University Wide chat client?

J

J32P

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Mar 5, 2005
Messages
1,881
Hi,

I just got a job at a prominent university with their IT help desk. They've been thinking of moving from a phone system support system to a chat client system. Anyone have any info on the best chat clients to use for something this big/complex/hard to configure?

They would like to embed the option to contact our IT department on numerous school websites. I just thought I'd ask you guys to see if you could help me sell them on the best route to take(to prevent headaches for me).

Thanks


If you need anymore info, let me know.
 
Look at the plugins for go to assist and logmein rescue, you can imbed them into web pages, allows remote access as well
 
Where I work we use the GroupWise client for that sort of thing, but the library reference desk uses meebo, which lets you throw a chat box pretty much anywhere -- easy to set up, you're not running anything additional, and it just works for everyone involved.
 
Well, before I'd go down this road I'd consider some of the issues you could be presented. For some people it's "I can't access the internet", to which they'll have to call you anyways. For others it would be "my computer won't start up"... so not much help there either from a chat client.

What use-case do you see a chat client being useful? What types of questions would be asked over the chat client which couldn't be better served via a phone call? What's the overall benefit of having a chat client link? Is the goal to replace phone support entirely, or just demote it to a secondary form of communication for when "all else fails"?

I think some of the questions above will assist you in deciding if a chat client is even feasible for your particular situation. Depending on the types of support provided by the University IT staff it's entirely possible that a chat client will do nothing in the grand scheme, and will waste resources that could be better positioned to provide directed support to those who may require it.

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Dunno what your budget is but check out ATG's Knowledge/Incident Management products. They have some "click to call" and "click to chat" add-ons to their other products. Also BMC has some good products. Won't be cheap though :)

edit: The nice thing about some of these services is that they'll host them for you which makes supporting the support system much easier. You pay a monthly rate for the products and support and updates.
 
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Tytalus said:
Well, before I'd go down this road I'd consider some of the issues you could be presented. For some people it's "I can't access the internet", to which they'll have to call you anyways. For others it would be "my computer won't start up"... so not much help there either from a chat client.

What use-case do you see a chat client being useful? What types of questions would be asked over the chat client which couldn't be better served via a phone call? What's the overall benefit of having a chat client link? Is the goal to replace phone support entirely, or just demote it to a secondary form of communication for when "all else fails"?

I think some of the questions above will assist you in deciding if a chat client is even feasible for your particular situation. Depending on the types of support provided by the University IT staff it's entirely possible that a chat client will do nothing in the grand scheme, and will waste resources that could be better positioned to provide directed support to those who may require it.

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a lot of students' tech troubles at the beginning of a year (for students who live in dorms on campus) are "i can't connect to the internet." this is why a lot of university's have Housing staff around the dorms to assist in the relatively tricky process of connecting a PC to the school network.

after the first week or two (at the most), many students already have access to the internet. many people who run into computer errors such as random blue screens would be able to make use of this chat service. also, people with virus issues.

working in an IT department myself, 85% of the tech issues deal with fully functional computers that have miscellaneous errors, e.g. random blue screens caused by a faulty driver which only crashes/freezes every so often. also, at schools, a lot of my friends come to me rather than the University help desk for their computer issues. most of the time, it's because they are using limewire/frostwire and they got a bunch of trojans, spyware and viruses, but they can still get on the internet. it's just slow as balls.

this chat support is definitely a useful tool, especially if you can implement remote access to the client's computer. however, it shouldn't replace phone support and it shouldn't cost too much time or money to implement.
 
Plus you can support 2-3 things at once that are non-critical. It can really save you some time if you do it right. Also your chat logs are nice to reference in case you have a problem rise again later on. If it was on voice and you didn't type the solution into a ticketing system, a chat system would have the logs for you, unless you're using UC I suppose.
 
p4gs said:
this chat support is definitely a useful tool, especially if you can implement remote access to the client's computer. however, it shouldn't replace phone support and it shouldn't cost too much time or money to implement.
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Your whole post was useful. But I wanted to ask you specifically about this right now. What remote access would you recommend? I only know of LogMeIn and RDC. Are there better ones out there(preferably free)? We've mentioned using remote login but I have yet to hear anyone where I work mention any names, so just wondering what the best choice would be?


Tytalus said:
or just demote it to a secondary form of communication for when "all else fails"?
Click to expand...

exactly
 
We use UltraVNC at work. It binds with AD very well. Also with VNC, it doesnt lock the computer and say this computer is remotely logged into. You are able to control the end user screen or they can control it. What you do, they will see and vice versa. Its pretty nice when you need them to show the problem they are experiencing to you.

We use a ticket system(Footprints) at my place of work. We have the end users submit a ticket as long as they can access the online ticket system. Once we receive the ticket, we go ahead give them a call, ask for permission to VNC into there screen and make the proper fixes. Obviously some cases cant be solved with VNC so we head down to there cubicle/office.
 
