Northumbria University is one of the largest educational establishments in the north of England, with more than 31,000 students, 3,000 academic and support staff and a choice of 500 full- and part-time courses. As part of its commitment to providing fresh approaches to teaching and learning, the university actively encourages students and staff to use its extensive online learning resources and virtual learning.

The Challenge: Keeping 34,000 Users Online All the Time

IT underpins all aspects of Northumbria University life for both students and staff and access to a computer and the Internet is vital for educational success. With more than 34,000 users comprising students and researchers pursuing their studies on and off campus and busy staff working at the University, at home or visiting partner colleges, it’s a huge task to ensure that everyone can access the technology they want, when they need it.  

Northumbria’s IT Services team is tasked with managing and supporting the University’s massive technology infrastructure, including networks, servers, e-mail and other systems along with support for printers and desktop computers. Furthermore, Northumbria is the lead university in a unique project begun in August 2006 providing a shared out of hours IT Helpline service for students at six universities.

Until 2005, the team relied on a combination of telephone and in-person support to deal with any IT faults or errors.

“With a user base with varying levels of IT understanding, we found that we were frequently taking ages on the phone trying to interpret the fault and then explain how to fix it, frustrating for both customer and staff,” explained Debbie Figgis, customer service manager.

“Our technicians were spending time on visits to users for simple errors that were resolved within seconds. Not only was this a waste of time but it meant a delay for the users in getting their problem fixed.”

Northumbria University wanted to improve its service and provide faster resolution of IT faults without putting undue strain on the IT team’s resources.

Implementing GoToAssist

Spring 2005, Northumbria IT Services discovered that the Citrix® GoToAssist® remote support service from Citrix Online could enable technical staff to remotely access any user’s computer or laptop to fix issues, just as if they were there in person.

GoToAssist is supplied as a Software as a Service (SaaS) solution, which means it is instantly available via any Internet connection. As a result, no onsite testing for GoToAssist was involved and no software or hardware installations were necessary. The remote assistance solution was deployed effectively and in accordance with the desired timeline.

Less Action, More Problems Solved

As a result of using GoToAssist, the IT Helpline has been able to resolve problems without having to send out a technician. Even more importantly, the IT Helpline particularly the out of hours service, is able to assist students and staff no matter where they are located.

Each day, the team conducts up to four GoToAssist sessions, helping staff and students with anything from advice on e-mail to network connection problems. Traditional telephone support has been greatly enhanced by the ability to remotely access a user’s laptop or PC to resolve issues instantly.

“GoToAssist has greatly improved our customer service,” added Figgis. “We no longer have to try to guess what problem our user is experiencing, or worse still, try to talk through an inexperienced user installation of a piece of software. With GoToAssist we can virtually access the machine to locate, view and fix a problem within a matter of minutes, leaving students and staff free to get on with their work.”

Positive feedback

GoToAssist includes reporting tools and an instant customer satisfaction survey that enables Northumbria’s IT department to measure its success on an ongoing basis and ensure its service is meeting the needs of the client base.  

“The feedback from all of our users has been very positive. Staff and students alike are impressed with how easy it is to initiate a GoToAssist session. Students are amazed by how quickly we can get on their machines and resolve any technical issue, particularly as many would say that their laptop or PC always seems to go wrong just as they are about to print out an essay that is due in an hour’s time!”

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