Introduction

CSCS have implemented a new IT Service Management System called Ivanti Service Manager (ISM) that contains many enhancements and features that will track CSCS services, charges and facilitate your communication with us. One of the most important enhancements is the Self Service Portal which gives you a quick way to log new issues or requests, check on the status of existing ones, see if there is any service interruption, and communicate with CSCS without having to email or call us.

Logging in

Go to https://itsupport.medschl.cam.ac.uk

If you have a Mints (medschl) username and password, enter them into the fields in white and click the Login button

If you don't have a Mints account you can click Sign in with Raven (click here) and you will be taken to a page to enter your Raven credentials. If this is your first time using Raven for the CSCS portal you'll see a screen listing all of the information that will be shared between Raven and our portal.

If you have neither account, please call the Service Desk at 01223 (3) 36261.

Sometimes you may see the following error. Most often this means you have typed or used an incorrect password. Please try again.

There are 2 roles that are available to CSCS customers - Self Service and Self Service Group Admin. If you are an authoriser or billing administrator you will see the following screen prompting you to choose which role to log in with - choose Self Service Group Admin and click the Submit button. If you only have 1 role, you won't see this option and will go straight into the home page.

One key item to be aware of when using Self Service. Logging a problem or submitting a request via Self Service effectively creates a 1-2-1 relationship between the login id of the creator and the actual ticket. Therefore, if you are in role where you share administrative duties to submit requests on behalf of a group of colleagues you will only see the tickets you have created, and not those of your colleagues in the Portal.

If you need to send updates on behalf of colleague, then please do this by email, including the 6 digit ISM ticket reference number (e.g. 123456) in the email subject. CSCS will add this information to the ticket.

Home Page

Once you log in you'll be taken to the home page.

The home page is split up into sections.

Alerts: On the top are any alerts about service outages or issues that you may want to know about. Mostly this will include outages to major services like network, internet, email, file storage, etc.

Search: You can quickly search our CSCS Guides for help on many common issues by using the Search field. Type in your word and click the magnifying glass and you will be presented with a list of FAQ, Announcements or Knowledge articles that contain the search term.

Announcements: In this space you'll see a list of any current announcements that are interest to many of our users. This might include things like warnings about particular phishing email messages, planned maintenance, etc.

Log something new: The system has two types of tickets representing things that are broken, or not working right and requesting new items/services/etc. Click Something Doesn't Work to log a new incident or Request Something to go to our service catalogue.

My History: Shows a list of items created by you that are open. Click an item to see its details. If this list is empty it is because you have no open items.

Items with a small green tick beside them are requests for your approval that need to be reviewed.

The progress bar shows roughly the status of your ticket.

one green bar - the ticket has not been assigned to anyone in CSCS to be worked on yet
3 green bars - the ticket has been assigned to someone in CSCS and is being worked on
4 green bars - the ticket is resolved and you should have received an email with some details. If you don't think it is resolved it can be made active again.
5 green bars - the ticket is closed and can no longer be update
Orange bars - the ticket is waiting for some information from you. You should have received an email outlining what we need to progress the issue.

Date Formatting

If you notice that dates appear in American format, you can change this.

Click on the arrow beside your name, choose Change Locale, click on English (United Kingdom).

Top Menu Items

Home - this is the main screen you see when you log in.

Service Catalog - this page presents you with a list of all of the different service requests we have created. You can search by name, or look for them in the category hierarchy on the left.

My History - this page gives you a list of all of your previous incidents and requests showing the status and progression if it's not resolved yet.

My Details - This shows your basic contact information, You can edit your title (prefix), address, phone numbers. You can also see a tab called My Configuration items which shows any computers/printers/other hardware that are associated with your name. The Service Instances tab shows CSCS billable services that are associated with you.

Knowledge Centre - this shows a list of our FAQ information from the CSCS Guides. These guides are imported and synchonised every night so the data is the same in both places.

More... this button you can click to see the other menu items you can access - Alerts and Announcements which are also visible on the Home screen.

Help - There is some basic help available by clicking here. Note this document does not necessarily reflect how CSCS has configured the system.

Logout button - to log off when you are finished with using the portal.

Reporting an Issue

When you click Log Something New you'll be taken to a blank window to fill in with details about your issue.

Completing the new issue window

When you go to log a new issue you'll be prompted to fill out the details. Please fill them in as follows:

Template: This is future functionality and currently contains no options. You can ignore this field
Summary of the issue: Type in a short summary of your issue. Note that when you tab or click into another field you'll see that some possible solutions appear on the right side in the yellow box. In this case there is an article that would help you add a printer to a Mac (see black arrow below)

Name of the computer or printer: If you know the name of the computer or printer, please choose it on the list. Start typing the name and you should see a list of options that match come up. If you don't know the name, please follow the instructions on our how to find your computer name guide. If you can't find the computer name or you don't have one just leave the field blank.
Detailed description of the issue: Put in as much detail as you can including error messages, screen shots (if you wish), if something happened before this happened, if anyone else is encountering the same issue and any details that you think will help us troubleshoot the issue.
Urgency: You can choose the urgency of this issue from low, medium or high. Assess the urgency based on the impact it has on your work. If you are completely blocked from doing a time sensitive task - select high.
Impact: Choose the number of people affected by the issue. Choices are: single person, group, department, building, institution. These descriptions won't necessarily match your personal situation, but choosing something approximating a number of people affected will help CSCS prioritise your issue effectively.

Click Submit Issue button

Once you have created an issue you'll be given an incident reference number. You will also receive an email with the number in it.

If you go to the Home or My History tab you'll see that the new issue is on the list in a status of logged and in the first block of the progress bar.

Using a Solution to Resolve an Issue

If you saw a likely solution from the list of possibilities presented, click on it to see the details. You'll see an article with steps you could take to resolve the issue.