Is price a concern?

Go2Assist or Bomgar. Also Windows Live Meeting / OCS 2007 works wonders
 
calvinj said:
Is price a concern?

Go2Assist or Bomgar. Also Windows Live Meeting / OCS 2007 works wonders
Click to expand...

From what I understand. We're aiming at running a server with an open source customizable application(like OpenFire that Berg0 mentioned). But maybe some funds could be allocated if these paid for services are way easier to use and more efficient to work with. I just need to make sure the choice I offer to them is viable. Cheaper(free is best) is better but higher productivity and more manageability/usability are the absolute best features one could ask for. So to answer your questions about price being a concern, the answer is I don't know as of right now. But I appreciate any and all info.:D
 
LogMeIn has a plethora of options that I think would be very helpful.
 
J32P said:
From what I understand. We're aiming at running a server with an open source customizable application(like OpenFire that Berg0 mentioned). But maybe some funds could be allocated if these paid for services are way easier to use and more efficient to work with. I just need to make sure the choice I offer to them is viable. Cheaper(free is best) is better but higher productivity and more manageability/usability are the absolute best features one could ask for. So to answer your questions about price being a concern, the answer is I don't know as of right now. But I appreciate any and all info.:D
Click to expand...

OpenFire is really good, especially for free.
 
I'm leaning towards an OpenFire Server and Spark as a client(as of right now anyway). Now I just need to choose the right remote access tool. Time to dig deeper.

Will security be strong enough with this setup?

Yes, I'm out of my comfort zone.:D:eek::D

Thanks again
 
I'll cast my vote for Bomgar as a remote access tool. Granted its not free but we've had nothing but positive experiences with them. We've been using them before they rebranded as Bomgar. A nifty feature is that you can bomgar into smart phones even which is always fun to play with.

In regards to a previous comment about wanting to put chat boxes and links on various sites, I'd suggest just providing a Help link that would link back to the main portal and you can put your chat client there. No reason to have to update multiple pages.
 
KarFai said:
I'll cast my vote for Bomgar as a remote access tool. Granted its not free but we've had nothing but positive experiences with them. We've been using them before they rebranded as Bomgar. A nifty feature is that you can bomgar into smart phones even which is always fun to play with.

In regards to a previous comment about wanting to put chat boxes and links on various sites, I'd suggest just providing a Help link that would link back to the main portal and you can put your chat client there. No reason to have to update multiple pages.
Click to expand...

Thanks

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I've just been researching alittle more today on this topic and was wondering if anyone would argue that OpenFire is not the best program to use compared to this list of XMPP Servers?

Citadel
CommuniGate Pro
djabberd
ejabberd
IceWarp
iChat Server
Indafon
in.jabberd
Isode M-Link
jabberd 1.x
jabberd 2.x
Jabber XCP
Jerry Messenger
Kwickserver
Openfire
OpenIM
Prosody
psyced
SoapBox Server
Sun Java System Instant Messaging
synapse
Tigase
Vysper
Wokkel


Is this the Red Hat of Linux(hope this made sense)?

Sorry to drag this out but i just want to double check and make sure this is the best route possible.
 
I tried out OpenFire + Spark today.

Is there a reason the Spark client is really slow or is it just because it's Java based? Is there any other IM software that would work with OpenFire that would be suitable for office communications?
 
The Donut said:
I tried out OpenFire + Spark today.

Is there a reason the Spark client is really slow or is it just because it's Java based? Is there any other IM software that would work with OpenFire that would be suitable for office communications?
Click to expand...

Apple MacOS


Console


Cross-Platform (Linux/Mac/Windows)


Linux/Unix


Microsoft Windows


Mobile Phone / PDA


Web Browser


Click to expand...
http://xmpp.org/software/clients.shtml

Is that what you are asking for?
 
i think openfire and spark will be what you want, link it with teamviewer if you want or pay for logmein rescue.

rescue is great cause lets you get into safemode
 
We use OpenFire and Spark in our IT department. A few of us use alternative clients such as Pidgin, Psi, and iChat. Each have their quirks and benefits - some people love features that others hate, so it's just nice to have the different options.

At home, Miranda is my IM client of choice. As all the protocols are individual plugins, you could provide only the XMPP protocol to keep people from using other IM networks.
 
Even if you don't install any transports (plugins for AIM, MSN) on your XMPP server, users can still connect to a transport on a different network. I have an account on the 'official' Jabber network and I used a foreign transport. If you are going to use XMPP for University chat, I would strongly recommend setting up some ACL's so that your users don't talk to people or transports on a foreign network. I know ejabberd supports ACL's for arbitrary groups of users, though I'm not sure if you can restrict who they talk to.

Just my 0.02$
 
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