extracted from the billing database but we are unable to debit the identical amount before all is uploaded to the general ledger report.  This creates a large debit in the account 3-84000, also known as the pass through account. 

Improve Response Time for Repairs and Installations

Decrease response time of service tickets/help desk calls.  Currently we advertise a five-day turnaround for telephone orders.  Most of our work is completed in four days or less.  We need to review our processes and address areas that unnecessarily extend the install, move and especially repair time.

Improve Survey Methods and Increase Responses

Develop a survey that helps us understand our overall quality of service and responsiveness.  We currently have two client surveys but they are limited to Telecom Coordinators meetings and on-site repairs by the Technician. 

Develop an awareness regarding existing Telecom Administrations’ Client Service surveys.  We usually receive a 20 - 30% response on surveys from our Telecom Coordinators meeting evaluation but response on our service tags is poor.   A service tag is left for a client when the technician has completed the service call. From 7/01 to 6/02, Telecom closed 2,864 Work Orders and only 13 service surveys were returned to the department. 

One to Three Year Goals

Training for PBX Administrator Back Up

Complete training for PBX Administrator back up.   Currently, our PBX Administrator back up is handling all the service repair calls and assigning the calls to technicians only when an on-site visit is required.  Hands-on training for moves and installs is next on the training schedule.  Encourage training and back up for other PBX applications, such as ACD and VoIP. 

Web Based Telecom Service Request Process

Move towards a paperless telecommunications request environment.   At present we require the requesting department’s Telecom Coordinator or a department head signature on every telecommunications request.  Some of our services and equipment requests result in charges to the department.  We will be investigating ways to meet the tracking needs of accounting and Internal Audit.   This project is “Telecom Admin Web Page, Phase II”.  The first step in this process is redesigning the request form and making it more user friendly.

Department Process Review

Review the behind the scenes service process for Telecom Admin.  This has dual goals one is to allow the Voice Technicians to perform some of the day-to-day programming, possibly being the first point of contact for a repair.  And hopefully eliminating several steps in the current process and decreasing the turn around time and dependency on one or two key staff members.

PBX and Billing Reconciliation

Develop a comprehensive reconciliation process for the PBX database and Pinnacle Telephone billing system.  Our Telecom billing system and PBX databases have never been reconciled.  Databases should match but do not, creating misinformation in both systems.  Once this is completed a schedule of database reconciliation will be created. 

Plan for System Upgrades and University Expansion

Prepare for major upgrades to the telephone system.  This involves Telecom Admin, Network Engineering and preparing the University for a major outage.

Plan for University expansion, initially beginning with Housing V and Academic IV.  Look at staffing, services and budget impact.

Statistics July 01-June 02

Opened 2961 tickets and closed 2864.  Telecom Admin creates one work ticket per move or request.  Several installs, moves and services will be completed by one ticket.  Of the 2,864 tickets closed y the department, the Voice Technicians closed 13%. 

Customer Service Surveys 

Two Customer Service Surveys are offered. 

Telecom Coordinators Meeting Evaluation:

This survey is completed at the Telecom coordinator meetings.  It addresses training needs and meeting topics.  Meetings are designed to keep the Telecom Coordinator trained on how to access the Telecom Admin department for installs and changes and use the telephone billing system, telephone and voice mail features.  Guest speakers are invited to present on topics or issues that relate to the day-to-day responsibility of the Telecom Coordinator.  Changes to meeting format have been based on feedback as well as guest speakers.  Telecom Coordinators like being updated on ITU achievements.  And yes, they like the homemade treats!

Door Hang Tags

Door hangtags are designed to provide notice of work performed and as a service survey.  The technician leaves a bright orange door hang tag at every job.   When a client does respond, the response is usually excellent.  The lowest rating comment was a “good” on response time.  The overall response rate for the door hang tag surveys is low; just ten (10) surveys for 389 closed tickets.

Staff Accomplishments

Department involvement in organizations and committees outside the university include:

Washington Area Messaging Professional Group (WAMP). 

·        Doris Rollins, Vice President

·        Carolyn Combs, Newsletter Chairperson

Commonwealth of Virginia Council on Technology Services

·        Doris Rollins, Telecommunications Workgroup

Kudos  “ We get letters”

These are just a few of the client comments received throughout the year.

printing hard copies of the vendor telecom reports, created an invoice

to be sent via email to the vendors, and given access to the online

telecom summary reports if the vendors choose to view the detail.  So

far, no complaints from any of the vendors!  Judy has been a pleasure to

work with during the last few months as we figured our how to change the

process.  Karla Posselt

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