If this is indeed the solution you were seeking, click the Resolve button on the bottom right and go back to My Items list or the Home menu option. You may be prompted with this message

Please click Yes and your issue will be logged with a status of resolved. This is useful for CSCS to know how often the article has been used. You don't have to do this and can simply click No if you don't wish it to be saved.. Note that at the bottom of all of the possible solutions you can rate the article and leave comments. If you have any feedback about a particular article we'd be happy to hear it!

Requesting a New Service from the Catalogue

If you click on the Request Something button or the Service Catalog menu item you will be taken to a list of our service offerings and request-able items. These offerings replace the forms that were on the CSCS website. The offerings are organised by category under IT Services. The most popular requests will appear on a page for quick selection. You can also search for a request offering.

Choose the offering that applies to what you are looking for. If you can't find a suitable catalogue item, choose the Generic Request which will allow you to put the details of what you need.

You'll note that each item has an estimated delivery time and a brief description of the offering.

Each offering will have a different form which allows us to make sure that we have the pertinent information to hand and are able to swiftly fulfill your request. In the future we will seek to automate these requests so that they are even quicker. However, most start out asking whether you are applying for yourself or someone else. Ideally one would request service changes for him or herself. However, there are times one would do it on behalf of a colleague or boss so we have allowed for that scenario.

Once you have filled out all the required information, there's usually an additional information box near the end where you can put in anything else you think we need to know. Some more complex forms also have multiple tabs with information that needs to be filled out.

Once you've filled out the form, click the Review and Submit button. You will be presented with a summary of your form. If you are happy, click Submit, Otherwise Cancel or Edit your form. Once submitted you'll see a confirmation screen with your request number. You'll be advised of the estimated delivery time and the average delivery time.

Error message

If you are using links from the pages on the https://cscs.medschl.cam.ac.uk website to go directly to a service catalogue item, you may see the error below. This means that you do not have permission to view the request. Permissions have been set on hardware purchase items with confidential University-only pricing.

Quotes for Computer Hardware

If you need to order a new computer there are templates in the Service Catalogue you may want to consider. For general information about ordering computing equipment from CSCS please see https://cscs.medschl.cam.ac.uk/purchasing/purchasing-advice/.

Quote for a standard computer - this is a basic catalogue of the most commonly ordered Dell items. This is only visible to members of the University and includes the very favourable University pricing that has been negotiated with Dell.
1. As you work through the form you'll be able to choose the item(s) you want and options and see the total add up on the right side of the window.
2. Please note that this form is a bit basic and will allow you to make choices that don't necessarily make sense. For example, you could choose both an 8GB and a 16GB RAM upgrade. If this happens we'll get in touch and discuss.
3. You will also be prompted to fill in information about how you want the computer configured. If the order is for multiple computers the configuration options would apply to all of them. If they need to be configured differently, we suggest you submit a separate request for each different configuration. If you're not sure if anything special is required, we suggest you go through the required fields (marked with a red asterisk) to the best of your ability and if the configuration needs to change once the computer has been allocated to a specific person we can make any changes required.
Quote for a non-standard computer - if you can't find the configuration you want in the standard computer template, choose this one. If you can provide a link or model number to what you want it would be very helpful.

My History

My Details

Knowledge Centre

Progressing Your Ticket

Whilst we work on your ticket you can check on it in the Self Service Portal. You will also receive email messages on creation or resolution of a ticket, plus there are may be email updates or questions along the way sent by one of our analysts.

You can also check the ticket's progress and communicate with us regarding it on the portal.

Service Requests:

Click on the Create button (Green arrow) to add a note to CSCS.

Our notes to you will be shown under that (see Red arrow). Note this will not show you any email messages we've sent.

Each Service Request is broken up in to several tasks and you can see the progress on these tasks under CSCS Progress (Blue arrow)

Incidents (Issues):

The Incident screen (where you reported something that isn't working) is slightly different.

You can see the status of the ticket (Orange arrow). The statuses are:

Logged - this means that no action has been taken on your ticket yet
Active - this means that someone has ownership of the ticket and is working on it
Waiting on Customer - if we are waiting for some information from you, you will see that the ticket is in this status
Waiting on 3rd Party - sometimes we need to wait for a 3rd party (e.g. waiting for parts from Dell) in which case we'll put the ticket into this status
Resolved - this status means that we believe we have resolved your issue but you can re-open it for up to 28 days after if the issue was not resolved to your satisfaction.
Closed - this means that 28 days have passed since it has been resolved and the ticket will be put into a Closed status. It cannot be re-opened at this point.

You can add notes, more information, screen shots, or questions in the Would you like to provide us more information? if so, please type it here and click save area (black arrow)

You can see our notes in the Here are some previous updates we have made to your incident area (Lime Green arrow). Note you will not necessarily see all the email messages we sent here, nor will your notes show up.

Attachments: if you have an attachment you can upload it here. There is a size limit so larger documents may be rejected.

Close Incident button: if you no longer need our assistance, click the Close Incident button to let us know.

Survey

Surveys will be emailed out at random intervals. You will have the opportunity to answer a few questions and provide us feedback on our resolution of your issue or request. We will use this information to improve our services.

Please note that the web link that gets sent out is only accessible when on the CSCS network.

Email to the Service Desk:

Any email that you send directly to servicedesk@medschl.cam.ac.uk will result in an automatically created incident (issue) ticket. If it turns out the email related to a service catalogue item, we will close it and create a new ticket of the appropriate type. This may appear to be overly bureaucratic but it allows us to apply the appropriate template and processes behind the scene to rapidly fulfil your request.

Please note that email CCd to the service desk will be ignored and will not result in a ticket being created.

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