4Help: Virginia Tech's Customer Support Center

The mission of Virginia Tech's 4Help Customer Support Center is to enhance the university's missions of teaching, learning, research, and outreach by providing centralized computing and telecommunications support services to Virginia Tech affiliates through:

• Consultations on computer desktop questions
• Constituent support for use of central computing, telecommunications, and multimedia services
• Advocacy for our constituents and departmental IT support personnel
• Extensive online documentation provided at the computing.vt.edu and answers.vt.edu Web sites

We endeavor to provide fast, courteous, and comprehensive computer support to Virginia Tech faculty, staff, and students for services provided by central Information Technology. Alumni, retired faculty, and retired staff may recieve help with problems related to services provided to them by Virginia Tech.

Contents

• www.answers.vt.edu
• Helpdesk & Desktop Support
• How to Contact the Helpdesk

Answers.vt.edu Knowledge Base

The answers.vt.edu knowledge base contains over 1600 answers to computing and technology questions. The knowledge base is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week at www.answers.vt.edu.

Helpdesk and Support of Central IT Services

4Help is comprised to two operational unites delivering two levels of support which are:

Virginia Tech Operations Center (VTOC)

The VTOC, located in Research Building 14 in the Corporate Research Center, provides customer support agents who are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to reset passwords for your PID, Banner ID, and Hokies ID, and provide around-the-clock monitoring of critical university systems. Any system outages should be reported by calling the VTOC.

The VTOC is limited to providing the services listed above and assisting with navigating our online help resources. If you need further assistance, the VTOC can submit a problem report ticket to the 4Help helpdesk.

University Computing Support Helpdesk (4Help)

The 4Help helpdesk, operated by University Computing Support and located at 735 University City Blvd., provides second level support during regular business hours (8:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m., Monday - Friday) for assistance with a wide variety of computer problems. Helpdesk consultants will help you resolve your problem by:

• Referring you to extensive online documenatation searchable at computing.vt.edu and answers.vt.edu
• Emailing you a link with specific instructions to resolve your issue
• Walking you through the necessary steps to assist you with resolving your problem via phone consultation
• Escalating your issue to a service partner responsible for the service with which you are experiencing difficulty
• Using a remote access tool, with your permission, to address the problem by accessing your desktop
• Scheduling an appointment, if necessary, to further investigate your issue
• Referring you to a hardware support center if the problem is determined to be a hardware issue

Areas of support include:

• Internet connectivity through on-campus Ethernet and campus wireless networks
• Central computing resources such as:
  
  • My VT
  • Online Learning and Collaboration Systems
  • Hokie SPA
  • LISTSERV
  • Filebox
  • VT Mail
  • VT Mobile Messaging
• Administrative systems such as:
  
  • Banner
  • Exchange
  • Faculty Access

What we cannot do:

• Work on homework assignments for any student
• Install or repair hardware, including network cards
• Install or configure operating systems or third-party software
• Reinstall operating systems
• Perform backups of your data or files
• Provide assistance with password cracking or tools for doing so
• Remove viruses from your computer
  

  Note: For assistance with virus removal, visit the Clean it up Web page.

Other services offered include:

• Escalated support for faculty and staff who do not have departmental IT support. If the problem cannot be resolved by an initial phone consultation, the ticket may be escalated to the Desktop Support Team, who will use the following guidelines:
  • Conduct a follow-up phone consultation
  • Use remote support via Simple Help application
  • Offer an appointment, if applicable
  • Offer an office visit during regularly scheduled hours, as time permits. Office visits are only offered in support of central IT-provided services, such as email, that cannot be resolved by the preceding methods.
  • Desktop support is not available for virus removal, operating system upgrades, or installation of software not related to central IT-provided services
• Escalation of issues with Central IT services

How to Contact the Helpdesk

We encourage you to use the Help Request Form when contacting the Helpdesk for faster problem ticket creation.

Contact 4Help via one of the following methods:

• Use the Help Request Form
• Call (540) 231-HELP (4357)

Need More Information?

If you want to include information about 4Help, University Computing Support, or reference our sites (such as computing.vt.edu or answers.vt.edu) please use the PDF file below as a reference.

Important: We ask that all material by another department referencing 4Help be sent to us for review prior to being published.